Jacob is your ordinary kid living in Australia after most of it's population are some magical creature from Equestria, but he is one of the very few that has decided to hang onto their humanity even if his ponified friends are telling him that being a pony is epic. So his friends want to help him join the herd the only way they know how.
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Applebloom soup.
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To First, or not to first, that is the Question...
...
...
Oh. Question answered, I guess.
Another good tale, DBK.
This came out better than I expected, now only if I had some tea like that.
Very good.
So many loopholes I'm not going to bother with telling you them.
Silly DBK, I'm Ocean Breeze now, not WastelandGunner.
Also, fantastic story. I'd love to see it extended.
Or an alternate ending.
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon? This can only mean one thing...
Called it!
Ponies are bastards.
Bunny (can I call you bunny? Because I'm going to), your writing has improved in leaps and bounds. Nicely put together and well done. On the other hoof, being drugged by your friends? That's pretty shitty.
958712
I agree with Heretical Zed and Midnight Shadow. I think Jacob should have been way, way more pissed off about it than he was, and for far longer.
I loved this (naturally).
Why won't MY friends put potion in my tea? Fooey! Everything cool happens in Australia.
.Some friends they are forcibly converting him like that
958961
And I agree with you three.
It's a good story, well-written, with lots of details and a likeable protagonist. The inner conflict of Jacob was great. On the one hand he really wishes to fly through the sky like a Pegasus but on the other hand he doesn’t want to give up his humanity because it’s a part of him. That’s a really good story hook. At that point I was about to give the story a thumb up.
And then came the tea scene and this nice little story became one of those preachy TCB story in which it’s totally ok to forcefully convert humans into ponies because the end justifies the means and you are soooo much happier as a pony and everything is totally sunshine. Celestia forbids if we allow these pesky humans to use their “free will” and make their own decisions.
So yes his so-called friends may had good intentions but it was a dick move. That’s not the way friends behave. If they were real friends they wouldn’t have forced that decision on him. Or worked with a family-friendly terrorist group called PER. Or lied to his parents because otherwise they would be pretty upset – and rightfully so.
It’s like my best friend thinks I’m always sad and – with the friendly support of a local drug cartel – puts some LSD in my coke to cheer me up.
But this is a TCB story so now Jacob is a happy little pony and everything s rainbows and sunshine.
However, the story has its good moments. I like the interaction between the human protagonist and his non-human friends – until that faithful tea scene happened – especially the friendly mockery between him and Razor.
Another plus point are his parents, who act like responsible parents and DON’T force their son to become a pony. Instead they let him make his own decisions. They even express concerns about his safety and fear that the PER will ponify him against his will. That’s how reasonable people act.
The little cameo of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon was funny, too. Especially how Jacob scared them away.
But the good doesn’t outnumber the bad. That’s why this story gets a thumb down.
959129
Because as a pony you would find your true calling and would probably stop writing those wacky stories. And who would want that?
959129
Bottom line, it's more of that pesky scarcity. I know of only three, maybe four incidents tops where someone's tea got spiked with potion, and interestingly enough they were all in Queensland. Caveat emptor if one is going into a pony restaurant in a PER-sympathetic neighborhood, I guess.
959177
I wouldn't say the story got preachy, exactly, but it did gloss over a lot of inconvenient ethical matters regarding forced ponification. "Welp, I'm a pony, ain't that a fine how-do-you-do, time to figure out how clouds work I guess." Jacob possibly wasn't that torn up about going pony because he just didn't want it to be "his fault" that it happened, but that's purely speculation on my part; for readers, there was nothing to telegraph it.
959482
Chat's true calling is a Canterlot lobbyist, petitioning to get Bureaus to open drive-thrus and express lanes. Self-checkout, maybe. Home delivery? The sky's the limit. You still get a free two-liter with your pizza, it's just not soda.
