1. The Pony In The Garden
The Conversion Bureau
HUMAN
in Equestria
By Chatoyance
1. The Pony In The Garden
The pony crept, it scuttled from bush to tree. It was trying not to be seen, but the poor creature simply had no experience in the matter. When Petra waved, it froze with wide eyes, its tiny, frightened pupils staring back.
It was then that Petra noticed that the pony had a companion. Just in front of the mysterious, trespassing pony was a bunny. The bunny looked nothing like the ones Petra had seen holographs of. The bunny looked more like a fairy tale bunny, from a cartoon or a story book. Like the pony, it wore a old-fashioned top hat, though much smaller of course, so as to fit the smaller head of a bunny. The bunny also wore a cape, which Petra thought was both adorable, and very funny.
The pony, still frozen, staring back at her, was dressed in what looked like the jacket of a circus ringmaster, with large dark cuffs and shiny buttons that gleamed in the moonlight. The little bunny's ears flopped to one side, which also moved its little top hat, through which its ears had been stuck. Then the bunny seemed to sigh, and waved back with a little fuzzy paw.
Petra did not care how the pony and the bunny had managed to get past the big, thick wall that surrounded the Human Masada. She did not care that her mother would not approve, nor would any of the other members of the Masada. For the last four and a half years since she had been moved to Equestria, this was the first pony - and absolutely the first bunny - she had ever seen. More than anything in all the new world, Petra Alice Bettencourt wanted to meet that pony and that bunny.
Petra smiled her biggest, toothiest smile, like her mother had made her practice, and mimed with her hands frantically - 'In here! You'll be safe in here!' and hoped the pony and the bunny would understand.
The arched window could be opened, rotated around a central spindle to allow fresh air in. Petra scrambled to push open the side of the semicircular port, noting that the pony in the top hat had not run away.
"PSSST! Hey! Do you need a place to hide?" Ponies weren't generally allowed inside the Masada, because they got upset or shocked too easily. Petra's mother didn't approve of the ponies at all, and disliked them intensely. She used to hate them, and want them all dead, but that had changed when they had moved to Equestria. Now, she just really, really, really didn't like them around her. If mother found a pony in her yard, behind the wall, Petra was afraid of what might happen.
The pony in the top hat looked at her bunny friend. The bunny nodded.
"Yes! Please!" With that, the fancily dressed pony and her fluffy companion approached. "How... how do we get up there?"
Petra's bedroom was on the second floor of the huge Tudor-styled mansion. She liked to climb, and had set a very long ladder, one that the dog servants used to pick apples with, at an angle to reach the roof. Because of the way she had set it, it was almost a ramp as much as a ladder. Petra leaned out of her window, and pointed. The pony nodded, and let the bunny climb onto her back. Then she galloped for the tilted ladder.
The pony ran up the ladder to the roof with an astonishing agility. It was easier for the pony that it was for Petra, and she was very impressed. The pony then followed the edge of the roof until she came to the inset where Petra's bedroom window was. Petra stepped back and allowed the pony and bunny to enter.
The pony in the top hat and tails stared with wide eyes at her rescuer. The little bunny jumped down from the pony's back and stood in front of the chestnut filly, trying to look brave.
Finally, the pony whispered "Thank you." Her eyes were still large as dinner plates in the moonlight from the window. Slightly afraid, she added "F-for helping us."
Petra realized she must be staring as much as the pony in front of her, because her eyes stung. She blinked a few times, to let her tears wash over them. Suddenly, all of her years of charm training became insistent. "How do you do?" She found herself saying, mechanically. "My name is Petra Alice Bettencourt, daughter of Stefan Bettencourt, the CEO of Mankind and the head of the Good Families, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance!" She had curtsied before she could manage to stop herself. Only then did Petra realize that she was shaking slightly.
The pony blinked, apparently unaccustomed to such formality. Much to Petra's surprise, however, the pony was not a stranger to it. "Hello to you too! Please let me introduce myself and my companion. I am Plantain Acres, Honorary Professor of Bunny Terpsichory and Arachnid Syncopation for the Royal Equestrian Happy Pony Show, and this is my friend and partner, Crème Bûnnée, Dance Master of the Royal Equestrian Happy Pony Show and HainRah of the Lapine Theatre Company. I am likewise most pleased to make your acquaintance as well!"
