Rose Lizhi is a young kirin attending the School of Friendship. She and her family are the first kirin to move to Ponyville.
Cover image is a screencap from The Last Problem.
Chapters (1)
- Member Since 2nd Apr, 2019
- offline last seen 2 hours ago
Mica
I write well when I am brave enough to speak my mind. Soy milk fund
Mica
Joined 2nd Apr, 2019 ·
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I like all the kirin worldbuilding you did.
Since the protagonist has a defined personality, why is this in second-person?
Also, what does ABC stand for?
10266358
This is second person point of view because the narration is "you," instead of "I" or "he/she."
ABC is American Born Chinese.
10266358
I'm guessing "American Born Chinese." Google unfortunately doesn't help.
I also agree about the second person part. I think it would be better in first person. Especially since this is supposed to be something that is from the character's perspective and based on the author's experience.
The story itself is interesting. It both works well as it was, but could be expanded further.
10266381
I meant, why did you need to use second-person to tell this story?
Oof. This sort of cultural conflict is unfortunately all too common. Even the show touched upon it, with Spike grappling against his draconic nature. Though, he was never really exposed to dragon culture - or lack thereof - at all. Rose's story serves as a negative counterexample to his success. And a reminder of why empathy for another's values is so critical. In these times especially, that's a message worth spreading.
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To be honest, I'm not sure why this is in second-person. It just kind of came out that way as I wrote. Perhaps I was talking to/scolding myself.
I would say I'm somewhere between Stage 4 and 5.
This is going to fly over nearly everyone's heads.
Nearly.
10266420
I like that it's in second-person. I think it's important that it feels personal, like a guide.
Oof. Hits very close to home.
While I know all "my" places to eat around me, I always take a fried chicken sandwich with fries any day. Even so, eating "my culture" dishes is like a novelty amongst my friends, a destination to go to every now and then. It makes me feel special if a little bit awkward, like I have to be an expert on the subject matter despite not having really lived it firsthand.
While I've grown older and began to learn my parents home language, going back to their home country is still foreign. Like I'm a tourist who happens to know too many people there (aunts, uncles, and cousins) , and they knowing I don't "really" belong but still enjoy my company regardless. It's incredibly complicated and strange situation to communicate and I doubt I did 8t a modicum of justice. But you did very well here with so few words. I'm very glad there's someone out there that has had similar feels as I do.
Missing word.
Hm. This was... something. More than a touch uncomfortable to read, I have to say, which I suppose may be part of the point.
The immigrant's lot, eh? You either feel terrible for not fitting into the culture you feel you should want to join, or you feel terrible for throwing away yours.
I like the choice of writing this in the second person. At least on my end, it made it a lot easier to empathize with the main character.
The issue with her name's probably the one that hit closest to home for me, chiefly because it's one I've run into a lot with my own. I mean, your name's you, after all, your identity you give to the world. Giving that up isn't exactly a trivial matter, and changing what you call yourself is a pretty strong symbol for how you're trying to change your identity. It's especially poignant in these cases, of course, but Lord knows it's tempting to just take the easy way out of the daily shame of trying and failing to explain to people how not to mangle your name.
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Thank y'all for sharing your stories. I can definitely relate to the experiences that you described. Maybe not so much when it comes to food and my name, but I definitely feel like a foreigner when I go to visit relatives. "A tourist who happens to know too many people there" is a very good way of describing the feeling.
Your headcanon of the kirin being an ultraconservative, traditionalist, Asian-style society is an interesting one. Considering the kirin are part of Eastern mythology, it makes a lot of sense. The kirin, without hesitation, accepted their leader's demand to get rid of their speech and feelings.
Autumn Blaze must be an outlier.
I found this story in the "Also Liked" column, and I found it really interesting! Although I haven't been through the types of struggles the main character here has been through, I can empathize with how it may feel to do so. Your writing definitely helped convey those feelings well.
This was uncomfortable for good reason, I hated to see Rose completely abandon her original upbringing... I really liked how the use of second person aided in that, and I normally don't like the use of second person perspective. I was cringing with her a little when she scolded her mom about the hot pot. And then there's the ending... It's one thing to embrace the culture of a new country you've been brought to, and it's quite another to show disgust with yourself for being foreign. Rose may be Rose and not Lizhi anymore, but she's still a Kirin and just as worthy of friendship and acceptance as ponies.