959811 "Chat's true calling is a Canterlot lobbyist, petitioning to get Bureaus to open drive-thrus and express lanes. Self-checkout, maybe. Home delivery? The sky's the limit. You still get a free two-liter with your pizza, it's just not soda."
Bureau Hut
Drive Thru Menu
A Slice Of Heaven
One Large Pony-sized Veggie Pizza with
Hay, More Hay, Timothy Grass, Daisies
16oz Diet or Regular Potionaide
Sip, Drop, and Dine - make your first meal
as a Pony a round one with our fine pizza!
Free, courtesy of the Royal House
Dandelion Calzone with a side of Hooves
Delicious Cheese-lovers Dandelion Calzone
16oz Diet or Regular Potionaide
Guaranteed hot when you wake up from
Converting or you get TWO new Calzone!
Free, courtesy of the Royal House
Cheesy Hay Sticks
Tasty-crisp Cheese-N-Grass
8oz Diet or Regular Potionaide
For the smaller appetite or Foal
Free, courtesy of the Royal House
Chimmycherry Cherrychonga
Our delicious cherry treat
8oz Diet or Regular CHERRY Potionaide
Enjoy our fare, wake up a MARE!
Free, courtesy of the Royal House
The Express Lane
3oz of the purple stuff
A place to lie down
Free, courtesy of the Royal House
959811
My take on the whole "not holding grudge": Potion.
It has a strong psychological component, "helps" the newfoals bounce back from extremely stressful situations and gives them a most optimistic outlook at life.
I wouldn't even dream to imagine what Chatoyance would do in Equestria, that's up to her.
But drive-throughs?
"Do you want fries with that"?
Potion in paper cups with a "Caution! Contents is magical. Do not pour on crotch! May cause severe pain."?
Equestrian apples with a "May contain nuts."-sticker?
Hm, there is a story in there and I do not want to read it!
959910
No, no, no!
I want my conversion in a regular old bureau, where's the fun in it if you don't get the traditional apple!?
Ah, gimme the Chimmycherry Cherrychonga. But it better be good!
959129
'Cept for all the huge fucking spiders..
I'm terrified of spiders..
god help me
959129
Personally i wouldn't ponify myself until i hear about the Purification thing if it happens at al. (or if the PER got me)
I wouldn't appreciate being in Jacobs position and having my friends ponify me without my consent
I'm not really certain what the purpose of this story was. It was cute, right up until the abrupt conversion, which I found disconcerting. Even after that, I'm curious what it was that you were trying to communicate, or what I'm supposed to be taking away from the reading. That conversion, if you had ended right when the reality of the situation hit the protagonist? That would have been a powerful hook for a much larger story, one about trust, coping when trust is broken, respect, friendship, and how all these things can conflict and override each other. That would be some mighty dregs, and I would want to partake of them. As it is, you've written something that does live up to the tags, but I feel ambivalent at best and neutral at worse.
Keep writing!
Conversion Bureau’s with drive-thrus are an amazing idea.
Special offer, only this week: Order a ponification and you get a free milkshake with the amazing zap apple flavor.
Someone should write a parody fic about that.
959811
Yes Jacob took the fact that his friends acted behind his back to force a decision upon him pretty well. Your explanation makes some sense but I don’t think that he secretly wanted to be a pony but hadn’t the guts to do it himself. In my eyes he wasn’t sure if that's what he wanted. He just needed more time to make a final decision. But no, we can’t have that! All the cool kids are ponies now so you must be a pony, too. Hurray for peer pressure!
963015
Well the way I was attempting to write Jacob was, he wanted to fly but he was afraid to actually go with it (god I need to make sure to get that across better so it's a fault on my part.) so he just kept on beating himself about the matter but since his friends didn't want to see that they... pushed... well more like round house kicked Jacobs choice off a cliff into a burning sea of snakes and spiders and make the choice for him. I will admit that I should of added in 'I'm going to kill you guys but you kind of were right about it, but it doesn't mean you get off easy' dialogue thing in there. So I'm doing that now, and if there's anything else that seems crap PM me or yell at me in the comments.
