**For those who skip the author notes, this is not canon**
“No. Absolutely not. Never.” Before, Discord had seemed playful, if interested. Now, he looked offended, hovering above the Cutie Map.
“Why not?” Twilight asked. “You know she’s not truly happy here. You confirmed that she was an adult-“
“By her standards, Twilight,” Discord growled, his face suddenly an inch from hers. “Adulthood and maturity aren’t the same thing. I refuse to take the chance for the latter from her, just as I won’t take it from you.”
“What?” Twilight then thought back to an earlier conversation. “Discord, this isn’t about you telling me the secrets of magic!” She had tried to ask him to teach her more, including some of the strange abilities he claimed she could learn- only to be told, when you hit your first millennium. She decided to bring out the big guns. “This is about being kind to a friend! If she asks for it-“
“I’m being kind by refusing to consider this!” Discord hissed. “She’s nine, Twilight! Nine. Years. Old.”
“But- but- but humans grow up faster!” she shouted. “You said so yourself!” Discord nodded. “So she was an adult! You said you could cure her medical condition if you sent her back, and she knows she’s giving up magic and a longer life. She is, in fact, mature.”
Discord seemed to deflate. “No, she isn’t, Twilight. None of them are.”
“I- what?” Twilight, first simply confused, then found her face then contorting with anger. “It’s not very nice to disparage an entire species! You even said that they built an incredible society! Knowledge nopony has ever conceived of, all from a race with no magic.”
“No, I didn’t, Twilight,” Discord said sadly. “I said that they built an incredible society using no magic. Surely, if their world had no magic, Greenie couldn’t be here, could she?”
“You caught that too, then,” Twilight said. A simple, but true, fact; interdimensional travel without magic was theoretically impossible.
Discord raised a paw. “I didn’t catch it, I knew. I didn’t help make them- I’m not old enough for that- but I do know something about it.” He’d turned away at this point, looking at the ceiling in a gesture Twilight had learned was him reminiscing. “In English- their version of Equish- the being that Green met is called a fae these days. My progenitors.”
“The humans were made in their image. No- not their image, but the image of themselves at their finest. Not in body, but in soul, in spirit, in coding. Humans are brilliant, Twilight. Green’s barely ten, but she’s as qualified a nurse as any pony in Ponyville! Give any human a pony body when they're young enough, and every one of them would become truly great, as much as you and your friends. Raise them right, and many would gain some form of immortality- whether as with you or as me or as Sombra would still be their choice, of course, but one they’d be able to make.”
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, only to find that no sound came out. “That’s the only reason why humans aren’t grunting in the caves we found them in, chipping rocks like birds make nests," he continued. "Remember Green’s story, Twilight? Think! Humans the world over popping out foals at five, all to be dead by thirty. Remember what I said when I wouldn’t tell you, ‘Tia or Lulu the secrets of my magic?”
“’The body grows the soul,’” Twilight Recited. “’Stunt the body, and your magic won’t change; that’s why you need to grow. Why, a mere thousand years, and Look! ‘Tia’s now a head taller than her sister!’ Well, yes, but... “ Twilight paused. “No, that doesn’t work- even donkeys and diamond dogs can do magic, and they don’t grow that much slower. If they’re that powerful, they should be showing some magic!”
“No, it’s not just their age,” Discord replied. “There's a trillion times the magic, but unevenly spread through a quadrillion times the volume. But it still mostly is; if you were full-grown at four, you wouldn’t have much magic at twenty. And some few do use magic, though they don’t see it for what it is.” He shook his head. “Not important.”
“You’re right,” Twilight said, “it isn’t. Even without magic, even if she only lives to thirty, she can still live a fulfilled life.”
Discord guffawed. “No she can’t! That’s the point! I send her back, and she’ll have her composure back- and she won’t be able to grow out of her anxiety!” He was literally red-hot with anger by now, steam pouring off of his head and out of his ears. “She doesn't even have a cutie mark! Full-grown, pony magic, and no cutie mark! All are like that! Humans almost never truly learn to be themselves! They burn hot, but so fast that they can never see half the lies they tell themselves!” He was still angry, but had also returned to giggling like a madmare- a truly terrifying sight, if there ever was one. “Like ponies, they’ll spend fifteen years doing something they hate- but because those are fifteen of their twenty-five, they never can become anything more! Their grandest arts are always put off, never to be completed- and every one is an artist after mine own heart, I’ll have you know! Foolish and evil actions simply don’t have time to bring consequences! Tartarus, their whole economy is based on fossil fuels and fiat currency!” Discord’s manic grin grew to encompass the whole room.
