Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, Her Royal Highness, the Princess Twilight Sparkle, sat on her balcony savoring her morning tea. She had just finished raising the sun, and, from her high perch, she could watch the golden light spill over the landscape. Her tea, still too hot to drink, levitated just under her nose to allow her to inhale its heavenly scent.
As the ruler of all Equestria, Twilight was often very busy, and so she had learned to savor such fleeting moments of calm. They were a time to appreciate the little things, oft overlooked but virtually important; things that might otherwise escape the notice of royalty.
For instance, the flock of songbirds that landed on her balcony. “Hello, little ones,” Twilight said. “Well aren’t you beautiful? I haven’t seen birds on my balcony in a long time. I think the security fans Celestia installed scared you away.” They warbled and cheeped back at her.
Twilight had a little bag of birdseed sitting on her balcony table for just such an occasion, and she scattered the seed on the ground for them to enjoy. “But don’t worry. I had the fans removed. Now you can come to the palace whenever you want, and the city should be much safer for ponies with wings.”
One of the birds, a little blue one, pecked at the seed Twilight had left on the ground. Then it lifted her head to her, and spoke.
“Um…” Princess Twilight frowned. “Yes, that’s… that’s what I said. But how did you make those words, appear? And, how do I know that ninety-eight ponies liked it? Did you do something? Are you magic?”
The bird warbled, ruffled its feathers, then said:
“Is that… Daring Do?” Twilight pulled her head back as she stared at the little blue bird. “Well that’s just rude! Not to mention wrong. Lots of pegasi were born without wings. Maybe they got them added with magic later in life, or had a birth defect and needed surgery. Plus, I’m a pegasus as much as I am a unicorn and an earth pony, and I wasn’t born with wings.”
“I mean…” Twilight ruffled her feathers. “That’s all true, but it’s not exactly what I said. I have been taking up traditional crafts, but I didn’t mention it to you before you-”
“Okay, you know what?” Twilight conjured a bird cage from the thin air, and forcefully stuffed the little blue bird into it. “I don’t know what you are, if you were created by Discord, or a very irresponsible wizard, but you’re clearly magic and I don’t think you should be running around Canterlot on your own. So we’re just going to put you in the secure storage room until I can figure out…”
Four more identical blue birds landed on Twilight’s balcony. Together, they all spoke:
Twilight looked over her balcony railing. There were a lot of little blue birds in her garden, and more settling on the distant roofs of Canterlot.
“Raven!” she called to her assistant. “Cancel my meetings for the day. I’m flying to Ponyville. There’s an impending friendship problem. And uh… see if anypony knows where these birds came from.”
Raven looked up from her notes. “From eggs, your highness."
When Twilight arrived in Ponyville, she discovered the other Elements of Harmony already assembled in the castle’s map room.
“Oh, girls.” She slammed the door shut with a hindleg and sat in her chair. “Thank goodness you’re here. I think we might have a big problem.”
“You have a gift for understatement, Twilight,” Rarity agreed. “AK Yearling is an inspiration for millions of ponies who love her books. What will they think, seeing her tweet such hateful garbage?”
“...wait, what?” Twilight asked.
“Uh.” Rainbow Dash’s narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me? AK Yearling is just saying what everypony is thinking.”
“Girls, I wasn’t talking about…” Twilight gestured up at the cage she still carried, with the little blue bird inside. “I was talking about these magical birds that repeat what everypony says to them.”
“Right. Her tweets.” Applejack nodded. “Came right outta left field for me. I had no idea AK Yearling was a TERP.”
“What?” Twilight furrowed her brow. “What’s a TERP? Do you girls know where all these birds came from?”
“They came from eggs, Twilight.”” Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “And, Trans-Exclusionary Radical Pegasus. They’re a hate-group who believe that if you weren’t born with wings, you aren’t a ‘real’ pegasus.”
“Oh, I see.” Rainbow Dash spread her hooves. “So now I’m in a ‘hate group’ just because I believe it matters that I grew up with wings?”
“You say that stuff around me again-” Fluttershy snapped and slammed her hooves on the table “-and you’ll spend the rest of your life without wings.”
“Woah woah.” Pinkie Pie leapt between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy before anypony could escalate the situation further. “Okay, I think, that the room has gotten a little tense, and what we all need right now is to calmly talk things out over cupcakes. How does that sound?”
Most ponies grumbled something to the effect of “Fine.” Twilight glanced at the bird in her cage.
“Okay,” Pinkie went on. “Rainbow Dash, why don’t you go first? Tell us how you feel.”
