21
53
248
Joined September 2011
212
1,906
The P.E.R. - Ponification for the Earth's Rebirth is a rogue organization that forcibly converts humans into ponies. They are reviled by those who oppose the Conversion Bureaus and denounced by Celestia Herself - but they see themselves as knights of Equestria, following a higher cause. Michelson is a Knight of the P.E.R. Morely is a Squire. Together, they'll ponify the world.
Hmm, I thought if you spill potion on a human it partially transforms them before killing them. Although, this takes place 4 years after contact so I'm guessing PER has worked up a variant that works through the skin? Am I on the right path? I'd hate to think the alternative, as potion has been shown to horribly transfigure before killing those exposed to it through skin contact.
I don't understand one thing 
How the buck do they hope all the 'potion-drowned' humans would turn up as a full pony, when the PER actually never do anything other than spewing potions randomly all over the place? You know, in the 27 ounces, that bad guy who got killed by a half-done transformation?
Michelson: Prepare for trouble!
Morely: Make it double!
Michelson: To protect the world from devastation!
Morely: To unite all peoples within our nation!
Michelson: To denounce the evils of truth and love!
Morely: To extend our reach to the stars above!
MICHELSON!
MORELY!
P.E.R. blast off at the speed of....
no. we are not doing this.
Interesting way to introduce the first PER point ofview story I ever read.....
TRACKING(in a singsong voice)
>>510574 even though it looks like it'll be more comedic than anything else.... and I can already predict they'll at LEAST reach 99 points.... will they go past, I don't know....
The key to transformation versus death is the same as it is for all drugs: dosage. The difference between a drug and a poison.
Dr. Pastern deliberately half-splashed the HLF man. She knew what would happen - she'd seen it before, back when she had assisted with the development of the stuff. He had shot Alexi, he was going to kill them all, and she... murdered him with cold-ass intent. She was... afraid, and angry. Very, very angry.
She had a moment, one little moment, where she acted in vengeance. That was why she was so upset. She'd been forced to cause failed transformations by the Worldgovernment, but this time, this time she did it herself. She did it to stop the man, certainly, to deform his arm and hand so much he could not use the frag grenade. But... she understood what that would mean. She wasn't willing to splash him in the head, cover him, douse him, turn him pony, because she was afraid he would use the grenade during his change.
By only splashing his hand and part of his face, these things changed first, and everyone was saved... but she knew what it would do.
The children at the party would be entirely converted into happy, healthy ponies. Why? Because they would be doused with a lot more than three ounces each, and it would cover a great portion of their bodies, and yes, it is an advanced form of the potion too, in year four. I will be explaining that, because I will be referencing the way the PER get their potion... and how they can customize it. I think some might find that aspect interesting - the PER hack potion.
But the focus here is on comedy. This is my first pure comedy story, so... take it with a small Siberian Salt mine, please. My natural tendency to go for accuracy and continuity work against being wacky, and... I need to try to control that. If I can. If this turns into a regular dramatic story, you'll know I failed my stated goals.
Team Rocket was, I freely admit, an inspiration for Ginger and Nutmeg. Two of my own characters, Virtue Kazemahou and Wailan Ngo are another inspiration, but most will not know of them. I think it is cool you caught the Pokemon connection. I loved Team Rocket.
... it is an advanced form of the potion too, in year four. I will be explaining that, because I will be referencing the way the PER get their potion... and how they can customize it. I think some might find that aspect interesting - the PER hack potion.
I foresee something that's not pretty at all 
For Luna's sunless sky, they better not alter the potions too far from it's intended purpose
I'm actually getting kind of a creepy vibe from it so far, like these two are seriously not right in the head. Any humor that may have been intended in the piece has been drowned out by that, at least for me. I think what makes it seem creepy to me is this: the PER folks have always seemed pretty nutty to me, but nobody to my knowledge has ever tried to portray what they do as whimsical misadventures. It's because of the way the PER's MO is usually shown: they tag a bunch of humans, then immediately get out of Dodge—being condemned by both humans and Celestia sort of necessitates that. There's serious consequences to what they do, however. The people who have been ponified against their will are left alone, disoriented, and in unfamiliar bodies, without the support system or nurturing environment that comes along with the "official" ponification process. Perhaps they're now ponies in the last place a pony would want to be, or amongst people who are not quite sympathetic to the whole ponification thing to begin with. That's not the PER's problem, though, nope! Their job is done, another soul saved, no no, no need to thank us, it's what we do. The road to hell and all that.