Post fic,
Nek Minnet
People in the comments are talking about ethics and Chat's building a Pizza Hut in Equestria and doesn't want to look at my resume. Oh and I'm going back and putting more meat on this thing's bones.
What exactly was i suppose to take away from this? Nice story and i agree with Darkmatter if you cut it off at the conversion then it would give you an opening with different endings.
Sadly, i hate TCB stories and only read those of the Yellowstone variety or where humans are against the change and don't wish to be converted.
You had everything going for this story until the end, then it just change into something that Chatoyance would write.....
I hate her stories with a passion.
this doesn't warrent a negative mark however so i will give you props with a good write.
I would have killed my friends if they converted me without my permission.
963624
I got that feeling so I am re writing it or did you not read the second page?
964882
No, that's the thing - you wouldn't. You'd feel like you should be furious, you'd try to get angry, you'd reach down inside yourself and feel the rage begin to build... and then it'd slip away, like trying to pick something up with a completely numb hand. Ever fallen asleep on your arm and woken up with the blood flow almost totally cut off? It's an incredibly disconcerting feeling, being suddenly completely unable to move or even feel an extremity.
That's always what I've imagined forced ponification would feel like once you woke up. You KNOW you should be angry, you WANT to be angry, anger has always been a part of you in some way... but now it's just gone. Like a hole in your personality.
972628
Wait, are you saying that being capable of such anger is good and worth still having? only on the basis that it was once part of your brain.
Let me pose a question then to someone that would be against ponyfication (I take it you are), as I have been wondering as to what the objections to it are.
The question is this, where we to find a cure to psychopaths (i.e. to make those that can't feel empathy be able to feel it) do you think it would be good for the person to take such a cure for something that isn't an illness but rather a genetic difference at the level of the brain.
972979
This isn't a very good approach to arguing your point. Anger is not psychopathy, so they can't be interchanged in this way. Anger is part of the normal, healthy range of emotions; psychopathy is not. It is normal for humans to feel anger. So it is, for that matter, for ponies. Perhaps they can't feel it as severely or powerfully as humans can, but in "configuring" the human psyche to emulate this, they are definitely losing a part of themselves. Human memories remain intact, and that includes emotional memory. There is a pervasive, philosophical wrongness to it, regardless of the practical arguments.
It's like how you can't just pull out all of a shark's teeth and call it a whale.
973248
I never implicated that psychopathy was anger, but I was rather trying to see if the objections to ponyfication was in part due to that it was not seen as a improvement and a good way see more clearly in mercy waters is to gauge it from a step behind, so we just think of a worse human to be able to see how a better human would be like.
As far as anger being a "healthy" emotion, I believe that having a release valve on that anger is healthy but I would pose that it would make one a better animal to not be able to have such anger at all, anger that easily cloud judgement and are capable at negating all other faculties in favor of such primal urge.
I think I agree on that they are losing something, but I also say those things lost aren't worth having there in the first place.
(So if the psychopath are "cured" would you say that he had lost something then?)
With it being philosophically wrong, if something is identified as bad and cannot be change by mere thoughts alone say the ability to not being able to empathy with others, why is it then wrong to change it the only way it can be changed?
(I wouldn't agree to that analogy but if you change the brain of the shark to favor krill and not be as aggressive I'd say that shark is more like a shark shaped whale with the memories of a shark since what we are discussing is more then mere cosmetic change)
EDIT:
you changed your comment while I was writing this so let me just add this:
psychopaths are a normal, they are just not the norm and they are in fact healthy in the emotional sense they just have different gens then most of us which makes some of them incapable of feeling empathy.
973708
You're using psychopathy again to engage me in the philosophical argument while sticking to anger for the practical argument. I know why: it's because it's a much more defensible position from which to argue. I'm not going to bite, however, so forget psychopathy. I'm not going to talk about psychopathy any more. Jacob neither gained nor lost psychopathy by going pony, and indeed the word "psychopath" occurs not once in the story, so it has nothing to do with what my concerns are.