“I feel like growing up with wings was a big deal, and really important to who I am, and somepony can’t just go magically grow some primary feathers and say that oh look I’m a pegasus now.” She glanced at Twilight. “Sorry.”
“Well,” Twilight said. “That seems fair. I don’t agree, since, you know, alicorns are pegasi too. But growing up a pegasus and becoming a pegasus later in life are different. So I get why a pony might feel that way.”
“See?” Rainbow Dash jerked a hoof in Twilight’s direction. “I have trans-pegasus friends and they say I’m right.”
“‘Alicorn,’” Twilight said. “The term is ‘Alicorn.’ And you have exactly one.”
Fluttershy lifted her nose, her tone sharp and judgemental. “Okay, so explain this to me.” She pointed at Twilight’s bird. “Reweet.”
“Okay,” Twilight said, “so you all know the birds exist and think it’s normal that they exist. So something happened to reality and I’m the only one who remembers-”
“Duh,” Rainbow Dash spread her arms. “If anypony can become a pegasus at will, then race doesn’t mean anything. If race doesn’t mean anything, then there’s no such thing as interracial relationships, and saying there’s no such thing as interracial relationships is super racist.”
With an air of finality, Rainbow Dash sat back and folded her legs. “So basically, if you think ponies can just go around growing wings all the time, you’re a secret unicorn supremacist.”
“Uh…” AJ lifted a hoof. “I don’t see how unicorn supremacy came into this. Wasn’t the whole point that there would be no more races?”
“Exactly! Alicorns want to destroy everypony’s racial identity. Imagine what that would be like?” Rainbow pointed at AJ with a hoof. “A world where anypony can be a unicorn or a pegasus or an earth pony any time they want.”
“Actually, that sounds lovely.” AJ shrugged. “I enjoy my traditions, sure as sure, but getting rid of the last vestiges of old tribalist discrimination would be-”
“Stop enjoying my dystopia!” Rainbow shouted, throwing her hooves to the air.
“What about me?” Fluttershy demanded. “Growing up flying isn’t at all important to my self-identity. Does that make me less of a pegasus?”
“No, of course not.”
“And what about Scootaloo? I’d like to see you tell her that flying is an intrinsic part of being a pegasus.” Her tone, already sharp, turned nakedly contemptuous. “Walk right up to her face and call her a dirty earth pony.”
Rainbow shot out of her chair, her voice rising to a shout. “I would never do that!”
“Then why do you care?” Fluttershy shouted right back. “Why is it so important to you that you can sort the world into ‘pegasus’ and ‘not-pegasus’ and everypony has to go along with your definition?”
“You don’t get it,” Rainbow Dash pointed at the little blue bird in the cage. “Retweet.”
After a long pause, Rarity cleared her throat. “And?”
“And-” Rainbow Dash spread her hooves- “-everypony knows that if you’ve been attacked for being in a group, that means you own that group forever and get to say who is and isn’t a part of it. That’s just logic.”
“But, wait.” Pinkie frowned. “That’s why AK Yearling cares, but why do you care?”
“Because…” Rainbow Dash spluttered. “It’s important. And stuff.”
Pinkie sighed, reached out, and put a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Rainbow…” she spoke, her words so gentle. “Did you see Trans-Exclusionary Radical Pegasus and jump on board because you wanted to be a ‘radical pegasus’ and you didn’t know what the first two words meant?”
“No!” Rainbow fumed, but her eyes went down to the floor. “And it’s not two words. It’s one really big word.”
“A very big word,” Pinkie agreed. “And you can’t even look it up in the dictionary because it has a dash in the middle.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow kicked the underside of the table with a hoof. “And AK Yearling is one and she’s cool.”
“She uh…” Applejack coughed. “She writes some good books, yeah. But, and I gotta be honest Rainbow, TERPism might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“And trans-pegasi face discrimination all their own,” Rarity said. “Ponies threw clods of dirt at Princess Luna and called her a unicorn poser. You know, until she had them arrested.”
“But I really like her books,” Rainbow mumbled. “You know me. I’m a huge Daring Do fan.”
“You are,” Pinkie agreed. “Life would be easier if Daring Do was a fictional character, and we could just say we love AK Yearling’s books even if she has some crazy, whackjob political views. But since we all know Daring Do is real and also the same person as AK Yearling, somehow, I can see how this really hurt you emotionally. She was your hero.”
“Yeah,” Applejack agreed. “I’m sorry, Rainbow.”
“I’m sorry too,” Fluttershy said. “I wouldn’t actually rip your wings off. Unless you made me really angry.”
“I know. I’m sorry I said…” Rainbow tapped her hooves together. “All that stuff I said. I just don’t want this to be the end of AK Yearling’s career.”
