Jack was aware he wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence in Berry Punch. She’d seemed excited when he’d told her the news that her sister should be arriving to visit her soon. This excitement had almost completely faded away in the hour that had passed since he’d said this. She’d sent him a few questioning glances in that period of time, glances that he’d done his utmost to completely ignore. What he couldn’t ignore, however, was the mounting dread in the pit of his stomach. He’d been with them right up until they were only a couple blocks away. Sure, there had been his little event back near the market square that he hadn’t told Berry about, but the fallout from that shouldn’t have delayed the ponies for this long. All this caused Jack, Berry’s sole informant about the imminent arrival of her sister, to twitch like a bundle of nerves under an electrical current.
Berry, for her part, was trying to guess as to the nature of Jack. She’d assumed when she first met him in the haze of a midnight waking that he was a figment of her imagination, that the way he was fussing over her IV meant that it was simply one of the nurses and that she was perceiving things incorrectly. When he was still there when she woke up again the next day the idea that he was a hallucination imbedded itself into her thoughts and lingered there. Even as day after day passed with his continuing presence she remained unsure of his existence mostly due to the fact that she remained the only one who could interact with him, who could see him even.
She’d had two reasons for sending him to check up on Colada, first and most obviously she had been worried about her. The doctors wouldn’t let her leave their care while she was still recovering and the letter she’d sent to Cheerilee had come back full of platitudes and non-committal statements. Berry had refrained from judging Cheerilee for this, she’d known her a long while and trusted the teacher’s judgement on matters relating to children. She’d proven almost essential in helping Berry raise Colada after their mother passed away. Still, despite this trust, her curiosity writhed within her and she had hoped that sending Jack would help alleviate some of the problem.
The second reason was to see if he’d actually go away, come back, and relate any useful information on his return. This, Berry had hoped, would help her figure out if the ghost was truly there or if some part of her mind had broken from her… from… what had put her in the hospital in the first place.
To her mild surprise he had returned a couple of days later, and had brought the information that not only had he been to see Colada but that she was coming to the hospital to visit her older sister that very day. This had hit the bed bound Berry Punch like a bolt from the blue and she found herself trying to temper her excitement about seeing her younger sister for the first time in weeks with the idea that she still didn’t know if Jack truly existed.
As time wore on and her sister failed to arrive she noticed that Jack had been getting more and more nervous, more and more fidgety, and Berry found her hopes about his existence beginning to swing from one extreme to the other. Where as before she’d hoped that he did exist, if only to confirm to herself that she wasn’t crazy, she now found herself wishing he was just a figment. That there was no reason for Jack to be twitching like he was. That there was nothing wrong with the fact that her sister hadn’t arrived. That her sister was fine back with Cheerilee. That nothing was going wrong while she remained stuck in a hospital bed.
Regardless of his existence or lack thereof, Berry Punch found herself talking to him to try and vent the worries that were building up in her mind.
“And you said nothing happened on the way over?”
Jack flinched as Berry’s voice suddenly filled the room, then he settled down, calmer than before she’d spoken at all, and focused on the door to the room. Staying quiet for far longer than Berry thought was right, then... “Yes.” He confirmed, eventually.
“Mmmm” Berry mused. She was about to launch into an interrogation of the pause he’d given when she heard hoofsteps approaching and silenced herself with a mixture of anticipation and worry.
The doctor walked in, all smiles, with three familiar faces trailing behind him, who didn’t seem to match his expression. Derpy seemed happy as always and entered the room with a light and easy step while the two fillies near her fetlocks all but shuffled into the room. Dinky looked rather downcast but it was Colada who seemed especially downtrodden as she entered and Berry could see a familiar bittersweet emotion dance in her sister’s eyes. The kind of emotion you only got by seeing a family member in a hospital bed.
“You have a couple of visitors Miss Punch.” Said the doctor with a smile. “Keep in mind that you only have an hour and a half of visiting hours, I’ll be back then.” And with that the doctor was out of the room and down the hall, leaving the mares and fillies to talk amongst themselves.