“Delightfully chaotic, certainly not something as boring as you ponies would try. Why, I’ll bet you’d complain about the smog alone, let alone the warming from carbon dioxide.” He settled back down to the floor, directly in front of Twilight. “And yet, huge numbers of humans don’t believe that they’re ruining their own climate! Even more simply don’t care! Utter foolishness, and the numbers written in ones and zeroes they call money- value from future taxes and faith in their own inconstant selves!” The scene of an endless office filled the room, Discord and Twilight floating around it. “So intrinsically stupid that a pony would never try it, but so powerful that they built marvels with it! With a conman called Made Off running their biggest bank at the same time!” The office scene disappeared, pony and Draconequus back on the floor.
“So grand, so beautiful, so chaotic and harmonious and all that stuff,” Discord murmured, looking at the crystal floor, “that it might even survive the inevitable collapse. But I wouldn’t want to live there during it.” He looked into her eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. Chaos, I can take. True suffering, with beings for whom life truly is cheap? Green only has ten years in her past. If she takes care of herself, she might live another three hundred.”
“She may not see it right now, Twilight, but she deserves that much. Be kind to her, Twilight, and tell her no.”
_______________________________________________________________________________
A/N Lines I couldn’t fit:
“You think, Twilight! Of course they have a weird attitude; do you have any idea how hard it is to get five-year-olds to have foals? Most humans- male and female both- are physically capable of having foals at four. ‘Teenage pregnancy,’ they call it.” He gave her a lecherous grin. “They can’t actually control their pregnancy cycles, either; a good human mare can have a dozen whelps in her lifetime.”
“Wha- but how can they take of all of them?”
“Who says they do? That anyone under the age of eighteen can be a good parent is a miracle. That raising foals is so hard is why you ponies don’t have estrus until then.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
“Shut up and listen, Green.” Discord loomed over Green. “Apple Bloom is older than you are. Macintosh was born on the same day the Titanic sunk. That old green mare is older than the United Kingdom.” He leaned down towards the floor, glaring eye-to-eye with the filly. “And you want to give that up because your first seven days here have been embarrassing? Ask again, and I might just be offended enough to grant it.”
(... Huh. Not canon, but VERY interesting... thank you for sharing this. Frankly, the idea that this ultimately is to Green's benefit despite all the initial hardship... it's pretty cool.)
Discord is Q and you know it. A teacher for life.
It is pretty damn stupid to ask to "go back" to your next sixty years of life, if you're lucky, and wasting some good seven to eight HUNDRED just because you had a bad week.
Fun to know ponies can only have children when they're fifty though
So because the peoples of Equestria live longer they are more mature? I don’t buy it, I think Discord has several screws loose that need to have been tightened down long ago or the pony mind set is just to alien to consider.
10720673
Ponies have a longer time to figure out what they're supposed to do with their life. The crusaders have spent 15 earth years on their crusade for their cutie marks and yet they still have their whole adult life's ahead of them to fulfil them.
10720682
Being mature and finding yourself are two different things. Sure, finding yourself is all well good and all, given that ponies simply get more time to do so, but what correlates being true to yourself to being mature? I know that I've done some awfully childish things, and some I've regretted, sure. However, I feel like being childish is sometimes what you have to do to be true to yourself. If you can't simply let out your emotions go for awhile, then that's not being mature, that's just having an unhealthy emotional lifestyle.
10720705
Well, yeah. That's why the CMC are still immature at 25 earth years old.
Finding yourself and being mature are different things.
This may not be "canon", but it throws some perspective on the whole situation.
Human minds finishes development about 25 (~8 pony years). Elephants can breed at 8-15, but don't start breeding normally till 18-20. As they can live till 50; they fit well with humans before the big jumps in life time of humans. Brian development is more critical then time of development. Elephants have the same amount of time, but can't learn, most, of the stuff Humans can.
From the stuff the foals are learning in class (days in a year), the longer development time is also effecting early development.
If so, then we can look at human vs pony school start time being Equal (so 5 pony years vs 15 human).
Before schooling age one lacks and has to learn a lot of very basic abilities. If it takes 9-12 human years for Ponies to learn "the self", and to speak. Then foal care is a lot harder.
If on the other hoof their brain's allow for that stuff early, but do not develop the last few skills (like early concrete thinking) till they are 5 (15 human years), then a lot of time is wasted. That could also lead to a lot of foal labor (and even death) because the foal would be able to do many basic work actions for years but not understand work safety.
A last option is the foals develop faster till around the age of 2 (6 human year), but greatly slow down after.
For human the 1st 5 years of schooling is highly repetitive. You learn the same world history facts and much of math each year. For humans addition and subtraction is taught for 1-2 human years, and maybe another year of refresh on negative numbers from Subtraction.