“Maybe she can write another book,” Rarity suggested. “Daring Do and the Public Relations Disaster.”
“Okay, this is all great,” Twilight said, “but can we please get back to-”
From up the hall, Twilight heard the sound of galloping hooves. Then the door to the map room burst open and in charged Starlight, surrounded by a massive flock of the little blue birds. Wide-eyed, panicked, and sweating, she locked eyes on Twilight like a drowning mare spotting driftwood.
“Oh thank goodness you’re here,” she called. “I used magic to make it so that everypony in the world knew my opinions all the time, but something happened, and now other ponies are using it to express their opinions, and they’re wrong!”
Twilight looked at her friends, the cage, Starlight, and the birds, and then nodded firmly. “Starlight,” she said, “if I keep bailing you out of these situations, you’ll never learn. You got yourself into this, and now you’re going to have to suffer a bit to get yourself out of it. I want you to think about what you did.”
She picked up her bird cage and flew away, headed back to Canterlot. Behind her, she heard Starlight cry: “Twilight, you can’t leave me here!”
Starlight’s shriek of agony echoed across all of Ponyville.
As Twilight flew away, she turned her head to regard to the little bird in her cage, and smiled. “Hey, before Equestria goes back to normal, I have a message I’d like to ‘Tweet’ to Princess Celestia. Can you do that?” The bird warbled, which Twilight took as a yes.
Princess Celestia lifted her head from her beach towel, looking at the little blue bird that had landed next to her head.
“What the hell is this?”
Thanks for this, Jax.
For those who are struggling during these times, it's hard enough without transphobes sucking up the air.
If you're transgender, think you are, or know someone who is or might be, here are some good links:
https://ostem.org/page/crisis-hotlines
I feel that, in order for parody to work, you need to be more ridiculous than the thing you're parodying. While I haven't bothered reading Rowling's recent tweets, the general fact remains that parody as a genre has suffered from reality's recent willingness to break people's suspension of disbelief. And it doesn't help that you pointed out a difference in the situation that damages the analogy.
. . . Furthermore, I consider that Twitter must be destroyed.
Jaxie, you magnificent bastard. I read your book.
10285152
Well, Jax is a fox, but I dunno if he's from the desert...
:D
I hate this and also I couldn't not read the whole thing. So it's just like twitter irl. Good job. You bastard. Good job.
10285146
This is something I think everybody right, left, and center can agree on.
Starlight, stopping breaking reality!
10285146
Cato liked your tweet!
Not an advocate of trans myself, but that’s no excuse for discrimination. My personal and religious beliefs have no bearing on whether a fellow human deserves the same respect I’d want to receive. I would think that’s just common sense, but eh, shows what my autistic ass knows.
10285344
Then you don't belong here.
Go away
Dunno what business you think you have weighing in on something like this.
(All y'all downvoting - lukewarm acceptance on my identity is often as bad as outright antipathy. It's demeaning, and the fact that he felt the need to bring it up was irritating. You don't like that, piss off.)
10285344
10285350
You two seem to be in violent agreement. This creates no good in the world except, possibly, my and others' entertainment. Then again, things that entertain me tend to be net negatives like My Little Pony, so perhaps not.
Furthermore, I consider that Twitter must be destroyed.
10285428
I'm trans - I don't accept half measures on my existence.
They can keep their opinions to themselves
Ha! AK Yearling has been hacked! No real author would misspell 'experience'
10285503
Bite me.
This is one of the most Starlight Glimmer things I've ever seen.
10285146
Twitter is the worst way to have an intelligent discussion that humanity has so far invented.
"overlooked but virtually important; things"
"overlooked but vitally important; things"?
(Also, I'm not sure about that semicolon; I don't think it's technically correct, but I could see it being used validly for style there. So I thought I'd mention it but not suggest a particular change.)
"Twilight had a little bag of birdseed sitting on her balcony table for just such an occasion"
...Which does make one wonder a bit, given what she just said about not having seen birds on her balcony since, apparently, some time before she even took the throne. How long has that bag been there, and why? Do the servants switch in a fresh bag now and then, or take the bag in for the winter? Why keep the bag system running when there was a noted continued absence of birds? Not wanting to bother with stopping it (plausible, I can say from, among other things, personal experience), or something else?
...I'm probably putting too much thought into this, at least for the time I have available. :D
"But don’t worry. I had the fans removed."
...
Oh. Or that.