“Sorry we’re so late Berry.” Derpy said with a voice so sincere that it almost sounded like an exaggeration. “We meant to be here earlier but something happened on the way over and the Princess ended up getting involved.” Berry started at that info and seemed to have trouble processing it. “Why don’t you say what happened Colada?” Derpy looked back to Colada to give the queue for her to explain and, in doing so, missed Berry’s quick glance to the corner of the room where Jack was all but writhing in silence.
Colada took a moment and breathed, finally raising her gaze to look at her older sister, just a little too late to catch the tail end of said quick glance. “I tried to grab a fish tank off the top shelf of the glass shop and it fell.” Said Colada in a defeated tone, then took another breath and continued her obviously rehearsed confession. “Even though Missus Derpy told me not to, and you always told me not to. Sorry.”
“It fell?” Berry cut in, the sudden rush of worry for Colada drowning out the apology to her own ears. “Did you get cut or hurt?” The worry was expounded as she added silently in her head ‘So hurt that the princess ended up getting involved?’
“Nooo….” Colada dragged the word out as if hoping to eventually find some answer in it, then fell silent when she failed to stumble across one. She busied herself with running one of her front hooves across the other front leg, looking once more at the ground.
“Then what happened?”
“Uhm…” Colada threw a glance to Derpy, who nodded in encouragement, then turned back to face her sibling. “A uhm… a ghost caught it.” Then she braced herself for the disbelief, perhaps the claim that she was lying, perhaps the run around to confirm it with Derpy. What she didn’t expect was for her sister to simply ‘hmmm’ in thought, glance at the corner of the room, then look back to her.
Derpy, it seemed, was also unprepared for this reaction and silence held the room for a moment before Berry spoke up again. “And that’s why Princess Twilight showed up? To talk to you about the ghost that caught the fish tank?” Colada nodded once and Berry fell back into silence of thought for a moment before looking to the gray mare. “Can I have a couple moments alone with Colada please Derpy? I’d like to talk to her about what she did.”
Derpy’s thought process stuttered for a moment before she managed a nod and turned to Dinky and spoke with a voice that seemed to warble with excitement and, as it spoke, passed excitement on to her daughter. “Want to go talk to the doctors about how to help people when they get hurt, Dinky? I’m sure that Nurse Redheart would know someone we could talk to.” When her daughter offered her enthusiastic support of the idea the two left the room as well, leaving only Berry, Colada, and, in a sense, Jack.
Berry waited until Derpy was out of earshot with the door closed behind her before turning her gaze to the penitent Colada. “Big sis is gonna seem kinda crazy here for a second, alright? I’ll explain in a second okay?” Colada looked on in confusion before nodding with hesitant understanding. “Thanks.”
Then all the kindness she had just shown to her younger sibling seemed to evaporate as barely contained shouts were directed to the corner of the room. “Nothing important happened?!”
Then, Colada heard a rush of wind, almost like a response. The nature of its existence at all was strange given that all the windows were closed but the timing of it had been almost perfect. Berry had fallen silent and seemed to be listening to it so Colada tried to do the same. Focusing on the sound, she found she could almost hear a voice within it, it was saying. “... didn’t want to worry you.”
“Worry me?! Don’t worry about worrying me, I deserve to know if my sister got into trouble!” Berry replied, confirming to Colada that she wasn’t just imagining what she was hearing.
The wind, barely a whisper compared to the indignation of Berry Punch, spoke again. “I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal. I was gone right after everyone looked at me. If I’d known royalty was gonna show up I would’ve told you everything that happened.” The wind seemed to slack for a bit in a pause before it came back. “I was hoping everyone would just think that it was a weird visual effect. I didn’t want to upset you if no one even ended up remembering it.
There was a pause as Berry restrained her emotions, taking a breath to center herself. Judging by the lack of any gusts it seemed the invisible speaker was more than content to wait..
“How did anyone even see you? I thought only I could see you.” Berry said at last, changing the subject as she saw no use in pursuing the previous issue any further.
