All-American Girl · 10:59pm May 8th, 2012
Yup, this is the secret project I've been working on for the past couple of months. The art took less time, but it was easier to write the story than draw.
The story is a roman a clef, which is basically a self-insert with changes, for those not familiar with the genre. Yup, I'm a Hispanic originally from LA, I spent years in the Navy and was stationed, in Yoko, Rota and Pearl, though I wish I was a famous novelist (well, half of that is true; my novel will be available for sale at the end of the year, hopefully.) My wife did serve in the Army, she's originally from DC and we met in Hawaii. We live in Winchester, and she's a freelance artist and responsible for the art in our webcomic.
As for the rest, well, I leave it to you which is real and which is not.
It was a challenge to write, but one I felt needed to be done: I'm tired of the "humans are evil" stories I've read in Equestria, and at the time of writing, I'd never read a story where a pony was raised in Earth amongst humans (I didn't know about My Little Dashie until well after this story was complete and in its second edit.) One thing that concerned me was how such a child like DJ would be accepted on modern Earth; we've seen or read enough media to know that what is "other" is not exactly welcome on our world - we have problems enough accepting the differences from "ideal" in our world be it skin color, religious or political beliefs or sexual orientation. By no means am I knocking what the people in the 60s Civil Rights Issues went through or the struggles of LGBT folks today, but an alien - a true, non-human alien - would probably have a much worse time than either of the previous groups, which is why I chose to play that.
I've also read enough stories were humans are considered a myth in Equestria, and where they're portrayed as such, they're usually envisioned as monsters. Lyra notwithstanding, I suspect that humans are the bogeyponies under the bed that young foals worry about at night, that are shown as the evil unnatural monsters in films and plays, and that would probably color pony thoughts every much. So when a whole world of monsters that have relatively easy access to your world, you'd probably have a very uneasy time about it - especially when you discover that your daughter, missing since birth, has lived the majority of her life on that world. Such thoughts would be uncomfortable to many, indeed.
As to why I made Rarity DJ's mother? The fashionista strikes me as the most intolerant of the bunch - she was very much hesitant to admit to the snobs in Canterlot that the uncouth ponies behind her were her friends (she eventually did, so hope springs eternal, and I've also mentioned that in the story.) So for a child of hers to be raised by monsters/humans, well, maybe she could deal with a child raised by gryphons or dragons (see the excellent story The Ambassador's Son for an example of that), but a human?
Ultimately, public reaction will decide if I write the sequel. I've got something worked on, but we shall see. Meanwhile, questions and thoughts are most welcome.
I should point out, thanks to Cody MacArthur Fett, that people change, which is what I had in mind for Rarity. I don't think I could have said it better than he, so I'll just paste ihs words here.
Well, looking at the reception on your fist chapter a sequel seems likely. Are the rest of your chapters going to be that long? I don't mind as I can read all day, but not everyone has that attention span.
Making the humans the boogeyman of the pony world somewhat reflects most HIE stories that have humans as evil beings. Oh the irony.
I would be interested if you got a little bit more into that aspect of the story. Meeting creatures that you previously believed to be monsters and being proven so wrong is fun.