The young human girl stood rigid, staring once again at the impressively titled pony and bunny. The pony stared back, equally formal and official in her stance. The bunny sat back, as tall as she could be, and grandly saluted.
A small smile began to form on the stunned human girl's face.
A grin began to form on the muzzle of the pony.
The bunny looked from one to the other, unsure of what was going on.
Petra couldn't hold it in any longer, she was laughing at the absurdity of such dire formality in the middle of the night, after such sneaking about. Her mirth was echoed by the pony, Plantain, who began snickering and then laughing out loud. This only made Petra lose the last of her restraint altogether, and soon both pony and human girl were on the floor sobbing with laughter.
Crème, completely confused, tried saluting again, first to Petra, and then to her mistress, but this only seemed to make the pony and the human laugh harder.
"Oh... oh my goodness... oh dear... 'Honorary Professor of Bunny Terpsica... Terpsic..." Petra wiped her eyes.
"Terpsichory!" Plantain used a fetlock to dry her own tears of laughter. "And Arachnid Syncopation!"
"Sin-co-what?" Petra had become a terrible student since the move to Equestria. It had quite upset her mother, who had been forced to take over her education because of the lack of any human servant to do it.
"Syncopation. It's a fancy word for rhythm. We use all kinds of fancy words for things in the theatre. Mr. Paine told me that it's traditional. I'm an entertainer!" Plantain lifted herself from the floor on one foreleg and used the other to do a bow-like gesture.
"Mr. Paine?" Petra looked from pony to bunny, unsure which was more adorable to look at.
"Mr. Royal Paine, Owner, and Producer of the Happy Pony Show. He's our leader. He started the whole thing." Plantain looked sad. "We used to travel all over Equestria together. I miss them all so very much."
Petra wanted to reach out and pet or comfort the pony, but stayed her hand. Ponies weren't pets, she reminded herself. They were people, and one didn't pet people as one would a dog or a cat. "Did... did the show end?"
Plantain Acres shook her head. "Oh no! They're all still touring and putting on shows. They're all out there somewhere right this moment, probably doing second encores by the look of the sky. It's me who got ended. That's why I am running away. Because my mom doesn't want me to be a performer."
"You're running away?" Petra tried to encompass the idea, but it was slippery, and hard to grasp. "Away from... from home? From your home?" It was unthinkable. Proper young ladies of the world elite were expected to act always with decorum and propriety. The Family was First, the Family was All. To run... away. To just... leave? How could that even happen?
"Oh yes! My mother wants me to go to some overly proper etiquette school in Canterlot and become some kind of fancy, proper pony. She has this whole future set out for me - first I go to several sniffy schools, then when I'm all la-de-dah, I'm supposed to swish my tail at the most important stallion I can find and become his 'Plus One'. Mom's always wanted to be somepony important, and she's trying to get me to do it instead. Only I don't wanna."
It was so bizarre. Petra could hardly believe that she wasn't dreaming. There was a pony, a real live pony, right there, in her bedroom, and they were talking just like two human girls about... stuff. "What do you wanna... want... to do?"
"Go back to the Happy Pony Show, of course!" The expression on Plantain's muzzle indicated that this should have been beyond obvious. "I love being a performer! It's the bestest ever thing ever!" She turned to her lapine companion. "Isn't it Crème?"
Crème nodded so hard her milk-white ears hit the floor with soft flups. The bunny sat back and used a tiny paw to straighten its miniature top hat.
Petra pondered this. It really was most curious. "But... but your mother forbade you to be a performer!"
Plantain laughed. "Duh! I already am, though! I've been to all sorts of places, and put on hundreds of shows. My bunnies and spiders are famous all over Equestria, and quite a few places beyond. Crème and I were even asked to do an encore for the king of the Diamond Dogs!"
Petra's head was swimming. Everything she had heard was ever so strange, and some of it was puzzling, and the rest made her heart beat fast. Especially the idea of just... leaving. She'd never been allowed such a thought, before. It just wasn't something a Bettencourt would do. Why her father, he would - she couldn't even imagine how he would react.