“I… I don’t know. I caught the fish tank and then everybody was looking right at me in shock. I don’t know how they knew it wasn’t like a unicorn’s magic or whatever.”
“You glowed.” Colada cut in, getting both the invisible voice and her sister to pause for a moment, the latter looking at her in surprise, though the former may have as well, Colada couldn’t tell. Colada tried to turn her head to where she’d heard the voice but wasn’t absolutely sure that she managed it. “When you caught it you’re um… outline?”
“Silhouette.” Said Berry and ‘the wind’ at the same time.
Colada nodded. “Yea that. It glowed. I could see you.” Colada took a moment to collect herself as Berry looked on in a mixture of confusion and worry. “Oh!” She said suddenly, remembering a lesson she’d been taught.. “Um. Thank you for catching the fish tank, uh, whatever your name is.”
“It… wasn’t a problem. And my name’s Jack.”
Berry glanced again to the corner, to Jack and, unseen by Colada, Jack glanced back to Berry. Each of their glances held the same unsaid question. ‘Is this a good thing or something I need to worry about?’ When they met each other’s gaze and saw the same question reflected back at them they both turned to look at Colada, though Colada only saw the movements of her sister of course she seemed to get the gist of what had just happened and, in the face of the curious worried glance that had been leveled at her, asked the only acceptable question for such a moment.
“What?”
“Alright that’s the preliminary paperwork in order, uh, Sam. We’re scheduling a test session as we speak which will happen sometime next week, we do need you to come back sometime tomorrow though to fill out a few more things including a more restrictive version of the NDA you signed today. Swing by whenever you have time and we should be able to fit you in.”
“Alright, sounds like a plan.”
“Good to hear. We’ll see you then Mister, uh, Missus, uhm… which-”
“Whichever.”
Yay! Always glad to see this story update. It's an interesting concept that I would pursue if I had any idea where it would end up going. But I always love stories where the main character is forced into non-conventional arrangements.
And about the non-binary thing, I honestly don't care. I mean, I'm straight and male, but most of my online presences have feminine sounding names. As a result, I really don't care about pronouns.
And if I was a literal ghost, I don't think I would care much about gender.
I want to make a joke, but it won’t fit. Plus, not a lotta people would get it.
9152618
Yea I don't honestly expect it to be a big deal I just felt like I needed to get ahead of the potential that it may become a big deal.
9152653
Yep, totally understand.
Being in a fandom of "love and tolerance" helps, but does not negate the possibility.
I'm always excited to see nonbinary characters on fimfiction, to be honest. One of my best friends takes this exact approach to gender, so it always makes me smile to see elsewhere. More generally, I just found this story, and I have to say I'm already hooked!
been a bit sense I've read from this story. Is this a flashback or something? How are sam and jack related?
9152875
Jack and Sam are in a relationship and this particular entry is an aside to what's currently happening back on 'earth' where Jack originates from.
Hold on a second. Is ghere a chapter missing? I am sure I remember reading about him catching the fishtank before! Yet, this is the first time its mentioned! Was a chapter removed? Was the scene edited out? Am I missing something?! Have I finally gone off the deep end?! Did I read it in the future and remember it in the past?! I'm so confused!
Can you help me straighten this out?
9152926
I don't remember writing about him catching the fish tank before but I once double posted the same chapter to a story twice with a month's space between them so I'm certainly not the best bellwether for having a grasp on reality.
When this happened i thought that i had missed a chapter.
9152940
I guess I did skip about a chapter's worth of goings on didn't I?
My intent was to sort of reinforce the idea that Jack didn't think it was worth mentioning by not actually following the event as it happened but it seems like I telegraphed that idea rather poorly and confused some people instead.
9152928
I don't remember the whole scene, but it went something like this.
They were walking down the road, in no real hurry because they haven't seen her in weeks anyway, what's a few more minutes to stop at the pet shop? They might have agreed to go to a candy store afterwards to pick up berry something to "save" her from the terrible hospital food.
