Visiden Tries It: The Conversion Bureau: Last of My Kind · 6:36am Jan 12th, 2017
Well, after that colon cancer of a blog title, let's go.
I have four people in my follow list, all of who haven't been producing much if at all. The logical and rational conclusion that can be made of this is that my follow list is haunted by a spirit of un-writing which has cursed everyone I put there with literary ennui. That might be changing though. Jake the Army-turned-Trucker Guy has put out something. He may be the one to break the curse. Of course, this is a story he had lying around a long time ago and now only uploaded it. Hey, progress regardless.
Right, so Jake puts out a Conversion Bureau story.
The bulk of whatever drama over the original Conversion Bureau story happened before I got active in this site; a bullet I'm happy to dodge. From what I understand of it is that it's one of those annoying pieces where the author would have been better served writing a pamphlet instead of twisting fiction to lecture people about how they suck. Attaching your story with a premise likely to turn people off at the door doesn't seem like a good idea.
This is, of course, coming from someone who writes about red and black alicorns, alicorn princes, and heterosexual OC/mane 6 ships. So yeah, sometimes one should just say "fuck people" and put out what one wants.
Enough pre-amble. Have a link to the story.
In chapter 1, someone dies.
Yes, that's it. This is, of course, different from Jake's other story "Under a Luminous Sky" which has a Chapter 1 in which someone is murdered or "Princess Twilight Takes a Walk" in which all of Equestria is dying or "Eye of the Beholder" where someone is found dead.
Looking around, the mid-Texan plains stretched out beneath (Celestia), a patchwork of wild woods and cultivated farmland. Of all the places she’d seen in this new world, this humble piece of land was among the most serene.
The plains of Texas are among the most serene places in the world. Jake's American, right? I don't recall him mentioning where he's from, but I'm guessing he's from Ohio. He strikes me as an Ohio man.
Luna stood beside a large bed, a syringe floating above her in a dark blue cloud. Celestia’s horn flared again, and the needle was yanked from Luna's grasp. Luna gasped and spun, glaring at her. “Celestia? Why are you—”
“We can not force conversion on him, sister.”
Luna stomped her hoof. “So, what, we are to merely stand her as he... kills himself?”
“If that is his wish,” she whispered back.
Passive voice on that needle. Again, not wrong, but I don't like it.
Ooh, that's some muddy waters you got there. Suppose this man was not dying of magical radiation, but, instead, had a gun to his temple or a noose around his neck. What's your take on that, Celestia?
Luna rushed forward. “Why not? Are you doing this for fame?! To be remembered as the last human?! Well, you won’t be!” She stomped her hoof down. “I shall see to it! No one will remember this! Your name will be forgotten by history!”
And then he dies from burning or something. You know, I'd be underwhelmed if magical power seeping into our world simply behaved like fancy radiation and killed people with magic cancer. And why only people? Where's the magical cataclysm that results from the flood of arcane energy exploding into our world? I'm all for storms of multi-colored fire, hideous mutations, and alien skies. And shouldn't Equestria be affected as well? How about having wild and dead magic zones resulting from the sudden movement of magical power into a place that didn't have it? It would be interesting if some ponies resented this merge. Ah, now I'm rambling.
Anyway, chapter 2 has the meat of this story.
All his old posters still hung from the walls, like they had been when he’d left for college over 6 years ago. David walked to the window, and much to his shock, found the same view he’d had for 14 years growing up, the same street, even the bent street sign from the first time he’d tried alcohol and swore he was "totes cool to drive."
I'd rather you spell those numbers out.
So Dave has gone to the afterlife which has a replica of his old room.
Shaking his head, he left the room and began to walk downstairs. The rest of the house was exactly as he remembered, as well. He paused in the main room, spinning around to take in his surroundings. “So... uh, is this... is this heaven?” The walls offered no answer. “Um, hello? I, uh... if this is heaven, where are the Filipino bikini models?”
Bayag mo Filipino bikini model.
A loud whinny cut him off. Spinning around again, his breath caught in his throat. “Oh, my god.” Stretching out before him into the horizon, a seemingly endless herd of ponies mulled about. Some were eating from the thick grass, while the smaller ones were galloping around and braying lightly in play. David craned his head up, but the herd had no end that he could see. “What... what is...”