It's the flipside of this crapsacked version of the human world you've set up in your stories, Chatoyance. You haven't left much room for wacky hijinks—the setting is too crushingly depressing and it's hard to try a tone like this while keeping true to that. I know you said you'd consider a dramatic story a failure, but in all honesty a dramatic story would probably work out better.
because reading a well written story is in and of itself a relaxation for me. i read at a voracious rate. anywhere from 4-5 books a week. thick 'register this as a deadly weapon' books. i have three HUGE book cases filled with books, and i ahve read each and every one of them many times over.
YAAAY! There's something wrong with me inside my head... could it be... my BRAIN? You never really think about your brain, you know, but you should. It's just sitting there, all veiny and wet, right inside your skull, lurking... plotting.... scheming. But not thinking, not for a lot of people. Pity that.
Beware of your brain. It's where all the weird stuff comes from! Why... I'm making ideas with my brain right now.
And they're weird. Guaranteed.
So this is supposed to be comedy, right? Because I can't really laugh at the fact that our main characters are two obvious psychopaths who make others bodies change completely and irrevocably (In this case, children who the two have no right to force any sort of decision like this upon without coming off like maniacs), are hated by everyone on both sides (Their insane actions alone probably do more harm to the Conversion cause than good, no matter what way you spin), and have no likeable qualities at all as far as I can see. Also it doesn't really help that if this line is anything to go by;
>They were true-hearted warriors of friendship, Knight and Squire of the Ponification for the Earth's Rebirth, and they were absolutely going to save the muffin' world.
The narrator seems to be about five years or so.
Also, Knight and Squire? Do these fucks have the same ranking system as the KKK? Because if there's a GRAND IMPERIAL WIZARD, I might actually laugh.
Man, it feels not to long ago I was tossing about acronyms and names for the PER. Now... its a bit of an indescribable feeling. They went from an idea to having a full stop story of their own.
Thank you Chay.
PS: Pony Camouflage pattern is win, as is the PER logo.
I take it you hate Monty Python. That's OK. Not every form of comedy is for every person.
_________________________________________________________________________
Man (John Cleese): (entering a shop) Um, excuse me, is this the undertaker's?
Undertaker (Graham Chapman): Yup, that's right, what can I do for you, squire?
Man: Um, well, I wonder if you can help me. My mother has just died and I'm not quite sure what I should do.
Undertaker: Ah, well, we can 'elp you. We deal with stiffs.
Man: Stiffs?
Undertaker: Yea. Now there's three things we can do with your mum. We can bury her, burn her, or dump her.
Man: Dump her?
Undertaker: Dump her in the Thames.
Man: What?
Undertaker: Oh, did you like her?
Man: Yes!
Undertaker: Oh well, we won't dump her, then. Well, what do you think: burn her, or bury her?
Man: Um, well, um, which would you recommend?
Undertaker: Well they're both nasty. If we burn her, she gets stuffed in the flames, crackle, crackle, crackle, which is a bit of a shock if she's not quite dead. But quick. And then you get a box of ashes, which you can pretend are hers.
Man: Oh.
Undertaker: Or, if you don't wanna fry her, you can bury her. And then she'll get eaten up by maggots and weevils, nibble, nibble, nibble, which isn't so hot if, as I said, she's not quite dead.
Man: I see. Um. Well, I.. I'm not very sure. She's definitely dead.
Undertaker: Where is she?
Man: In this sack.
Undertaker: Let's 'ave a look.
Umm, she looks quite young.
Man: Yes, she was.
Undertaker: (over his shoulder) FRED!
Fred (Eric Idle): (offstage) Yeah?
Undertaker: I THINK WE'VE GOT AN EATER!
Fred: I'll get the oven on!
Man: Um, er...excuse me, um, are you... are you suggesting we should eat my mother?
(pause)
Undertaker: Yeah. Not raw, not raw. We cook her. She'd be delicious with a few french fries, a bit of stuffing. Delicious! (smacks his lips)
Man: What!?
(pause)
Man: Actually, I do feel a bit peckish - No! NO, I can't!
Undertaker: Look, we'll eat your mum. Then, if you feel a bit guilty about it afterwards, we can dig a grave and you can throw up into it.
the ranks in order are: Squire Knight, High Knight, Grand Knigh, And Grand master. There is also The Knights of the Nine, all of whom are grand knights and in charge of one of the aspects of PER. They are losely based off the rank structure of the christian crusades. I have a blog dedicated to the subject.
I love Monty Python, mainly Life of Brian, because it's terrific. Though I am annoyed by all the people who seek to quote it constantly. I wouldn't exactly call this Monty Python though; I didn't see much humor at all here. It's not like Monty Python where there's a set-up for a joke, that espoused through dialogue. There's just... nothing here.