They get to the pet store and jack decides to wait just outside the door, why waste his minimal energy on following them in and around.
The tank to be broken is situated so that its visible from the front window, in clear view of jack. After a minute or so, she wants to look at the tank on the top shelf. And jack, being the smart guy that he is, knows its a bad idea, so he takes the opportunity to get through the door as ponies, (either a single stallion or a small group of fillies, can't quite remember) pass through. Just as he gets to her, the tank falls, and having the reflex of catching something that falls, he catches the tank. Not realising how much energy it takes, he quickly realized he won't be able to hold on long, so he either set it on the floor or on the nearby counter.
He looks up to see everybody staring at him. He either looks up while its in his hands, or just after he set it down, then the chapter ends on a cliffhanger as it usually does.
I know for sure that the tank part of the scene went mostly like that, but the rest came back to me as I wrote it.
I see a few possible options on what happened since you apparently haven't written it.
1, you did write it, but reality shifted.
2, you haven't written it yet, but you will
3, I fell asleep shortly after reading chapter 6 or interlude 2 and I drempt it.(either creating it outright, reading it from the future, or from a parallel universe)
Or, most silly, 4, the mendala effect happened and un-existed the chapter.(essentially 1, but on a scale that's bigger than just me)
(Does this sound like something you would write?)
Either way, I really enjoyed this chapter, and I excitedly wait for the next!
So... genitalia of... which?
9152629
Seems like food under a communist regime ;^)
So which allosomes does Sam have? XX or XY?
Groan... Transgender?
9153251
Nope, none of the above. Kinda weird, but hey.
9153251
9153250
9153096
I love how, as an author, you’re constantly told to show, not tell. Yet, as soon as you introduce a non bianary (not trans btw) character, people want to know the exact physiology of the fictional character that you just made up. It’s unimportant for the story, so who cares?
Sam hasn’t had a gender assigned to them the whole story, why is it now an issue?
9152950
Nah I got it. It would've been interesting to see it happen but I really like the angle you took of Jake not particularly paying it any mind.
9152653
And unfortunately, it clearly was. But I think it's really cool that you have a non-binary character. It's nice to see some positive examples on this site.
9153096
Why do you think you need to know? It's not going to make Sam a different character and it's not going to matter to the story, which I'll point out is Teen rated and doesn't have a Sex tag.
9153460
Ah, dont worry about actually answering. My reasons are completely un noteworthy, and you’re right, it has no impact on the story as a whole. I was just slightly interested, just enough to comment.
9153561
I don’t actually, I was just curious. I’m reading a story, and would like further information on a character. The only true way to get that was ask the author. So I asked a simple question, one that they truly didn’t need to answer and I’d be Okay with.
9153679
Sorry if I came across as rude or snappy, you can never be sure if someone’s asking in good faith on the internet so I may have been overly aggressive in my response.
The truth is I don’t have an answer. Sam has always just been Sam to me.
9152950
Jack's first big interaction with the public of the town. Was hoping for a chapter to follow it or at least get a flashback to it cause it sounded extremely tense.
9153460
So it's like the script for a game where the player is always referred to as he/she?
9153250
The actual term would be chromosomes.
If you must.
Doesn't make it a real thing, but as long as it doesn't take over the whole story.
I'm just here for some ghosts.
9153831
In a sense? The simple explanation is just someone who doesn’t think of themselves as male or female.
9153460
Being passive-aggressive makes you look like a bitch. Don't be passive-aggressive just because you feel like you need to defend something. If it's worth defending with physical violence, then it's worth the effort; otherwise all you're doing is running your mouth to people who already don't give a shit.
Do that; stop giving a shit.
9153902
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_chromosome
"An allosome (also referred to as a sex chromosome, heterotypical chromosome, heterochromosome,[1][2] or idiochromosome[3]) is a chromosome that differs from an ordinary autosome in form, size, and behavior. The human sex chromosomes, a typical pair of mammal allosomes, determine the sex of an individual created in sexual reproduction. Autosomes differ from allosomes because autosomes appear in pairs whose members have the same form but differ from other pairs in a diploid cell, whereas members of an allosome pair may differ from one another and thereby determine sex."