From her earliest memory, Petra had been taught that she was a member of a species apart from the common rabble of humankind. She was a member of the proper class, the true humans, the heirs and rightful owners of the Earth. It was her place to act in accord with her station and kind, just as it was the place of her lessers to serve her and the Good Families that ran the world.
"How old are you?" Petra had been taught that the ponies lived much longer than humans did, and they had much longer childhoods too. She had assumed that Plantain was just a child, like herself, because the pony was small compared to the few that Petra had been allowed to see. Also, Plantain had been sneaking about in a funny costume, and had a little bunny as a pet. Adults never did such things. But Plantain seemed to have done a great deal of very complex and adult-seeming things.
"I'm a filly, just like you!" The yellow-maned earthpony grinned with pride. "See, I know about you humans! I know how to tell a human filly from a grown-up mare. I read up all about your kind before I came up this way. I was hoping I might see a human my age, and now I've even gotten to meet one!"
"You've never met a human before?" That might explain the big round eyes earlier, Petra thought.
"Nope! You keep to yourself inside the walls, doncha? How come, anyway?" Plantain tilted her head, and one of her ears twitched. Petra found that fascinating. She couldn't twitch her human ears.
"My mother says..." Petra closed her mouth. She didn't want to offend miss Plantain the pony. "My mother doesn't... approve... of ponies. And the other members of the Families think we should keep... apart... because we eat meat and because we shouldn't associate with our les..." Again, Petra held her tongue. "...because there might be problems." It wasn't exactly a lie, it was essentially the truth, but it was much more polite, and a Bettencourt was always polite.
"We do have diamond dog servants, though!" Petra felt afraid she had come across as being bigoted against ponies, and she absolutely wasn't. In fact, she very, very, very wasn't, but her mother was in her words and what she had said hadn't come out right at all. "I like ponies very much!" There, that was better.
"You really do look sort of like skinny diamond dogs..." Plantain studied the human girl in front of her for a moment. "Do you have a tail? I can't tell."
Petra laughed. "No, silly! Humans don't have tails!" Then she remembered. "Well, sometimes, rarely, humans are born with tails, but they chop them right off!"
Plantain winced. "They... chop off... their tails?"
The little bunny, Crème, put her paws over her eyes at the thought.
Petra felt confused. "Well, yes. Humans aren't supposed to have tails. When they do, it's a mistake, so they get rid of them immediately. At least all the proper people do. In the old favelas, back on earth, they probably didn't bother." Petra fell silent, sad at that thought. She had never actually seen a human person with a tail, and she felt jealous at the thought of the worker class who got to keep theirs. "Well, you see..." Petra struggled to remember how it went. "Ahem. 'They tell us that, we lost our tails, evolving up, from little snails!'" Petra finished her measured recitation with as much dignity as she could and smiled a proper Bettencourt smile.
Plantain gave Crème a comforting nuzzle, then raised her head. "Petra, would it be alright for us to hide out here for a day or two? My mom will be out looking for me, and there aren't many places to hide on this side of Canterlot Mountain. I know she wouldn't dare look for us here."
The weight of what she had done in allowing a pony into her room finally struck Petra. She had been so desperately wanting to make friends with a pony for so very long that she had simply acted without thinking. But the fact was that Plantain and her bunny were here now, and it would be terribly rude to ask them to leave. A Bettencourt is never rude, unless it pays to be so. But the truth was that she really didn't want the pony or the bunny to go away, now that her long wished-for dream had come true.
"Yes, you may stay!" Petra announced, grandly. "But we must be very careful for mother to never see you. Father must not know you are here either. No one at all must know you are hiding here. I do not wish to get into trouble, and I do not wish you to get into trouble either. So we must keep you a secret. Agreed?" Petra stuck out her hand, in order to shake on the contract. Only after she had done this, did it occur to her that Plantain had no hands, only hooves.
Plantain stuck out a foreleg. Petra looked at it, then gently grasped the hoof in her hand. It was hard and smooth and she felt her heart beating very rapidly. For four and a half years she had wanted to properly meet an ordinary pony, a pony that wasn't Celestia, a pony that wasn't just waving her parents through a gate, or standing at a distance. Now, for the very first time, she had touched a real Equestrian.
