Once again Ari found herself at the edge of Secaucus junction, sitting on the lonely bench. Today she was kicking her legs, phone excitedly pressed against her head.
She’d tried calling into Ragnarok’s show a few times but this was the first time she got in! At least, the pony who pre-screened the calls said he’d patch her through in just a minute.
She was through! Ari jumped to her feet, keeping the phone pressed hard against her head.
“Praise Sunset Shimmer!” Ari declared.
“PS. Who’s this?”
“I’m a stage one partial stuck out here in New York. Um. Can I use my pony name? It’s Cloud Weaver.”
“Go ahead, Cloud Weaver. Humans taking pony names is a beautiful thing.”
Ari bounced up and down on her toes, a little giddy Ragnarok used her pony name. She settled on Cloud Weaver as her official pony name recently, going as far as to change her profile name to that on Whisper 3.
Of course, you couldn’t change your name to a pony name in New York. Not that Ari was brave enough to do that either way.
“First off, I wanted to back you up on the brainwashing thing! I’m nowhere near a pony and I want to be one of you more than anything in the world! And that was before I became a partial, too. I wanted to be a pony during ETS, even. As soon as I heard about what full ponies were like. I even purposely infected myself.”
“I swear I have a million humans lined up behind Cloud here wishing they could have what we got,” said Ragnarok. “Plenty of humans go to crazy lengths like this just to get a taste of equinity. And guess what? What’s your main reason for wanting to be a pony? The one thing you’d take if that was all you got?”
She’d already answered that question to his assistant so Ragnarok may already know.
“Community! Ponies are the solution to capitalism!” Ari proudly declared. “Do you have any idea how much it sucks over here in a dead zone? There is not a single doubt in my mind my life would have been so much better if I had been transformed. Even if the magic I got sucked, it wouldn’t matter because that doesn’t matter in pony communities. You’re actually part of something.”
“Sure. Well I’ll ask you a common question from our little friends,” said Ragnarok. “Why can’t you ‘just have’ community as a human? You know, change without changing. Radically alter your life without disrupting the system.”
“I feel like if I tried that around here, I’d get shot. Or at least laughed into oblivion,” said Ari. “I tried communal living a couple of times and it didn’t work out. Everyone seemed to think humans were incapable of doing such things, just living happily together, and after seeing how easily all you ponies did it… I finally believe them. But they’re not happy about it.”
“Because that narrative no longer serves capital interests,” said Ragnarok.
Ari nodded along, then shook her head at the last moment.
“I still feel as though most ponies don’t appreciate it, though. One thing I wish ponies would realize is that it really isn’t as easy for us humans. I can’t just stand up without getting cut down. You were all handed this amazing gift from Sunset Shimmer. And I get that some ponies were ungrateful for it, but… it’s not like you all just had sudden epiphanies and decided to be better. Being ponies made you better. And that’s why I want it too. To be… better. To be able to live in a better world.”
“Exactly! Do you all see this? The reason the human is afraid of stepping up is because she’s alone and thus too weak to even try to change her life. Maybe changing your life is easy for an immortal princess with infinite power, but not here. Being ‘independent’ doesn’t make you cool. It makes you pathetic! Being alone is the greatest weakness there is. That’s why they want to make it so hard for you all to do anything but work, why they want to destroy unions and all other forms of collectivization.”
“That’s why I know,” said Ari. “That the Shimmerists are the only ones fighting for us! The Lunists, Equestrians, and the supposedly ‘pro-human’ government, all of them want us to remain divided and easy for the capitalists to exploit! The SSP are the people trying to help humans the most. That’s why the idea that you hate us is so ridiculous to me. I have tons of pony friends, Shimmerist friends and…”
That conversation went on for a long time. Ari was a little tired… but satisfied with how it went. It felt so good to say that kind of stuff out loud. She could never get enough of it.
Ari was on the train ride back when she got a message on Whisper 3 from a totally new pony.
DS<This is Ari Webber? Cloud Weaver?
Being referred to as either of those on Whisper 3 was a little unnerving. She’d confided her real and pony names to a few of her friends, but publicly she was ‘Nohands’ on there. She certainly didn’t link her real name to the account.
DS<I’m with the SSP, Nelson Residence more specifically. Would you be willing to come to Ragnarök’s show again? When we ask you?
DS… that was that unicorn in the background of Ragnarök’s videos. Nopony online seemed to know what DS stood for. Maybe Dual Screens, but probably not. He was kind of a mysterious pony.