The headcanons you have for the Kirin was also cool too. It makes sense they'd have a more conformist and collectivist culture given their issues they have when their emotions get out of control. And the whole thing of turning into Nirik being a natural part of their life cycle and culture was cool too, I might have to use that myself if I ever write about them. Kirin are just cool in general if you ask me.
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I sometimes feel a little like a foreigner visiting some relatives even when they're in the same country... But that might just be social awkwardness.
Markiplier's brother swears he isn't a furry, and his long-running comic is really about cultural differences and the challenges of growing up biracial, but c'mon...
i.redd.it/qe36jee6bsu41.png
Because Kirins are good at surviving explosions?
Let me guess: That was due to the fact Kirins are fireproof?
Good story!
I enjoyed reading it.
I find that this touches on an odd error that pony writers make. The rest of the story -- and what you intend this statement to stand for -- are all fantastically done. It reminds me of reading short stories and novels by Amy Tan, Laurence Yep, and others growing up. While your section headings indicate stages, it doesn't feel dry and formulaic by any means. So, what exactly is the error I'm referring to then? It's really just in the way that race and species are drastically different in MLP -- for humans, people of other races have remarkably superficial differences, we're all of the same species, and we don't possess anything that would actually give functional differences. What marks one's race outside of DNA is where your ancestors came from. Someone could find through my DNA that my ancestors have biological roots in Europe and Asia, but those things don't really carry any weight or definition about who I am or how I live -- the culture that I possess could be (and is) entirely different from the ones my ancestors had. Their homeland and genes do not change how I live, nor do I have any connection -- physical or emotional -- to them.
With MLP, the races of ponies are all functionally different to the point that they would have to have -- and do, from what we see in the show -- differing biology. While the races can obviously mix, we see that this also presents mixed challenges. Unicorns and earth ponies have different developmental stages. Pegasi are able to create living conditions that no other creatures can stand. Crystal ponies have some funky glowy shit going on with them. Finding out where a pony is from doesn't really tell you anything about them -- instead, their race does. Chopping off the wings of a pegasus wouldn't make them an earth pony, the skeletal structure and different magic (at least, the one not related to their wings) would remain. For unicorns to have their horns, the skulls on those motherfuckers would have to be built different. Plus, magic itself would have to have some implications on their physiology to work the way it does, even a little. The specialization of doctors in this world for ponies alone would be insane. There are already different education systems for (pony) race-specific needs in Equestria.
Now, when you factor in the other creatures -- griffons, changelings, kirin, dragons, and more -- that diversity gains even greater levels. First off: while there isn't a reason to distrust a person based on race, in the MLP world, it isn't entirely off for a pony to fear a dragon. Changelings, griffons, and ponies do not even eat the same things. Ponies can't eat gems. Or emotions. Or all kinds of things. Having two of these species mix would result in hybrids, not mixed races.
Earth has only one truly sapient species (so far), a world like Tolkien's Middle-earth presents something a little closer to MLP's dilemma in that the races would have to be very different to function -- and across the canon, they do show this -- and culturally these differences result in many issues in-story. It also results in four-plus sapient species (they're called races, but functionally, they implicate species). In MLP, the line between sapience and sentient gets blurry at times -- but MLP has 1) ponies 2) griffons 3) dragons 4) changelings 5) yaks 6) others [1] over six sapient species on the same planet. This alone makes it automatic xenofiction. The types of genres that normally have this type of sapient biodiversity are things like Star Trek, the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, and generally, most sci-fi. Even fantasy often has the weird middle ground of humanoid-looking creatures imposing limits. MLP doesn't have that at all -- it has typical sci-fi tier issues, with multiple sapient species at essentially the same civilization capabilities all living and squabbling around the same time.
The idea that Rose could identify outside of species does not make sense. The idea that she could identify outside of culture could. A culture, no matter what species are involved, is a construct determined by what goes in and out of it -- Rose's participation makes her Equestrian (as well as from the kirin lands, but her struggle to learn that is part of the story). She can't identify out of biology that is not possible for her to have. There is no glitch in her genetics that could have caused a mismatch that her makes her a pony instead of a kirin, nothing that could mix those two things. This would be like a sapient rabbit saying it would rather be a fox -- or any other two creatures. It's just not a possible change and the psychological barriers are firm, she's not talking about two transferable subgroups -- like the ability to transition from female to male, because what would make those things is different.