I'm rereading your story again as I type this, trying to find anything that would silence my point and failing. I can't find any actual joke here. I mean, there's some shouting. Some emphasized words. But nothing actually funny. I honestly wouldn't have known this was a comedy if not for the blatant tag. When you have segments like this:
>For those belonging to the P.E.R., Mankind - that pretentious, foolish, hairless ape - could not possibly be trusted to choose survival for himself. That they themselves were, or had started as human, was a fact pretentiously, foolishly, hairlessly lost on them.
Where it's obvious your own bias is once again rearing its head, sucking any fun that could be found out of this, it's not humorous. The plot of this is a bunch of terrorists basically mind raping and mutating children for no reason other than that it's 'right' it doesn't make them funny. It makes them goddamn insane assholes. They didn't make any witty observations, no cracks, just some shouting and running. I'm honestly hurting my head trying to find out where you wanted me to laugh. Was this just a build-up chapter? Some clarification might help, but as it stands I can't really say that this is comedy.
As that one guy above said, I could actually see this working as a dramatic story. Even though I hate TCB, the idea of a bunch of hateful, misanthropic terrorists against both sides trying to force change upon the world for their own biased reasons sounds interesting. In the context of a comedy though, it's both too stark a contrast, and too much fridge horror to get over so we can actually laugh. It's nothing to due with sense of humor; it's the idea of overcoming such a conjoined premise that doesn't work for this genre, which will not work unless you're some literary god that could derive a certain humor from it. I'd honestly recommend either making it lighter, or even ratcheting up the gallows humor, in order to shock some laughs out of people. Then again, I was once sent to jail for trying to make a joke in court about that Korean family I murdered, something about dog eating and shit. It didn't turn out well is what I'm trying to say.
Ah, well I have two things to say to that. Let me get on my Mr. Plinkett voice to explain.
1) You can tell me more on the subject and your blog by e-mailing me at idontgiveashit@gmail.com
2) Those rankings don't make no sense, and sound a little silly.
3) Knights of the Nine? I smell lawsuit from Bethesda.
4) Doesn't the whole based off Crusades thing only add fire against these guys? I mean, when they're obviously a fundamentalist terrorist group, it's hard to laugh at them when so far all we've seen from them is them ambushing a bunch of children and forcing them to become ponies. Now I may not be a smart man, but I do know that's kind of evil.
I think you'd be better off reading anything else at this point. I can't teach you the Relativity of Funny. Suffice it to say, that Ginger and Nutmeg are our heroes, they utterly believe in the crusade, and they are, from their own viewpoint, totally honorable and doing good. They just aren't that competent at it.
If you can't laugh at something because you object politically to the beliefs of the silly fools engaging in ridiculous efforts for questionable causes, well... maybe this story isn't going to be fun for you. Just sayin'.
For everypony else, Ginger's next scheme is absolutely, positively, completely guaranteed to work without a flaw, and with every variable accounted for. He is totally confident about that. Totally, completely confident. It's in the feedbag, as they say. Nothing could possibly go wrong. So stay tuned for Operation Two: The Horsie Challenge.
That's the thing. They seem competent enough. They just act like horrible people from what we've seen of them so far.
These aren't silly fools. They seem like assholes who object to anyone disagreeing with their viewpoints and literally try and force it on others. That's not funny. I don't see how it can be funny. And I pointed out several reasons and quotes as to why it's not, but you're not really refuting any of them. You're just saying 'Well that's your opinion. Go away and stop criticizing me.' That's what's making me annoyed right now, not the fact that the main characters are Jessie and James from Pokemon without any of the likeability in those two, not the definition of Equus Sapiens (Which I'm honestly a little impressed at. Did you make that up, or did you get the idea from someone else? I'm honestly curious here) or the fact that your trademark misanthropy seeps through into this comic as well.
But whatever. This discussion won't change shit about either of us, as with the last.... 2 or 3 conversations we had? Goddammit I need a hobby. Or focus to work on my actual projects. Or time to milk my cat.
i believe it would be best to say that this is a case of 'to each their own'. i found parts of it to be humorous but i can fully understand why others would be appalled at making light of such events.
after finishing this, it felt to me like something that would normally be in comic strip form.
Well-intentioned extremists? Check.
Bumbling idiots? Check.
Luckier than any man, woman or pony has any right to be? Check!
Oh god I can't help but love these guys. That blind, stupid enthusiasm can not lead them anywhere good, though. Well, except maybe Equestria. Maybe.
dis story is gun b good! 
and those imbeciles really have the dumbest luck and too strong of a principle...
I was wondering why no one in the PER had taken the potion instead of failing at their infiltrations.... this chapter actually countered that and lol at the rest of the PER who wanted to force potion in them instead of letting them continue... until the actually had results...