And Ari couldn’t find any more information on him than just ‘DS’ and that his pony community was Nelson Residence, the same as Ragnarök. He had a blank Whisper 3 account, no picture, no info filled out, no cutie mark (those that had them made sure to keep them proudly displayed).
Only thing Ari knew about him was that the cops seemed to hate that pony. He famously got arrested for jaywalking twice, had racked up a huge list of minor crimes in just a couple of months, and seemed to get in trouble with the law every time he went outside. The theory in the fan base was that DS had a dangerous cutie mark and the government was desperately searching for an excuse to throw him into some dark dungeon forever.
But that was just wild speculation.
As for going on the show again. It had been an exhilarating experience.
A>Probably. What do you mean ‘when I call you’?
DS<The number you called in with. Somepony will text you when an opportune time for you to come on is.
DS<We want to promote more humans who strongly believe in our cause. Certain things will be easier for you to say out loud than a pony.
DS<Saying yes could lead to more opportunities.
Ari looked up at the train’s ceiling, thinking of her dwindling bank account.
“I could use some other opportunities,” Ari said under her breath. “The only place my job is leading to is a cardboard box.”
But that’s how it was with humans. Work hard, get screwed.
It was obvious what they were going for. Have Ari be more or less their puppet… Though, no. Ponies were generally better than that. She supposed they weren’t taking advantage of her or anything. Not if she’d just be speaking her honest opinions.
And she did want to make a difference, however small.
A>What things do you want me to say that would be hard for a pony?
DS<Do you think being a pony is better than being a human? That humans aren’t really equal to ponies? Nothing worse than that if you don’t want to.
DS<I won’t ask you to say anything you don’t believe. Just to say it at convenient times.
Ari bit her lip. Anypony who knew her Whisper 3 account would have seen Ari posting stuff like that all the time.
A>I might lose my job if I get caught.
DS< As I said, I can make opportunities available to you if you say yes. Ponies don’t operate like humans. We don’t see people as resources to be exploited and discarded. You help us, you’ll be taken care of.
DS<Don’t worry so much about money.
Maybe Ari was thinking too much like a human… too obsessed with money.
This really was starting to sound like her golden opportunity to get in good with the ponies. If there was even a 1% chance of becoming a member of a pony community, it’d be worth her reputation with the other humans. Hell, Ari didn’t even care what those people thought anymore. She was only in that game for the money.
So maybe this was the opposite of selling out?
A<Are you offering to let me into a pony community if I do what you ask?
Obviously, she’d agree to damn near anything for that.
One of the main barriers to humans joining pony communities was actually the government itself. It did not want you skipping work to go live with the ponies. It wanted you in the damn factory slaving away. So while pony communities did have some legal status, joining as a human was impossible right now. Even stage one partials had to go through immense paperwork to be legally recognized as a member. Enough that a normal person would need help.
DS<That depends on how you conduct yourself and how useful you’ll prove.
DS<If you want a guarantee now, I’ll offer you this. We’ll ship you to any country that legalizes ponification the moment it happens, paying all expenses. If you agree to be in a commercial afterward talking about how happy you are with the transformation.
DS<But I can promise you won’t have to worry about money so long as you’re helping us. Let me know if you get in any trouble and I’ll take care of it.
That certainly sounded like a 1% chance! Better, this would mean Ari didn’t have to wait an eternity for America to legalize it… any nation would be good enough. Nelson Residence had a huge legal presence, so they really could grease the wheels too.
This was the biggest step towards becoming a pony Ari could possibly take right now.
A>Alright. I’m in. PS! We can do this.
DS<Thank you. For your prior contribution to our advertisement campaigns as well. Somepony will contact you tomorrow.
And that was that only…
Wait.
How had he found her real name so quickly? Ari only introduced herself as ‘Cloud Weaver’.
Whelp. Hopefully, they were on the same side now.
What was the worst that could possibly happen?
It was only a few days later when Ari received her first summon, instructing her to listen and call in once Ragnarök’s guest was on. Nothing here was new, exactly. He was debating yet another Lunist, treading what was now familiar water to Ari.
She could do this in her sleep!
“Okay, we got Cloud Weaver, a human from New York who was on the show just a couple of days ago.
Ari always got a little kick when somepony called her that.
“Yeah! I just wanted to say Lunists are way out of touch,” said Ari. “They have no idea what it’s like. We don’t want their charity. We want to be their equals. And I know you can’t say it, but since I’m a human I’ll say it for you. We’re not equal to ponies.”