“The Eternal Herd.”
What an amazing coincidence. I also call my pony afterlife "The Eternal Herd". This must be an example of what people call "parallel thinking".
The two wavering shapes cocked their heads to the side, before the blue one spoke, her voice cool and powerful. “Ah, Sol, I believe he refers to our... corporeal avatars.”
“Ah,” the white one said, slowly nodding before looking back to David. “I see now. Well, David, we have never met before. Those you interacted with on the mortal plane are mere... representations of us.” Her voice was sweet and gentle, like a morning breeze.
Ah, so Celestia is Fizban and Sol is Paladine. Okay.
The white spirit giggled, a melodious sound like wind chimes.
I'm always iffy with characters who sound like musical instruments. How would a laugh sound like wind chimes? I try to imagine someone opening her mouth and a tingtingting noise comes out.
The blue spirit chuckled quietly at his sudden meekness. “It sounds like you were excited. Why didn’t you go immediately?”
These assholes can't even be bothered to introduce themselves. We know the white one is Sol because her sister used the name, althoughI associate Sol with Guilty Gear, and the blue one is probably Moon, because her avatar is already called Luna. Anyway, they ask him why he refused to become a furry, but he waffles on about other things.
I remember thee was one guy who was holding out until they figured out how to make him an Alicorn. Last I heard, dude became an earth pony."
Oh, the irony. He wanted to the most powerful type of pony, but he ended up as the complete garbage type of pony.
Then there was that crazy radio guy who thought it was all some left-wing conspiracy. Gay frogs and all that. Swore he'd never convert. Pfft, wuss converted three days ago when the first red spot appeared on his skin."
Alex Jones would love Equestria, because the frogs there would probably be gay and thus he can take off his tin foil hat.
So Dave waxes philosophical about the universe and humanity. My problem with this kind of story is that I don't really care what his views on the universe are. Imagine going home for the day and riding a bus to your place. Suddenly, some fucker you don't know from Adam sits next to you and goes "You know what my philosophy is?" and then starts ranting. How invested would you be in that lecture? All this Dave has done is die. I don't have enough material to give a rat's ass about his why's and how's. When the killer in "Under a Luminous Sky" started ranting, I was invested in hearing him out, that's because he had spent the story killing ponies and I wanted to know why. The same isn't true for Dave here.
And then the spirits turn him into a pony anyway. So much for defiance and going to heaven. Oh, I can see how that's going to play out.
St. Peter: Hey, where's Dave? You said you were only going to ask him some questions. He's holding up the line here.
Sol: We changed him into a pony and sent him back to the living.
St. Peter: You motherfuckers...
And then in chapter 3 Dave wakes up a pony. The end.
Before that...
After several minutes, Luna slowly stood from the wooden floor of the tiny house, her regal face stained with tears. She did her best to avoid looking at the charred husk that lay on the bed before them.
How sensitive do you have to be to bawl your eyes out over every dead stranger? Especially after living for so long. I'm all for compassion, but this ridiculous.
And that's it. I have to be frank, it's not the type of story I enjoy from Jake the Army Guy. He lends himself well to fighting, killing, and background fucking, but these expositional pieces don't do much for me. There is a groundwork to be lain here and the idea of magical energy harming our world so ponies and humans have to take emergency precautions can be worked with, but it requires action and intrigue, not a thickly lain message.
Eight favourite stories and four authors followed. Yours is the kind of selectiveness spoken of only in legend.
4380482
You're just saying that because you have a story in my tracking list.
You're killing yourself with these. Read some CyneWulf or Cold in Gardez
4381219
That may be true, but so is what I said.
Personally I think the best Conversion Bureau story is one called Grayscale by MisterOneShot. It treats neither ponies nor humans as the bad guys and portrays everyone in character. In this version, the barrier is some strange magic phenomenon and no one has any idea where it came from or how to stop it. The conversion process is a last ditch attempted to save humanity and no one is happy about it. It is a pretty heartbreaking story.