So they would just have to turn the 2-3 human years of "here is addition and subtraction" to 6-9 human years.
Makes me feel bad for Cheerilee. Not only do you teach the same thing for more time, but as foals have a hard time remembering things, she has to reteach and test on addition and subtraction every few weeks. You are not reteaching basic math 6-9 times, but more likely 20-30 times.
Easy multiplication (1's,2's,5's, and maybe 10's) and division is grade 3-4. So teaching that over and over 10-20 times.
Of course in the show the board behind Cheerilee makes it look like they are learning calculus. So maybe asking about the number of days in a year is like in our world; there are some people who just don't care to learn it. I know a person who did not know the number of days in a year till high school; just never used it.
Edit:
This is all coming from me thinking how it would feel to me. I read a story a long time ago about a DnD 3.5 Raven familiar after his master died. familiars have incrusted int based on their masters level, but they can lose it. The story was the Raven slowly sufferings as he feels himself losing the ability to think clearly.
If Green's brain is being effected by his pony body in this way, then it is making everything worse for her. She knows what it is like to have an adult mind. Her panic attacks would be a lot worse then when she was human. Not just because of the physical differences, but also knowing that the fog falling over her mind is taking everything from her.
Source for Elephants: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/72236/what-animal-has-the-longest-juvenile-period
I love this critique of humanity. We’re Earth’s goblins.
A darn shame this isn't canon, but it does present some fascinating insight. Discord's always good for an outsider's perspective. Thanks for carrying this over from Spacebattles.
Oh boy an author tract.
Can't get enough of those.
Green is not as old as she thinks she is in Equestria.
The sun never sets on Granny Smith!
this reminds me of a scene in a fantasy novel where a human and an elf had gotten romantically involved, and were trying to decide if they should make it a longer relationship...
and the elf says something like, "just give me a short trial of 70 or 80 years,"
that was pretty much it, the human went back to earth.
I said it once and I'll say it again. This is nothing but torture.
This is taking a MALE ADULT and putting them in the body of a FEMALE child. This combines gender dysphoria to a time of high emotions and little actual ways to deal with those emotions.
Green wouldn't be suffering from such severe anxiety had they been on earth, where they have a job, a family (presumably), and friends that understand them.
Discord shouldn't have the RIGHT to keep torturing a foal, even if that foal WoN't FiNd ThEmSeLvEs!!! Because that foal is an ADULT, with the right of choice that entails.
Do understand that I'm not saying this is bad writing, cause god knows that if it can make me feel like this for a character it should be considered good enough, at least!
I can kinda understand where discord is coming with all of this to be honest... I was be sad if I didn't get to go home. But I think I would atleast ask him if it was possible to send a message back to what little family I had left telling them I was gone and never returning... And tell them I'll be happy... But even if I could not do that, Starting over in a new land, having to find my way again. Maybe I could find a path that suited me... *shrugs* thats what I would be thinking about anyway... This is a very intersting chapter, even if it is not a true chapter. It gets you thinking.
Hm. Discord, you of all beings would understand that different brains can develop at different speeds. By putting Green in this situation you're forcing an adult with adult experiences into the brain of a child. You and your alternates pop around the multiverse enough to know that that idea is horrifying and horrible. Yes, humans have less experiences than Ponies in this world, but forcing a fully developed Human adult into the body of a child is simply awful, and not condonable. It's not fair to Green, especially since they're left in the dark about everything.
But I'm confident that you already know all of this, and are doing this for your own amusement, while justifying it by claiming that in the long run it will help green (regardless of whether that is true or not). Another thing to note, pal, is that you're forcing Green to carry this Trauma for the rest of a far longer life. While that does give her more time to cope with it, this isn't something that will truly disappear; it's something she will bear the scars of, for the rest of her life.
> “Wha- but how can they take of all of them?”
care?
Age doesn’t make you wise. Many of times have I seen an old fool. And a young wise man, I myself have been called wise beyond my years despite being only 22. It’s the experiences that make us who we are. You can live to be 100, but was it a life well lived? Or was it a life where you lived safely and did nothing? Every walk of life is different, every experience not the same as another. With age comes knowledge, with experience comes wisdom.
Discord could have talked about how we have given ourselves a multitude of cancers from decades of depleting the ozone layer by spraying CFCs and irradiating our atmosphere with ionizing radiation by detonating weapons that were designed to erase cities from the map and vaporize millions of people at once in both in-air and subterranean tests, plus over 200 years of poisoning our air, soil and water with industrial chemicals, maybe him being stuck as the equivalent of a female child isn't that bad.