9153460
At least five people, judging by the likes that Ephedianroyalty got (not really sure why I got more dislikes than them when I said pretty much the same thing).
Because
1: You only mentioned that Sam was "non bianary" now, and the presence of that word in the authors notes was easier to notice than the absence of pronouns.
2: To lack a Gender one has to lack Allosomes, and it is not possible (for humans at least) to live without them. I know this is science-fiction (with the non-magical portal and all), but credibility is still important, you know?
9154070
I guess in the purely scientific aspect that's the state of things. I always approached the LGBT community and the various identities within it from the idea of a self. In the great scheme of things the statement "I am genderless." doesn't really seem all that strange (to me) from "I am." Everybody defines themselves and who they are in the most comfortable way. So I'm sure you're correct, scientifically speaking, and that allocells are vital and thus required but to me I care infinitely more about what identity people have given themselves and going from there.
But at the end of the day I'm just some dude writing shitty fanfics so meh.
9154123
Emotions are important, but i value truth and justice highest.
9154123
Not even in a scientific case. Gender has long since been separated from physical sex, and even that's becoming understood as more fluid.
9153679
Well you asked a question almost always used to be rude or invalidate uncommon gender identies. Be aware of that.
9154147
You don't, if you ignore actual scientific studies that disagree with you. Gender and sex are different.
9154481
I appreciate what you're trying to do, I really do. That said, you're trying to have a in depth discussion on gender identities in the comment section of a MLP fanfiction. This is not the hill you want to die on, I guarantee.
This is not to say that you can't do this, just that if you want to continue the discussion could you take it to PM's for my sake? I don't like having a never ending flood of drama on my stories and really don't want to end up with a multipage back and forth of comments that continually ping my notifications.
9154555
Yeah okay, I'll leave it alone. I just figured someone ought to say this stuff.
9154477
I am very much aware about how tactless it is to ask a real person that question. Which is not what I did. What I did was ask clarifying details on a fictional character we had just learned Identifies as non-binary. People get upset at the stupidest things today.
I totally get what you’re saying though. It normally is a very insensitive question.
9152925
I may have to reread so I understand the context better. Keep writing! This is a good story
Can I be honest, since everyone's having the non binary conversation?
I've pretty much been skipping the Sam parts of every chapter already.
She's kinda boring an irrelevant to... y'know... the pony stuff. What we came here for.
I would much prefer to have actually had the scene of what happened with the fish tank than to keep hearing about a character that hasn't mattered once in the entire story so far.
I do enjoy most of the ghost stuff though, it's intriguing.
9155374
Thanks for the input!
I was actually torn about how to do the Sam bits as the other option I was considering was having them explain the relevant details when they arrived. The reason I didn’t do that is because I wanted to build up to the arrival itself.
Though maybe it’s less how I chose to give that information and more that I’ve dragged it on for too long and now it’s becoming tedious?
9155432
You could also have tried having Jack talk about Sam a bit during the stuff in Equestria. Maybe thinking about it. Nothing special but stuff he remembers. It's a lot better of a use of tell not show than the weird time skip created by the fish tank thing.
If there's some actual importance to what she's doing in the real world... Honestly I haven't seen any of it yet. Doesn't seem like it does.
I'd rather have a tiny bit of surprise when she eventually does turn up (or tbh that she doesn't show up at all, she seems to have the least character of anyone in the story so far, I'd much prefer that time spent more on Rainbow or Berry) than being annoyed at her in advance because we keep getting bits of information that really have nothing to do with the ongoing plot and aren't funny or interesting on their own.
You are kind of half right. If you were just setting her up for a paragraph or so at the beginning of a chapter and she appeared at the end of it, it would be a lot less annoying. It's not the only reason, but it would keep me from skipping so much out of boredom.