Species confusion definitely makes sense in some contexts -- Spike has it, but even the show manages to portray that with the fact that he's learning the reality of his species from lack of exposure. It's not as though a real condition is impacting him and he's 'really a pony' -- Twilight utilizes a species-changing spell at one point, but that's also a fantastical solution that doesn't have any apparent consequences (and those would be reasons for stories exploring the practical ones or that the characters know they're really something else because well, they are in that case). However, Rose's lines here would be better if she were articulating nationalities instead -- and while we both know that nationality can be tied to negative stereotypes (and even prejudice), civic values (what Rose's angst is about) isn't inherently about phenotypes.
...This is probably one of the longer comments I've typed in a while! Very sorry if it was too much for you -- I like to talk a lot about good stories, and good ideas. You used both here. I also just get frustrated with the over-humanization of ponies that overlooks the elements of speculative fiction their world has. In this case, by treating race and species as identity for these fantasy creatures instead of a necessary reality, we run into a lot of issues because that's a human condition.
[1] Hippogriffs and kirin are hard to list. Kirin look as though they are similar to ponies, but could be a hybrid, whereas hippogriffs, in traditional mythology, are hybrids -- and if that follows, they'd be the result of pony-griffon heritage. I'm also including ponies as a monolith here, since any further breakdown is headcanon territory.
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Thanks for your thoughtful response.
I think what you're trying to say is human race =/= race in Equestria and I agree, it's not a 1-to-1 comparison. But so much of MLP's plot is a parallel to the human experience, especially the New Generation movie, that you could forgive me and other pony writers for considering them the same.
I think Equestria is like an idealized version of the messy concept of human race, simplified and symbolized in a way for kids to understand. Because biological distinctions are easier for a child to understand rather than abstract cultural differences. I don't have any concrete evidence for this, but I think how a child first understands about things like race and gender is predominantly through visible differences in the human body. Someone with tight curly hair and dark skin is likely to be of sub-Saharan African descent. Someone like me with monolid eyes and straight black hair is likely to be of East Asian descent. I don't think a child is necessarily racist for coming to those conclusions. In Equestria, you do have "exceptions" like Scootaloo and Tempest (and arguably Spike), but it's still very clear to the child that wings = pegasus and horn = unicorn. There's no clear equivalent in the human world. Just because you have monolid eyes, tan skin, and straight black hair doesn't make you East Asian by default. Yes, it's pretty likely, but it's not automatically true.
Even if race in the human world and in MLP are very different, I still think the idea of pony races in My Little Pony is at least somewhat rooted in our human experience with race.
I fear we're reeeally straying from discussing the story but I'm happy to take this to PM if you wanna chat more.
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Mhm, that's a fair assessment. Race in humans and race in MLP come with different implications, and humans don't even have to contend with species as a dynamic the way ponies do. If human racial issues were more accurately aligned in the show, it'd just have been the tribal narratives, really.
I didn't get into G5 and when commenting on stories, I've tried to be mindful about referring to only as much canon is necessary for the individual story. This is a G4 story that uses all nine seasons, so examples from all nine seasons would make sense for referencing.
I agree, that wouldn't be a fault of the child, it's a natural part of the learning process. And MLP does -- and has -- shown lessons very much that way since the earlier seasons, when we primarily just had Gilda, Griffonstone, Zecora, breezies, and other types of ponies, with other creatures being not yet developed or not appearing entirely. But MLP also stopped at the leap I highlighted -- that's something that some fans have done. I have never seen it outside of fanfiction; I'm pretty sure that the show both never intended to go as in-depth and that the writers realized that the symbolism, allegory, and parallel understanding could only go so far. To carry it across those boundaries results in illogical bits.
10599850
Um can I perhaps Have the link to that please?
11524439
https://twokinds.keenspot.com/archive/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/TwoKinds
https://twokinds.fandom.com/wiki/Twokinds
11524082
Um can I have the link to some Kirin bamboo recorder music?
11524082
Very good story my friend. But now I think I see how it would affect everyone negatively also why didn’t twilight learn about this they could have use this in the school of friendship
Flutter why could probably fix that, at least in the short term if asked. Of course probably "I" don't know that yet?
((Sorry about the double-post, common error of mine.))
Ponies apparently haven't invented fireproof paint yet, or it doesn't work at that high a temperature. "My" fire for must burn very clean if it isn't black with carbon. I seem to remember DRAGON armor coming in various colors, but maybe that was just for the special occasion and would be burned off the first time it got fire-breathed on? Maybe "I" am just too polite to mention the problem, so it never got solved?
Greek mytologie like start, I love it!
Overall a bit saddening, but a good story