10720705
Right on. Why don't you come hang out with me in my blanket fort and color with crayons? We can call all these people who think themselves "mature" stinky-butt poo-poo faces.
this is a grate chapter and at the same time scary true.
I knew a couple who had sixteen kids all their own.
I personally dislike the "ponies are naturally much longer lived than humans" trope.
Some might prefer to be a bright burning candle.
Oh no! Luna spent over 2,737 Earth years on the moon!
10721190
It's usually written more stupidly, so that the ponies are centuries old by their own calendar. You're left to wonder how they've totally forgotten about Princess Luna in 1000 years when the author has a 300 year old Granny Smith. It's like forgetting George Washington.
But that's not an issue here.
10720666
I'm sure tons of people would love to live for 800 years, but if I were to find out that I actually had to spend the next 800 years living the life that I have, in the body I inhabit, in this world I am in, I would be genuinely horrified.
Unless Green heals from his traumas and learns to enjoy life, those 800 years just end up being a long prison sentence.
I have to disagree with discord here, honestly. Certainly it’s short sighted. What of it? It makes sense in the short term, and humans are short term creatures. We live and die, multiple generations in less than a century. I’m sure things would be different if we lived 400 years too, but probably for the worst if we’re being honest. (Imagine a 300 year old horrid emperor who never dies, or an immortal Lich who rules his people with a skeletal fist. Bleh.)
Not everyone has the benefit of immortal god kings, benevolent to all their subjects.
Thanks to Alias_The_J for writing this chapter.
I like the age twist that resolves some of my early questioning of this fic. Good touch.
10720947
But they aren't an adult is the point he's making, simply he is the same maturity age as if he was human but pony equal
Yeah, let's just take the choice away from her! Humans love that...
10721518
If in 800 years your life and world stayed the same there'd be something VERY weird going on, not to mention that changing your body through effort and medicine when necessary would be extremely feasible.
How old are you? I'm asking because when I was twenty my perception of time was radically different from thirty, that makes a HUGE difference in how we see the passage of years, specially since it stops being school and goes into actually live territory.
Do you live in the US? If sob then you're in a really bad place if you have low earnings, social mobility there is adversity worse than Brazil if you're born in poverty. But with time you could get out of such sla country easily.
The question also applies for dedicated medical help, the US is one of the worst countries for it due to downright criminal price practice in medicine.
It does sound offensive, sorry I couldn't think of s better way to put it, but your answer really reads like someone who's still quite young and hopeless about the future. Considering how far our technology, medical and otherwise, has come in the last seventy years alone it'd be VERY naive to thing in the next eight hundred it'd student stagnate and keep us like we are. The same goes for the world, really.
10721964
Suicide is always a choice for everyone. Any society with a shred of decency will go to extreme lengths to stopping it from happening. Deciding to throw away 90% of your life is suicide by any other metric.
Wouldn't he be downright a murderer if he was the one to offer and do it? Green's no elder on a hospital bed waiting for death, there's no sane morality on earth that would see a child as able or emotionally stable to take such a decision. Hell, an adult would face the same! How would you react if someone said at 9 they wanted to off themselves at 25? I hope that with horror, because that's what you're suggesting Discord should let green do.
Dag, I was so enraptured with the reading that I forgot the part of "non-canon".
Granted, I have some disagreements on what Discord sees of us but I don't think it's a good idea to discuss on those details, those are just points of view.
10721981
Let me turn this back around on you and ask, how old are you, or what blessings have you held in your life that long term sadness or misery is inconceivable to you? I don't actually want an answer, the same way I don't want want to go into my own traumas and sicknesses in this life on an internet forum.
People struggle with depression, addiction, neurological disorders, and uncontrollable bodily pain all the time in this world, and very few of them actually seek it out for themselves. I'm not saying that people shouldn't try to find peace in life despite hardships, but neither would I stretch out these broken lives past current human comprehension against their will.
10720751
And we're space orcs
10722207
I'm 32 and I'm chronically depressed in a way no therapy will ever free me from pharmaceuticals. I know perfectly well how life is when you struggle to find a reason to get out of bed and not just waste away and I've known so for over fifteen years - before that I was just a teenager that couldn't realize they weren't just lazy. I've been suffering the consequences of it since I was eleven.
Anything you can bear for twenty years you can for seven hundred, if you have support. In a magical world who has the virtues we know equestria to have that support would be universal and free.
Green, a medical professional, being a unicorn and having access to Twilight "reality is my bitch" Sparkle would be able to get a magical solution to pretty much any biological problem in less than a century, with all psychological ones being treatable by decent psychology.