On the other topic, the reason I'm a bit sour about the fish tank thing is because it's a very important moment for Jack and the ponies. Not only is it kinda weird to not see something very important to the characters, but the audience knowing about it would have made him sitting around unsure of what will happen with Berry have more tension for the readers than just leaving us slightly confused and thinking we've missed something.
It would only really make sense if it was a story from only Berry's perspective, but even then it would probably have been better to have made the moment he was seen happen at some other time she could see.
Out of curiousity, do you think Sam will actually add anything to the story? Since we already have quite a few characters we haven't really had a chance to work through their reactions and stuff with Jack yet. If she ends up in equestria as another ghost then we'll just have two ghosts, only now they have less reason to interact with the ponies because they like each other greatly. If she ends up as a living person in equestria then it will take away from the interest in the other characters in Jack, which unless it's going to be 20-30 chapters away will mean he's left feeling kinda superfluous.
You haven't finished with your initial premise, is what I mean. The only good use of her I can see is perhaps as a surprise villain. But otherwise she'd be best left to a new arc or sequel story.
Of course this is my opinion, not some grand truth. Apologies for rambling.
9153460
well, not mentioning the fact that they are Non-binary at all until now, well that's just bad world building, plus we're supposed to care about this character, gender admittedly not a major thing in the development, but still, if we are supposed to see/feel it helps, but not too much in overall character establishing.
9153460
I think the problem is you didn't show, you just told. One paragraph at the end of someone I have no clue about talking to someone I can barely remember and them being confused on what pronoun to use does nothing but confuse me. Then I see this authors note and Im all like... "Oh.. ok was Sam important at all and I forgot?"
My question still holds though, is Sam important? Will Sam be used as an emotional crutch to help Jack? Im going to have to go through this again and find all mentions of Sam but all I remember from this story is Jack dying, able to be seen by Berry and then running an errand for her and him meeting Applejacks dead parents or something. If you wanted to show more do it in multiple flashbacks and be subtle like describe the clothing and features of Sam being... I dunno androymous? Or female but always wearing boyish clothes or something like that. I don't know anything about nonbinary people and honestly I could care less but you have a chance to make me care with your character but as it is now I was just like, "Huh.. whats going on here, I miss a chapter?"
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Ok so the hell does non-binary mean? I looked it up a Wikipedia it didn't not help at all, if anything, just made me more confused. Does it mean that they have both, none, one but different from body style or just that the identify as something else? I am not trying to a douche here but I have no idea and while they seem to have very little importance thus far it seems the author is setting them up to be.
9162504
To be blunt, it's a tumblr gender.
Based on the (admittedly anecdotal) evidence of the people I have seen claim to be non binary, it's pretty much just ordinary people who occasionally feel the need to say that they're actually a different gender when they're wearing different clothes. Quite often girls, but not always.
You can try to get solid answers on what it means, but like most things that are made up it's intentionally vague so they don't have to deal with the science coming in and ruining it.
Looking up posts from individuals in that particular club, things vary from people who are literally just tomboys and putting a different name on it, to what might be future transexuals trying to look for a label between that and normality.
Regardless, this non binary stuff really shouldn't be relevant to the story. It's attached to a character that hasn't done anything interesting and just brings in a lot of stuff that takes focus away from the story rather than the arguments that are so popular right now.
9162504
A non-binary person is a person who doesn’t think of themselves as male or female, basically. As Remnant pointed out, it’s a very wide definition and, as such, contains a wide variety of people.
Regardless of whether or not Non-binary is or isn't a thing or if it's relevant to the story is null. This is fanfiction, give it a bit of leniency we aren't judging for Pulitzer prizes here, just let the author have a little fun if they like Non-binary. Frankly I like this story's concept and I'd be bitter to see them become disheartened to write cause a bunch of people got a stick up their bum.
9154070
Actually, when you start talking about trans and such issues you have to remember that sex is the word that refers to genetic and at-birth sexual characteristics, while gender refers to the more nebulous "mental" state of things.