That would explain why she might have brought birdseed out, yes, without any need to launch an inquiry into whether the post of "Master of the Palace Balcony Birdseed Stocks" was an unjustifiable sinecure. :D
...Moving on. :D
"Then it lifted her head to"
"Then it lifted its head to"?
re the first image:
:D
...Yes. A radical plot. Something that's been at the top of the government and known and accepted by basically the entire country for over a thousand years definitely still counts as radical.
"Rainbow Dash’s narrowed her eyes."
"Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes."?
"Twilight.”” Fluttershy"
"Twilight.” Fluttershy"?
"Stop enjoying my dystopia!"
And there I had to stifle laughter to avoid risking waking a housemate. :D
"“You don’t get it,” Rainbow Dash"
"“You don’t get it.” Rainbow Dash"?
"Ponies threw clods of dirt at Princess Luna and called her a unicorn poser. You know, until she had them arrested."
"Hey, out of all the ponies we could actively discriminate against, let's pick the half of the highest level of government who also already went super-powered evil once because people didn't accept her!"
"This is a perfect plan that can't possibly go wrong for us!"
:D
"Daring Do and the Public Relations Disaster"
:D
...Oh Starlight. :D
"head to regard to the little bird"
"head to regard the little bird"?
re the length limit: :D
and re the ending: :D
(Though I'd earlier been wondering if the end joke would be calling back to the beginning with some sort of line about Twilight being exclusionary to non-ponies with wings. :)
Not complaining about the one we did get, though! :D)
(Also, I found what appeared to be A.K. Yearling's insistent spelling an interesting detail.)
10285146
Yeah, the story didn't really undermine my impression from the blog post comments. :D
10285112
Eh, it's not a perfect analogy nor a perfect parody, nor does it need to be in order to show how grotesque and unreasonable Rowling is being.
I do agree that I don't think it quite goes far enough.
For a full breakdown of why the real JK's essay was full of crap, I supply the following links for anyone who is interested:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnstaceyennis/2020/06/11/this-is-the-sequel-jk-rowling-doesnt-want-you-to-read/#1da2439a5165
https://the-orbit.net/ashleyfmiller/2020/06/12/jk-rowlings-anti-trans-post-a-deep-dive/
10285503
Tweets don't obey the normal laws of spelling. Or grammar. Or the Oxford comma.
10285735
Thanks for posting those here too.
I'm so glad you wrote and posted this. My favourite moment was Rarity's "...And?"
I also really liked how you built up the analogy and then subverted/torpedoed it for one moment, with the follow-up of Luna having ponies arrested. Most allegory stories would fall apart from that, but here it was exactly the right level of levity.
A friend of mine is involved in a feminist art collective who've been doing posts through lockdown of weekly activities for children with an inclusive slant. I hope you don't mind, but I forwarded the link for this chapter to them as an idea for how to teach kids about J. K. Rowling.
10286303
Not just for the one moment. There was also a moment in the beginning where Yearling speculates absurdly about Twilight facing oppression as an absolute-[yay]ing-monarch. A powerful as opposed to a despised and disempowered minority.
Furthermore, I consider that Twitter must be destroyed.
I was very confused about this story, because I used a text to voice screen reader and it did not read any of the "tweets" So I was hearing the punch lines but not the setup. (should I insert joke her about discrimination against t2v users? /s) yet, even in that truncated version...it still worked.
Uh I don’t know if you’re AWARE Princess, but ponies aren’t the only CREATURES with wings.
camo.fimfiction.net/omYs123VSsgqAjxXlB0w8UHeNJQ47I9nSZ1iT9j791o?url=https%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fbz9kYjkPdmbtHXcGsWmjEQLjhYMT6USBqweJrWLso2fs3nmq_csr5X7qzvv9H1xuPnAOjF8NGvtQHNLAVm-TQoohTANN3ZFzApAstzWIJjIpcksWFhtknkZMbR4R1tcKr4om-Emh
10288122
Twilight needs to be more WOKE.
10286484
"Further, Twitter must be destroyed," should just be added to the end of all comments.
10286303
You "hope I don't mind"? I'm delighted. Thank you!
10285717
Ha ha, the joke's on you! Because the story is published under CiG's account, I have no power to make these edits.
...
Unless I go fix them in the Gdoc and bother him to reupload it.
Dammit.
Overthinking it is the entire point of this story!
"Radical" means, "I really don't like it" if it's someone you're against, and "I really like it" if it's someone you're for.
There was another joke I ended up not using.
"Look, some ponies have the right kind of wings, and some ponies have the wrong kind, and I am a proud member of a radical right-wing organiza--oh wait now I hear the problem."
This is her story after all!
10288448
... based on what we've seen with pony models, how the heck can they even tell without wings? I forget, does Equestria in your written continuity have DNA testing?