Ya know, what with the dystopian future, invaders and yaoi would be the some of the last things I expected to survive... then again with breakfast club and rudyard kipping surviving I guess I should be too surprised
a narrator with character interesting
potion variants get your potion variants here!
Hey Chatoyance, I know that this is like asking you to kill your babies, but if you want to write a comedy you should probably put it in another universe.Your story revolves around Ginger and Nutmeg, right? Instead of just inserting them into a world, twist the world around them. If you look at slapstick comedy, it stops being funny as soon as it seems like someone could have been actually injured. The disconnect isn't from reality, it's from consequences. When Daffy Duck can spring back to normal in an instant, big rocks and bombs and pointy things stop being so so terrifying. In the CB~verse of your other stories, being forcibly ponified is terrifying, even if you were planning to go to the Bureau. I don't know quite 'where' things would work out best, but it's certainly not 'here'. You're clearly not going for dark comedy, and I doubt that you want to write in a cartoonish world, (that would be quite the 180 turn from everything else you've ever written here,) but the middle ground is kinda huge.
Then again, lots of people have commented that they already enjoy it and are clearly able to disconnect the comedy from anything serious. So, do whatever you want and take everything everyone says with a grain of salt, because these opinion things seem to like to go all over the place.
I think the comedy's supposed to be that the two characters are impossibly incompetent, and they banter with each other.
Although funny in a way, this story is also rather terrifying. I mean, heck, if Conversion Bureaus opened up for real I'd be one of the first in line, but I'd want it to be my own choice. So I find the PER terrifying. Especially when they're bumbling idiots (or at least one of them is. My heart weeps for you, Nutmeg), because how likely is it for bumbling idiots to investigate whether they're transforming in an HLF-infested area? We already know that the HLF are not above killing their own if they become ponies, or even if they show signs of feeling sympathetic to the pony cause. Some of those children newfoals are probably dead by now.
I'm hoping that this ends with Princess Celestia giving them all severe slaps on the wrist and telling them to sit nicely and let the Conversion Bureaus do their jobs. I can enjoy this story as it is without that assurance, but there's still the creepy factor of having people jump out and alter your physical and mental state against your will. I wouldn't want someone to slip an immortality pill into my drink and say its cola (even ignoring all the philosophical arguments against immortality).
Edit: Actually, let me make a correction. What I hope for Ginger and Nutmeg is not a slap on the wrist. I want them to get a big-old pony kick in the nuts. 
(Yeah, yeah, Nutmeg gets off easy, I know. It's the thought that counts.)
I'm getting very interesting responses for this story, and what you all have to say is both fascinating and difficult to interpret. I'm not sure how this work is being taken overall.
To me, it is a light, cerebral, situational comedy, or perhaps farce. There are elements I find funny, though I do not claim laugh-out-loud funny by any means. I know I can't pull off Red Dwarf level comebacks and snarky comments. I don't have it in me to do mean, but funny, lines.
I find it interesting that some find the situation itself deeply disturbing, I suppose in essence it is, but in order to write about this I have to put my mind in a place where I look through their eyes, their beliefs, and to Ginger and Nutmeg, what they are doing is kindness. Love. In their hearts, they are rescuing puppies from the gas chamber in the pound. That is what motivates them. The Michelson and Morely of this story honestly believe that they are carrying babies out of a burning building and handing them to their crying mothers. They feel that they aren't worth being saved themselves, until they save enough other people.
That this is bodyhorror doesn't even enter into it for them. It isn't horror, to them. Being human is horror for Ginger and Nutmeg, to them, every day they remain bipeds is suffering, and they cannot imagine any being thinking any other way. To them, they are sacrificing their own happiness for others.
Outside their viewpoint, of course, don't drink the soda!
But the one thing I am NOT hearing is that any of this is genuinely, clearly funny to you, the readers. I'm getting comments on how disturbing this is, but the lack of strong 'Hee! This is hilarious!" statements beyond a few initially is making me feel that it might be good to cut this sucker short to save my reputation, such as it is, and give up on comedy because, likely, I am no good at writing it. Which is sad, because one of my spouses, who utterly refuses to read my work, is fucking amazing at comedy. She is just brilliant at it. Sigh.
Eh, I guess I will hit my head against the comedy brick wall for at least one more chapter. What's the worst that can happen? Hmmm... You could tell me I suck, I become despondent, and withdraw into deep depression. In my depression, I buy a gun, then jump of a tall building trying to blow my brains out as close as possible to the bottom before hitting. This hits the news and catches on, becoming the first Terminal Sport. Soon the world is massively depopulated by people trying to break each others scores. The drop in population concentrates resources and creates a Second Renaissance leading to a true Golden Age Of Man. Yeah! No problem! It's worth it!