I assure you that my objections to humans being mentally reconfigured has nothing to do with whether they're better or worse off for it. Again, the better/worse thing is all practical stuff. In fact, here's a freebie: Jacob is probably better off as a pony! All of humanity? Sure, why not! The ends still don't quiiite justify the means there, though, do they? If they did, then the PER would enjoy full and explicit sponsorship of the Crown and pegasi would be detonating aerosol potion-bombs in the lower atmosphere. Consequences? What consequences? Nobody left is physically capable of being truly angry about it, so that makes it okay! As evidenced in this story and in Chat's RADwCNS, they somehow feel they should be angry, but they can't. There's disparity between their old human identity and their nascent pony identity. Something is off. Something is wrong. They can only stumble about in a cutesy imitation of outrage, however. A smile's been tattooed onto their soul. That's pretty disturbing, when you get down to it.
Anger does serve a purpose, and we are able to feel it for a reason. We feel it when we are wronged, or when we feel helpless, or when we think an injustice has occurred. Anger is motivation, and excessive amounts can cloud judgment, as you said. That goes for any emotion, though: sadness leading to despair, happiness leading to complacency, and so on. The answer, however, is not to get rid of it, even though it's convenient for ponies. If someone wrongs us, are we then not allowed to be angry about it just because the one who wronged us is freakin' adorable and only had our best interests in mind?
974345
Do forgive me for turning this into an argument (I leave those to Chat since she is much better at them and more fun to read) my intentions is more to pick someones brain that disagrees with me to understand the tough processes and I only use psychopaths for the example as they lack what is universality seen as positive (empathy (not all of the diagnosed cases but some)) and the only way one could ever change that is through changes in the brain and my point is that so is it for everything else in the brain to since we are just matter, and being just matter makes the practical stuff all that matters for the is by that account the smile is already tattooed into our very being (or soul if you will) its just a different smile you and me have now since we know we are going to die and all our loved ones will too.
So why be happy at all? well, other things in the brain make up for it to be able to be happy with dopamine, endorphin and such and makes us "happy", one great chemical brain cocktail.
That the "false" smile is unsettling I can understand but it is the same for us now, it's still disturbing but I cannot claim that its not there.
It's just what it is like being an evolved sentient animal, to have thoughts that are not our own as we are not just only sentient but we also carrying the baggage of evolution.
Anger is there because it served an evolutionary edge in survival, to to boil it down to its main component - adrenalin and a will to act with determination.
And anger is just an expression of sadness that something has happened that you did not wish to happen but anger usually dissipate because the brain makes up for it with other things to get over it, ponies brains are just better at getting over it or making up for the sadness and perhaps won't let anger get the better of them.
Well you are allowed to be angry, you just wouldn't have it in you to be angry in the same way just like you wouldn't have it in you now too be angry over several weeks over the same thing, you might if you kept reminding yourself of it all the time during those weeks but it wouldn't be natural anger of what we as animals are capable of.
As far as the story goes and the moral with it of ponyification against ones will, if there wasn't a magical bubble of death coming then I'd say its wrong.
But that is not the case in these TCB stories the bubble is coming and unless the person were peaceful and rational and decided too rather end its life then go pony, all other conversions but that one would be moral.
972979
974345
Apologies, for some reason I never got a notification of your response. Wasn't trying to ignore you, just didn't know you'd asked me anything. Fortunately, Def summed it up pretty well in my absence. Psychopaths, quite simply put, are sick. They are not well. They lack something. It's not that they have an overabundance of anger, it's that they don't have enough empathy. If there were theoretically a way to 'cure' a psychopath by inducing empathy with a drug, you wouldn't be taking something away from them, you'd be giving them something. A capacity they didn't have before.