On a serious note, this passage (or tweet, or screencap, whatever the term would be) felt uncomfortable:
camo.fimfiction.net/Y1CSvnQDGcyKJkCgixudyt6XdnoG14XrLQxuye-7AHo?url=https%3A%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2Fer6iJu9dgMdRy1KQGdmb2ysgdhstyZUZhRPucealvDbttdC6h26VFqVxajCoPYTwtSNMMsjoTOz8W7I0eRcKI_fnD9GLknv_LdhTIdhvp95IadTIn_eDZkyV1FLlFNl-IRIpQm-H
The impression given to me is that this is based around JKR's mentioning her experience with sexual assault. But in this case, A.K.'s statement is so juvenile, it's not meant to be taken seriosly. Of course I don't know the details of Rowling's attack, but I don't have any reason to say it didn't happen, or didn't have consequences. I thought that was the attitude we should be pushing towards.
10288597
The idea is that people would have known they were not pegasi before because of their history.
Presumably, they don't have the identical bodies the show uses for cost savings either.
Also, JK used her sexual assault as an excuse to assault others.
10288614
The first point was only semi-serious, but I'm curious. How do you mean by "because of their history?"
About her assault, I'm not saying it qualifies any point she brings up. I just felt like this one joke tweets seems to be trivializing for questioning that it happened. Even though I don't think GapJaxie would want to say that.
10288618
As in, people who knew you before would know you weren't born a pegasus.
And it's her words, used to justify her actions. It's fair game.
10288622
Is it fair game to doubt someone when they speak about experiences with sexual assault or domestic abuse? The latter we know is true because her ex-husband corroborated it.
10288627
Who said anyone was doubting it?
I have 100% confidence that she went through that experience, I have equal confidence that using it as a weapon to be a bigot is uncalled for.
10288629
Okay, thanks for clarifying. What I originally was saying with that particular parody tweet was how it could be seen as claiming that JK is insincerely exaggerating.
10288632
I think it's actually toning it down for the medium, not meant to imply that it was exaggerated.
Something like that is still a pretty gross assault. Not at the level of sexual assault, but that would have required Jax to write sexual assault into Equestria.
10288635
Or to go with the race metaphor in this, an extensive physical assault. I didn't think one plucked feather for a utilitarian purpose really matched up.
10288639
Someone holding me down, forcibly pulling part of my body out, and coldly using it in front of me would be pretty fucking cruel.
10288641
Yes it could probably be compared to a bunch of kids pulling at a black kid's hair out of cruel curiosity. Unquestionably an asshole behavior. But it didn't seem on the level of sexual assault, and because of the absurdism permeating the whole chapter, I didn't realize I was supposed to be taking it seriously.
10288644
For the purposes of the analogy, tying it to race instead of gender makes narrative sense.
10288647
For sure. Just that even within the analogy, the malice and traumatic consequence felt dialed back, rather than an equivalent.
10288651
Right.
As I said, that's a little heavy for the medium.
10288464
Hah, sorry. :D
"Overthinking it is the entire point of this story!"
:D
""Radical" means, "I really don't like it" if it's someone you're against, and "I really like it" if it's someone you're for."
Oh, right, of course, how silly of me. :D
"There was another joke I ended up not using.
"Look, some ponies have the right kind of wings, and some ponies have the wrong kind, and I am a proud member of a radical right-wing organiza--oh wait now I hear the problem.""
Hah!
Yeah, I don't know if that would have fit in the story, but thanks for sharing it in the comments. :)
"This is her story after all!"
Oh, of course, right there in the title and everything. :D
I, for one, welcome the post-tribal transmutational utopia.
And yeah, J. K.'s growing spiral of madness does not reflect well on certain adventurer archeologists.
10285146
Twitter delenda est.
Fuck me that was amazing.
This👆
I really don’t understand people who use Twitter (or any social media, really). It seems like nobody actually likes it, and everybody agrees that it’s a cancer that is swiftly strangling their life out, but they keep using it.
... is social media just drugs you can’t be arrested for using?
10325614
Yes, It literally is drugs, hits of dopamine and all that shiz. They have TEAMS of people whose whole job is to figure out how to make social media more addictive to users. I just use it for the art and memes honestly.
Twilight stares at Starlight. Starlight shifts nervously.
Twilight: Flim and Flam.
Starlight: If you'd heard the song they sung--
Twilight: Flim and Flam.
Starlight: Now, some of their other products are doing really well now that they're being managed by other people--
Twilight: You sold the birds to Flim and Flam?!
Starlight: Well, if you just say what I actually did then it of course it sounds bad!