“Really? That’s a spicy one. You’re outright saying you’re not equal to a pony?”
“Are any of my fellow humans really dumb enough to think that? That we’re equal to ponies like, uh, like that forest-making one who just gets to be a billionaire because she got the good magic? Like the ones that can melt your brains by looking at you? Let alone somepony like Purple who can live a billion years, cast planet-altering spells, and do who knows what? And what? We have fucking hands? I feel like a total sucker here.”
“Well I’ll agree with you on this. Magic, if we don’t change the system, will only make our inequality worse. Do we really want to live in a society where the ponies with incredible magic are encouraged to trample and exploit the rest of us like the billionaires do? If we ‘reunite’ with the humans on their terms, that’s what’s going to happen people. The only thing magic will bring you is an even harder life if the human government has its way.”
“You’re totally right! Us humans, we’ve never done anything to prove Sunset Shimmer wrong have we? I take inspiration from ponies just like the Harmonists want, but that’s just not enough. Society has never ‘just changed’ or whatever. We do need to become ponies to move on. Everybody says humans can live in peaceful, collective societies? Well guess what? You’re fucking right! I believe you.”
“Yeah?! Well guess what, Lunist dog! I’m a human and I agree with Ragnarök! The Shimmerists treat us way better than you, the human government, or anyone else!”
“Well we have a human right here! What do you say Cloud?”
“I say fuck you! Ragnarök is right! I want to be a pony!”
That was how it was for the next few weeks. Ari, as Cloud Weaver, became the go-to ‘I’m a human and I agree with everything Ragnarök just said!’ girl. In fact, she was styled as a little more extreme than Ragnarök, able to outright say things like ‘humans and ponies aren’t equal’. Which was true. Ari never felt equal to them. They had it so much better than her.
She’d already lost track of how many times she’d been on the stream. But all in all, it was great! Ari felt like this was the next step up from her posters. She really was doing something. Probably not much, but something positive for the world.
Ari walked past that abandoned parking lot yet again on her way home from work. They put up a fence to defend the sanctity of the empty building. A fence Ari had vandalized to hell and back, covering half of it with pro-pony posters.
There really was no teaching humans, was there?
Back home, she sat down to find a less urgent message, this time from Spring Breeze.
SB<Friendo! How hard would it be for you to take a few days off of work?
Ari carefully scrutinized the message. Hopefully, they weren’t going to ask her to take time off to do more volunteer work for the SSP. Ari already dedicated all of her free time to them and…
On second thought she’d love to devote all of her time to working for them. It was just a matter of making enough money to survive. Something she wasn’t so good at these days.
A thought crept into the back of her mind. It hadn’t been long ago that DS mentioned ‘other opportunities. She hadn’t spoken to him again after that but… could this…?
She didn’t let the thought get her hopes up just yet. Getting to work for ponies for a living would be a dream come true.
CW>That depends on what this is about.
(Ari’s username on Whisper 3 was Cloud Weaver now. Her fears really had been for nothing. The ponies were all so supportive of her taking a pony name.)
SB<There’s a Social Shimmerist conference out in Idaho in two weeks. It’ll be from Thursday to Sunday, but it’d be best if you came in Wednesday.
SB<I’ll actually be there myself! And so will April and a bunch of my friends. Ragnarök too.
SB<In fact, he specifically wanted us to get you to come out.
Ari was getting invited to a Shimmerist conference? To Shimcon?!
Even more exciting was the idea Ragnarök had personally invited her over. He was pretty high up the SSP ladder. One or two more steps up and Ari would be talking to the head of Nelson Residence himself.
Yet she didn’t dare get her hopes up they’d offer her a job just yet…
CW>Will there be any other humans there?
SB<As far as I’m aware, you’re the only one to get an invite like this. I know there will be a couple of others on Saturday. But you might be the sole human until then.
SB<If you come early.
Ari? Alone with the ponies? Not one other human in sight?!
It was like Spring Breeze had just offered to ascend her to Pony Valhalla. Only an offer of actual ponification could have been better. She could finally get away from this stupid, toxic dead zone. Even if it was just for a weekend.
CW>I’ll do whatever it takes to get there!
Ari hadn’t felt this kind of determination since her failed mission to become a pony. But this time it’d be different. Ponies made it possible! She wouldn’t fail again, not with the help of ponies. It was just like Ragnarök said. Being alone was what had made her weak up until now.
She’d request time off at work first thing tomorrow! Even if her boss said ‘no’ she’d just suddenly get sick on that day and to hell with the consequences.