It's one of the many reasons lobotomies or electric shock treatment were very quickly shelved as legitimate treatment methods at asylums; they weren't giving patients anything. They were just taking things away. What was left was something less than human. To a lesser degree, it's also why so many people with mental disorders despise their medications and often go off them. They feel diminished, like they're walking through life in a fog. They're not who they're supposed to be, and it just feels wrong. Even as terrifying as their normal state of mind may be, they often prefer it because at least they still feel like themselves.
An ordinary human being is plenty capable of feeling both anger and compassion; they are not in any way diametric opposites. And as Def said, anger is quite simply a fundamental part of being human - putting aside moral implications of whether anger is good or bad, the fact remains that you are losing something. Something that is a major, major part of your identity.
As for whether I'm for or against conversion, hypothetically speaking? It's a tricky subject, and it varies quite a bit in substance from author to author as well. By all rights I should say against, against, emphatically against. It's running away from your responsibilities, it's abandoning your history, it's taking the easy way out, it's losing your hands (seriously... kind of a big friggin' deal, magic or no), it's having your very sense of self permanently altered.
For me, the sticking point is whether or not the Barrier was intentional on Celestia's part. Whether she was deliberately trying to attack and overrun Earth, or whether it was all a freak cosmic accident and tragedy, like she publicly claims. If the Barrier was indeed a purposeful attack, then any justification she could ever make would ring awfully hollow in my ears and I'd be out for blood. If she was telling the truth however, and the Barrier was something she simply couldn't stop?
I'd have to think long and hard about it.
974345 This is a fantastic post and I would favorite it if I could. Thank you. And the things you mentioned are the reason I still haven't given up on this sub-subgenre, as I still hope that I'll come across a fic that examines the changes the human mind goes through during and after conversion in greater depth and detail. Something like a psychological fic examining their incapacity to feel real anger, like you mentioned.
958560
Like fuck you are, you are always going to be Wasteland Gunner from now on or until I become board of that name and begin calling you Benson or something.
Yay its exactly what I wanted.
Awww
958225
Oh no, please, do tell me.
*sigh* Not everybody who down voted this story is an anti and it’s not fair to basically tell them GTFY because their opinions don’t count. I’m not Anti-TCB but I still don’t like the ending and I think I’m not the only one. However, I agree that it’s a bad move to give the story a thumb down (or up) just because it’s a TCB without even reading it or explaining your decision in a comment.
This ending is an improvement. It’s fleshed out and the reaction of Jacob is a bit more believable. Most important: You show us that he had indeed a serious inner conflict about hands vs hooves. In the original ending you failed to transmit that message.
Still I’m not going to change my initial vote. Sure it’s an improvement but it still feels like a last minute fix and the main problem remains: We haven’t seen much of Jacobs’s inner conflict during the whole story. Only in the end his friends drop some lines and he basically says: “Oh yeah, guess you’re right.” Sorry but that’s how I feel about it.
1066630
I really couldn't care about the downvotes but I guess I have to telegraph inner conflict more. Then again I really felt that this could of been a chapter story in stead of the quick one shot it is.
Let me be clear that I am not down-voting... or voting period. This "Alternate Ending"... was meh for me. It IS a marked improvement, but to me, and this is just me, just my opinion, 'cause it's still decent, it's not really much of an "alternate" ending, more like a fleshed out version of the original ending, but still lacking the inner conflict or his so-called friends suffering the consequences of their actions. I don't mean having them get butchered or anything, but even with the 'can't feel hate' aspect, how in the world could he bring himself to stay their friends, even if he does move forward?
I recall a certain episode that cast Pinkie Pie in a bad light because she was trying too hard to be a friend to a new donkey in town, just to cite an example of what I mean... If she didn't just HAPPEN to know Matilda, then there would have been no hope of Pinkie having a new friend after all the pushiness and screw-ups she went through.
1072611
Oh you so downvoted because it's !TCB and you want me to write an alt-alt ending that takes a turn down 5th and chainsaw lane because I shall.