I'm only a few words away from a Golden Age. This is wonderful. 
Your reassurance that this is all written through the eyes of the characters does actually make me appreciate the comedy aspect of it more. I suppose me needing that reassurance is a result of you writing so well. Sure, I still want them to get a pony-kick in the nuts, but until then I will gladly read and laugh at their antics! 
>Eh, I guess I will hit my head against the comedy brick wall for at least one more chapter. What's the worst that can happen? Hmmm... You could tell me I suck, I become despondent, and withdraw into deep depression. In my depression, I buy a gun, then jump of a tall building trying to blow my brains out as close as possible to the bottom before hitting. This hits the news and catches on, becoming the first Terminal Sport. Soon the world is massively depopulated by people trying to break each others scores. The drop in population concentrates resources and creates a Second Renaissance leading to a true Golden Age Of Man. Yeah! No problem! It's worth it!
It's times like this I like to think you're not serious and just joking in a horribly non-funny way, until I realize you probably believe this.
Oh shit, there's a second chapter? Okay, let's read...
...
So... this a comedy? Because... there's no joke. It's sincerely like the CTRL+ALT+DEL of pony fan fiction stories. Is this a homage?
Chatoyance... Are you Tim Buckley? Because if so, what a twist!
>Implying I have pity for you
Ugh, every time we talk I swear to Space Hitler that we're one step closer to that 'hate each other in public, fuck in private relation' that it's the movies so much. Terrifying.
I hope I can offer you an unbiased opinion on your work. I haven't as of yet read any of your other works (I tend to avoid the Tragedy Tag) and only just found The Conversion Bureau sub genre earlier this day, so this is about the third story I've come across as a whole.
First off, I did in fact find this hilarious. Lines I particularly liked and laughed out loud to?
Under circumstances involving less chance of being chopped into chorizo, it might have been endearing. In a 'I am completely doomed to a life of utter failure' sort of way.
"You do understand that human parents can become just a tiny bit... oooh... murdery... when you forcibly change all their children into ponies without their permission? You do get that don't you?" Gods, "murdery"? Given the speaker and context, just awesome.
"The only fit is the one I'm going to have if you don't get a move on!" This one was terribly clever, I don't think I've heard the word “fit” used in this way before now.
It was, in fact, their only successful effort, not counting the day they were first sworn in to the P.E.R. and Ginger had accidentally knocked potion all over another recruit. Sadly, that hadn't counted as score. I was laughing for a good minute when this one snuck itself into the end of the paragraph there.
I wanted to list a bunch more but decided to just say every paragraph pretty much had an awesome one liner ,or funny thought, plopped in there some where. Brilliant, I loved the wit and the slap stick humor.
Anyway, I wanted to put this out there so you know that you did in fact write a funny story for some folks. I think your regular readers have formed a preconceived bias for your particular tone, and world, based on how your other stories end up being very realistically sad. So they're having all those memories and tales of grief resurface during this story. I think someone mentioned it already actually, I just wanted to give you some confirmation as a third party so to speak.
I'm going to favorite this one. I can't promise to read some of your darker stories, but know this at least: to a random wit/comedy/light story lover, you made the grade. 
Well, the first half was hilarious, if not more so than the last, but it started to take a more serious dive at the end there. Still rung with a comedic tone though; at least with the incompetence and imagining mall security AIs playing cards out of boredom. Silly Ginger, AI's obviously play cards AND watch the mall at the same time. They're gifted like that.
I'll stick to just one favorite line this time:
Since they were showing some potential, finally, he made a mental note to cancel Operation Tie Them Down And Pour Potion In Their Yap. For now. Yes, so many times yes. Especially after the epic set up of them being near useless, the others before them just taking the potion and leaving, AND being named "rumpguard." 
Thank you, you really helped me there.
Just to note - my other stories are not tragedies. They are basically adventure with a touch of romance in them. Only one of my stories could be said to actually be tragic, and even then, not totally so. I don't do tragedy, I don't like unhappy endings. I'm going to check my tags, not one of my stories should have a tragedy tag on them, because... they aren't. All have happy endings, except The Taste Of Grass, and that one has an... emotionally complex ending. Not precisely a tragedy, except that one character ends a long life never truly knowing they were appreciated as much as they deserved.
Ah, looking back I think it was the combination of Dark and Sad tags for a couple stories I was interested in. That usually points to much crying ahead and I prefer not to spend my free time along those lines. I know some people dig it but it's not my cup o' tea, at least not on purpose anyway. If it happens in an adventure story then that's fine, not every adventure is daisies and roses. I just usually avoid the stories that purposely delve into how sad and terrible things can get. Which has put me on the defensive since a lot of these TCB stories seem geared that direction.