Tell me, how in a magical nation motivated by honesty, loyalty, laughter, generosity, kindness and friendship, with the hability to alter reality in such a deep way that no feat that we can physically comprehend on a human scale would be beyond their concentrated effort by simple extrapolation of what we see in the series would want kind of existence doomed to seven hundred years of suffering be tolerated without help?
Even if it was on earth it'd be EXTREME shortsightedness to dismiss such a boon. In the last seventy years our medicine has progressed so much as to do look close to magic for someone in 1950. What kind of problem won't be solvable in more seventy? In a century? Two?
How long is "unacceptable" to endure something before the following centuries living a healthy, fulfilled life becomes "not worth it"?
I say you sounded naive because you considered, for some reason, that Green or anyone in that condition would be forced to endure whatever afflicts them forever. It makes no sense to assume so, being in equestria or on earth.
And, on the subject of death, if you believe in life after death then you better not be a Christian, because to willingly reduce your life to a tenth of it is very unlikely to be anything but suicide, a sin that'd put you in hell. If you don't believe in it then you have absolutely nothing to lose, for death means oblivion and then you'll never exist anymore - and anyone that truly finds that preferable to living already took their own lives.
If you do hold a belief in which killing yourself doesn't net suffering then it is a valid option though, albeit a very precipitated one.
In the end we're taking about adults letting a child make the choice to kill herself because she's momentarily sad. That's not ok by ANY stretch of imagination. To even suggest that as being ok is frankly callous and disturbing, grounds to avoid ever letting such a person take care of children by any reasonable metric.
10721698 My bully in school from 3rd grade through graduation was Johnathan (John) Davis (not the lead singer of Korn), who's father was in prison for a tripple murder. He threw a rock at a bespectacled Jewish kid who was a freind of mine (and shall remain nameless out of respect) and caused him a skull fracture. The Jewish kid collapsed with blood coming out of his head and nose and had to be rushed to the hospital where he never regained consciousness that I am aware of (the family moved away shortly thereafter). I told every teacher and administrator I could about what I saw but nobody ever did anything. I told the family of mu friend and when they told the police nothing happened. John Davis found out and told me he would kill me. He beat me up so many times after that and no matter who I told, nobody ever believed me. It was only after I got so upset that I publicly threatened to murder that little shit that anyone took me seriously and guess who it was that got in trouble!? Fucking me! The teachers just kept us away from eachother until we graduated and I moved away.
I get so tired of people like you saying there is no long term problem with bullying. You are chosing to be blind.
10722421
Hey look, I agree with pretty much everything you said in this comment. Whatever disagreement we seem to have looks like it's based on assumptions we're making because of the communication limits of this comments section.
For instance, there are a lot of times when you are talking about the adult ponies' perspectives of letting a young child intentionally shorten their lives, versus Green actually being (or seeming to be) a mentally mature adult in the body of a child with emotional instability from new unfamiliar instincts or brain chemistry.
There's also whether or not we're talking about the support networks of the idealized world of Equestria or the real world when we talk about healing and everything.
Regardless of your philosophical or religious views, or lack (not judging), I'm glad you have hope in your situation. I've personally grown comfortably miserable with the shortcomings of this callous and cruel, dying world, but I still find genuine happiness in the stories of people who triumph over their sorrows.
I’ll be short... that choice (condemning Green to an existance that is not her own) is not a choice Discord should take. That’s a choice for the person involved.
Personally, knowing he’s condemning me to an existance that I did not choose for, denying me family, friends and anything familiar (not to mention my gender) I’d be plotting revenge against him in whatever way possible, even if it kills me. If my death manages to drag him along into death, I’d still count that as a win.
I will not allow my right of self being subverted by someone based on their own ideas without explaining it, and then denying me my own choice.
10722488
Terrible, awful, personal experience you had. Pity it also had nothing to do with your premise that all bullies will inevitably take a rear turn straight into murder.
Wow, what a terrible stance to take. I'm sure glad I didn't actually say nor support any of those things you're accusing me of saying or supporting.
10722762 Whatever. Nobody gave a shit then, things don't change. Have a good life.
10722765
Might want to take a chill pill. Or two dozen. Just a friendly suggestion.
10722768 Yeah, sorry. I tend to get a tiny bit worked up over any bullying references.
10722787
I think (hope) we understand that better than most. Hope you're doing better these days my dude.
10722905 Generally. I just have to remember that not everyone has my mentality toward bullies and how to handle them. Verbal bullies can be handled peacefully, physical bullies have to be handled physically or else they never stop, despite the lies that every school system has swallowed.
Hmm a bit of mental gymnastics in this chapter. All purely theoretical but a bit interesting. Would prefer more of the actual story though.