1072620
You're putting words in my mouth, Banana King. I despise Cupcakes and gore-fics in their entirety. I'm saying NOT to do that, or at least letting you know that while I don't have a high opinion of this alternate ending, I don't have a low opinion either. It's decent. Don't assume I'm down-voting just because I said I wasn't voting at all.
What I'm saying is that, again, like before, the conflict got resolved a bit too well. I mean, a few words? That's all it takes? If that was all it took, than many of the conflicts we see in the series wouldn't have happened, would it? His so-called friends, while I do NOT want to see them butchered, got off too easily, still, if all that happens is him still being friends with them but never forgiving them. I'm NOT saying for them to be butchered. I'm saying that I feel that they still get off too easy. It's still a case of "we converted you against your will, 'friend'. It's okay though because now we're ALL ponies". That's what it comes off to me. They shouldn't die, but they SHOULD, in my opinion, meaning you don't have to change it, realize that they screwed up, that they converted their so-called friend against his will not because of what he wanted, but because of what THEY wanted. That is what bugs me. Plus, as Jacob points out, it was likely very illegal.
Jacob narrates that his friends were right all those years ago... Maybe, to keep him alive through total conversion, yeah, they may have been, but what they did, how they did it, was still a dick move.
Also, that stinking "humans suck" message that plagues Conversion Bureau fics... that always bugs me. If all humans were bad... would you be writing such a fic promoting Conversion? No, you wouldn't.
EDIT: Had to reread. Said there were still some good humans in there.
1072644
So you want me to write a gore fic also I know about the whole "Where the bloody hell is conflict?" which I reply too as, "I rushed it and made it one shot because school was starting up because I have other things to write that I and I lost interest in it, but one day I'll go back and re-write it ONCE I have figured out a plot that stands up on it's own without having people say 'It's good because it's !tcb' or 'Well DBK wrote it so it must be good... somewhat."
To be honest I should go back and write it but if I could I would have the time to write it but thanks to the real world I have other stuff to do, but I can say I will go back and re-write it one day.
1072659
And no, I do NOT want to see gore. I'm just saying I think they got off too lightly, that's all.
Good to know you have real-world priorities.
Let me be clear on this, it's decent, but not, in my sole opinion I'm sure, 'great'. It's a fic of potential. Even removing the TCB elements, the story boils down to a guy conflicted on making a choice, so his friends decide his opinion doesn't matter and make the choice for him... I've read plenty of sickening Anti-CB fics as well. I don't like fics in which either humanity OR ponies are portrayed as genocidal flank-holes, and use survival as an excuse for one side or the other.
1072670
Yeah, I have priories and I usually stick to them but I do think this needs a re-write and I never said it was 'great' but yes they did get off lightly because I went, "... It's four 'o clock and this thing is done and school starts tomorrow... may as well put it in moderation and let it be." So it does boil down into me being lazy and rushing it. So everything in here feels like cardboard and even if I did do a proper re-write they would still feel like cardboard but with nice paint on it and the only way I see fixing this thing is re-writing it so it looks like an actually story.
Dude. It was just like reading the last one. Only in better and fleshed out form
We changed you! yay!
But...
Your opinion doesn't matter. Yay!
Okay...
That's just....I don't know what to call that.
1078427
Thank you for commenting, if you wish to make a logical comment please place it here when necessary. If not please go somewhere else where non-logical comments are taken like, your story or 4chan's /b/ board.
So essentially what happens is that this guy's "Friends" (if you can call them that) decide that his opinions doesn't matter, and openly collaborate with a terrorist group until they slip legal narcotics and a medicine that will irrevocably change him into an animal with lessened morality...
And because of this he doesn't feel a thing.
1101527
I don't remeber putting the HLF in the story.
Its a better ending but I thought you promised no Braeburn.
1101617
He's probably referring to the PER. I'm pretty sure they are classified as terrorist group in most parts of the world.