I was pretty let down thinking one of the obviously major authors to this new sub-genre I'd found was writing in a category I usually avoid. So thanks for clearing that up! In that case I'll go give some of them a read over. 
This was funny. Ginger is hilarious and funnily enough I hear -- just which pronoun should I use for Ginger?-- trying to do a Jim Carrey impression every time the lanky one drags out "Nutme-heh-ehg!"
Too bad our two "protagonists" are now in "comedy failure zone."
I mean, they'll never figure the OBVIOUS way to complete their one hundred ponifications... or will they?
'operation tie them down and pour potion down their yap' lol. i had to stop for a bit at that.
as for if you should continue, if you enjoy it then why not?
it doesn't matter what you do not everybody is going like it, some do and if you want to continue then go for it.
1. lousy. point.
this is going to take forever for our favorite manzai duo, isn't it?
also, one thing I noticed:
"Nutmeg tried to see if she could get her leg over her head, the effort was as painful as the result was successful."
Does that mean she managed to do it, except at the cost of excruciating pain, or didn't manage to do it without getting hurt by it either?
well, Ginger is male, and Nutmeg female. At least, according to the pronouns used when they are preparing for the mission, right after the introduction of "codepony". More specifically,
Nutmeg was worried, a feeling that had become as familiar to her as...
Ginger was busy doing his toenail...
1 point....
they're gonna fail hard right? after all.... Barnsour did say that: "How hard can it be to get one point." hum.... bro, that's a jinx
I'm going to expect a mass exodus of the New Mexico region with such a large amount of simultaneous conversions.... leaving only 2 humans..... guess who they are.....
and in a dozen chapters or so they'll finally go smart and think: "Hey, we're humans too, it wouldn't bend the rules much if we convert each other." that or they gonna be stuck at 99 points until the Barrier reaches them....
EDIT: And really those people at the football game were imbeciles.... they see ponies under a purple shower? LETS GO HELP THEM, looks like they didn't know about the ponification serum....
A nice update to this story. The switch in slap stick to dirty humor was a real change up, but it was nice seeing a different style. It was still humorous but didn't ring with the same silliness the first chapter held. All the same, I enjoyed it.
One minor error I figured I'd point out:
(Ginger beamed, as if he had one a beauty contest.) "won"
My favorite line was easily: "The two bloody humans. Team Ass Protection. Impossible." Team ass protection? This was just great since I'm still laughing at them being called Team Rumpguard.
Well, I noticed a lot, a real lot, of dirty jokes, both subtle and not so subtle, so I'm not sure if one of them happened to be what you're talking about. Some of the stuff in there I haven't read before so that was surprising. Thought I'd seen all the dirty humor out there by this point, how wrong I was.
This has me wondering what it would be like to live in a world where you're at a daily risk of ponification terrorism. Every drinking fountain, every fire-sprinkler system, every public pool and water park is suddenly an outgoing drunk-dial to Fate, and God help you if she picks up. I think it would lead to a very thirsty, very smelly population after only a few headlines, not to mention the attention of people and factions situated against the PER, such as Celestia, the HLF, and regular folks who'd just prefer to have the decision left to them.
I still don't find Nutmeg and Ginger—or their cause—to be sympathetic, but that reptilian slow-down-to-look-at-a-car-accident part of my brain wants to see what the Black Sunday of pony-terrorism would be like. I guess it would be Purple Sunday, but still. They seem to have found their footing, but that was largely in a consequence-free environment. How would they handle someone halfway competent standing against them?
>>531392 "How would they handle someone halfway competent standing against them?"
For the other side, we have the HLF, the Human Liberation Front. They are as fanatical in opposition to ponification as the PER is to promote it. They are mirrors of each other, and I have had notable HLF characters in my stories before.
The PER will potion bomb humans, in the effort to save them from inevitable death when Equestria eats the world. The PER was founded by ex-worldgovernment secret agents who were genetically altered so that when they were ponified, they would retain the human capacity for violence. Their original purpose was to be available to assassinate the princesses, or other targets, inside Equestria, if needed. Unfortunately for the worldgovernment, they became fanatical devotees of Celestia, only without pony inhibitions. Those original agents recruit from ordinary people, most of which lack real skills of any kind.
The HLF believes that it is better to die human, than to - in their view - be replaced by a grinning, inhuman, joy-zombie monstrosities. Most HLF are from military/paramiliary/militia backgrounds, they know weapons, they know tactics, and they are not clumsy or funny. They are at war, and they intend to win, and if they cannot win, they intend to deny Celestia human thralls. They will destroy the world, if they have to, and there has been at least one story involving just that.
In a direct confrontation between the two, which has appeared in several stories, the PER come in waves, their only weapon potion, trying to convert the humans. They always stop for their fallen comrades, and the bodies pile up as they do so. The HLF gun the ponies down, their view obscured by the piles of bodies building up as the ponies, who can leave no pony behind, die trying to comfort and save the fallen. When a PER pony manages to make a hit, and one of the HLF transforms, other HLF members shoot the newly created pony, if they can. They see these executions as mercy.
Unless the PER manage to transform the HLF in time, it is a slaughter, because the majority of the PER cannot actually kill or maim, and the original WorldGov agents that can are far and few between. Even if the PER win, it is Pyrrhic, because the HLF are willing to kill for their goals, and the PER are not. Frankly, such battles are often rather one-sided, and very, very sad. If the PER win, the last of the HLF usually shoot themselves rather than be transformed.
If the HLF win, there are no more PER in that area. They pile the bodies of the dead ponies and burn them, the live injured they take to base and do the most terrible experiments and tortures on - in an attempt to discover some means, any means to better destroy, unconvert, infect, or otherwise wipe out all ponies and ultimately, Equestria itself. There have been quite a few stories exploring this side of things too.
Both sides are certain they are right, both are fanatical, and both are denounced by Celestia and earth's Worldgovernment equally. But they exist, and they fight for their causes, and it creates a lot of exciting, wonderful, marvelous drama, horror, and conflict within the Conversion Bureau universe.
It appears that Ginger is already studying the arts of pinkiemancy, given those pom poms...
I can't help but wonder if, on some subconscious level, these two are going to start sabotaging themselves. Fear of the unknown, you know? They've been doing this for so long, they don't know where to go from here. Or maybe they're just cursed for the sake of the lulz.
Also, you missed a perfectly good chance to use the word "mephitic."
I would think fanatical devotees of Celestia would respect her wishes, even accounting for retained human traits. To do otherwise is to essentially claim that one knows better than she does, and what truly loyal pony would do that?
The pony-wave tactics you mentioned were present in my first story, Ten Rounds. When I wrote that, though, the HLF hadn't debuted in a story yet, and the main difference I had was that ponies actually were little less than mindless extensions of Celestia's will, which is why those tactics were used in the first place. Outside of that Ten-Rounds-style universe, the sense of self-preservation that even non-sapient creatures have would make it a no-go in the pony playbook. They'd still try to "help," of course, they just wouldn't be so wastefully reckless going about it. On the human side, they were just regular folks trying to stay human, not trained fighters (though experience is a hell of a fast teacher). In addition, the idea of the Barrier expanding and the world being swallowed up also had not yet debuted; the Barrier just prevented human invasion. Humans actually had a real choice between going or staying rather than a false choice of going or dying. Some stories even had Equestria disappearing after some time, leaving humans alone again.
All I'm saying is that the motivations of characters has a lot to do with what's going on around them. The concept of an encroaching Barrier was a huge shift in how TCB stories got written. Such a setting necessitates a culture of escalation, which in turn would give birth to organizations like the HLF and the PER as a matter of course. Humans' hands are forced; you can't stay on the fence in a world like that, and people fight hardest when cornered.
Speaking of cornered, I remember reading your continuation story Ten Minutes: Aftermath, and I enjoyed the character exploration of someone who hated Celestia being forced to interact with her. What made it great was that I could just as easily have seen it turning out the other way. Human resolve is strong, after all, and one thing tons of TCB stories are lacking are human characters with the strength of their convictions, regardless of how the author or readers are meant to feel about it. Reading Aftermath again made me want to write out the conversion dreams of the humans in Railroad Seven-Three, but I resisted.
a lot of fun to read also the
is an amazing little detail keep up the godly work
OK, Okay... I know, before you tell me. I've fallen off the wacky track because I started tasting the delicious flavor of emotional relationships I care about and worldbuilding I enjoy so much, and I've clearly started to like every character in the story and have started seeing them more as real beings than toys I can throw around to make comedy with.
Guilty as charged. So, let's face it folks. This is going to be a story that has comedic elements, and not a comedy story. Apparently, I can't do just plain comedy. Fine, that's good to know. I do what I do. Relationships, characters, worlds, cosmology. That's not such a bad thing, right? Not everypony can be all 'Woo-hoo, I'm Pinky-Pie, let's tell jokes!'
I'll still do what comedic elements I can. But... the brutal fact is that I want to see this scenario. I care about Ginger and Nutmeg. I want to see if the other PER members will ever care about them, if Barnsour will ever truly be proud, I want to see if they end up happy or damned or what. They've become people to me now. Sorry. I can't help it.
So, now I know. I can't sustain wacky comedy, I'm not that kind of writer. Sigh. Now I don't want to laugh at these characters - I want to understand them. Oh well! I have to remember that the only real crime in writing is to be boring. There is no other sin but that. Ginger and Nutmeg are not boring, and neither is the PER, so... allons-y!
Bravo, and well played Lady Chatoyance. I love how you took elements from my story and incorporated it into your own. I am tickled pink that Tinman has been featured inside your universe. I especially love how you took the black market and added your own trademark style to it. I loved the last little bit of Team Rumpguard blasting off again, classic.
I not only appreciated your cameo of Ginger and Nutmeg, I also want it clear that I really, really, really like your story (which is why I put a link to it in the text of the chapter itself! Hee!). That's TCB: The Reluctant Cyborg everypony, and it's good. Third chapter has the other side of the above, by the way. I guess that kind of makes you the third writer I have openly 'linked universe splays' with.
I was so hoping you might notice it before I sent you a letter. Yay! I am happy now.
>>538300 No I loved it, it made me grin like silly fool. Writing the combat for chapter four of the Reluctant Cyborg has been so emotionally draining I found reading it quite cathartic.Allowing me to move on to the more pony centric portions of the story. Once again I can't express how honored I feel, that you felt my writing was worthy of begin attached to something you wrote.
To protect the world from devastation: Check.
To unite all peoples within our nation: Check.
To denounce the evils of truth and love: Anticheck.
To extend our reach to the stars above: Luna did that already.
I love how no one thinks to ask who told the original agents. Oh, belief. You're halfway around the world before logic even has its laces tied.
On a side note, all this cyberspace is making me want to see a hacker pony named Neuromancer. With a coat the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.
Many of my characters - many people in this future - enjoy programs, books, and shows from Pre-Collapse media. Before the Great Collapse, before the Ecosaster and the Austerity War and the Last Harvest and the Last Catch, the earth was a great deal greener, cleaner, and there was a lot more wealth and resources. People in my future naturally yearn for those good old days, which are, of course, today. Our days are their 'good old days'.
Some people now like to enjoy nostalgia of the fifties and forties, others go to Renaissance Faires, still others like neo-Victorian stuff, and a lot of people today yearn for an Ideal of early Americana, where 'people were nice' and there was plenty to go around. The like old movies and old books.
People don't change. In the future, they will be yearning for the 2000's, there will be restaurants called 'Cafe 2011', and revivals of the things we know now will occur. In 27 Ounces, I mentioned the umpteenth revival of Gumby, for example. Remember how 'Batman' was rebooted as the 'Dark Knight' a while ago?
In the future, Pokemon will be a classic cartoon from the Pre-Collapse era, one folks enjoy because of its campy, light-hearted vision of a world filled with animal life and growing plants. And they will relate to it because the dangerous trips between towns will be relevant to them, the Pokemon battles in the wild being like getting jacked by the poor and the desperate along the way.
In my fictional future, I seldom make anything whole-cloth. I just project our world twenty minutes into the future. A little Max Headroom-ism there. I take what is going on now and hypertrophy it, make it bigger, larger and more clear.
It's all happening now, for real, I just take what is going on and extend it to the logical conclusion.
For example - The Last Harvest. It nearly really happened. Monsanto genegineered a bacterium (Klebsiella planticola) that all terrestrial plants are symbiotic with. The bacteria digests soil so that plants can absorb it with their roots. All life depends on this bacteria, it is everywhere plants are. All plants.
The GMO bacteria was designed to shit alcohol, so that it would make plant waste a useful fuel source, increasing farming profits. The problem was that alcohol kills plant roots. If the bacteria had been released - and it almost was, was stopped by one woman one week before it was deployed - within three months all plant life on earth would be dead. We... would have very slowly and horribly died, as a species. Seriously. We nearly suicided the entire planet for profit.
All of my future stuff is like that, based on real events. ALL OF IT.
I don't sleep well at night.
All they need is some crazy talking "mascot" and they're pretty much channeling Team Rocket. Going Pony confirmed talking animals in your 'verse, but the PER may not be keen on them because of the limited lifespan set by humans.
And you just further proved to me why I don't read the news. Because it's nightmare fuel and the Yahoo commentators are right up there with Youtube commentators on Metallica-related videos. Now if I could stop reading Cracked...
Reset Password
Resend Verification Email
1,906 ( 7,957 )
More
Less
Post Comment
Refresh
Image: http://toffymenchavez.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/disappointed.gif?w=246&h=246
Image: http://disinfo-drop.s3.amazonaws.com/Joker.jpg
Image: http://jenniverse.com/images/threebreeds%20sm.png
Cancel
Send