She thought of her holoshow, her favorite show, before they had left and moved to Equestria. The show about the newfoals who got to become ponies. Petra held the hoof in her hand for a long time, feeling the hardness, the warmth from the leg part at the top of the hoof, and marveled at it.
"Are... you okay?" Plantain was studying Petra's flat, hairless face.
Embarrassed, Petra let go of the pony's hoof and mechanically affected the standard Bettencourt smile while sitting up properly. "Yes! And you?" Her voice had squeaked a little and this further embarrassed her.
"That was the first time you've ever touched a pony, isn't it?" Plantain offered a very small, kind smile. "It's the first time I've ever touched a human! I guess we're both real, then!"
That made Petra laugh. "I guess so!" At that, a large number of rules about hospitality came into Petra's mind. "Oh! I'm sorry! I've been very rude." There were many proper things to do when a guest visited, and even though Plantain had been sneaking about in the garden, and had crawled in through the window, she was still a guest because Petra had invited her in. "Would you like some tea, or something to eat?" One must always offer food and drink to a guest.
Plantain shook her head. "No, thank you though. Crème and I had something just before we went under the wall. Actually, it might be wise to find a place for us to hide, if we're not supposed to be seen. It'll be morning soon, and if you humans live anything like we ponies do, your mom will probably be knocking at the door calling for breakfast."
"Oh!" Petra realized she hadn't actually gotten any sleep at all, and that morning would bring all sorts of problems. "You are right! Hmm..." Petra thought for a bit. "You can stay in the south wing, nobody goes there. We all stay in the north part of the house, and just on these two floors. You can hide on the third floor, and nobody will ever find you. Just don't make too much noise, alright?"
"That sounds perfect! And we'll be quiet. Crème is always silent, and I'll just whisper and be careful. How about that?"
Petra nodded. "In the morning I will bring you some food and drink for your breakfast. It may take a little while, but I won't forget!"
"That would be wonderful. Thank you, Petra." Plantain considered the offer for a moment. "Um... no meat. Please."
"I know! Ponies don't eat meat." Petra carefully, quietly got to her feet, preparing to guide her two guests cautiously to the south wing. "Could I ask you a question, Plantain?"
Plantain was now on her hooves, with Crème holding tight to her back. "Of course, you can ask me anything."
"Do you... have you ever heard of a pony - a newfoal - named Sunshine Laughter?" Petra noted the sky getting faintly brighter through the open window. "Or Rose Vale?"
The top-hatted filly thought for a few seconds. "I've met a LOT of ponies, and a lot of newfoals among them, but I've never met either of those ponies. Are they friends of yours?"
"No! No... of course not..." Mother would approve of having a newfoal friend even less than having a native pony friend, and mother despised ponies. If she had gotten her way, only the Good Families would have emigrated to Equestria, and all the lessers would have been left behind to die with the Earth. They wouldn't have been ponified like Sunshine and Rose on their show. Still, Sunshine and Rose felt almost like friends to Petra. They were probably the closest thing she had ever had to having friends - even if they were just two people on a holoshow.
"Sort of." A Bettencourt always tells the truth to a peer. Mother would have a fit, but Petra couldn't - wouldn't - think of Plantain as a lesser. "They are almost friends."
The little pony was entirely puzzled by this. "Almost friends?"
"There was a show I liked, a show about newfoals, and Sunshine and Rose were in it, they were the show, really, and... and they were... they were my best friends... inside my heart." Petra had no better way to state things, and left it at that.
"You never met them? They never met you?"
Petra shook her head. "It was a show. On the holo! I had the entire set, before. Of course, I couldn't bring it with me, holos don't work in Equestria." The little human girl looked sad for a moment. "I miss them."
Plantain turned her head to nuzzle Crème on her back. "I guess humans are a lot more loving than I ever imagined. They can make best friends with ponies they've never even met!"
"Come on, we had better get you to your room before we get caught." Petra made cautiously for the door, then stopped and turned back to put a finger to her lips. "Shhhhh!!!"
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If you're *leading* with a plot twist this big, I can't even begin to imagine what's next...
Also I got a very nice "The Secret Garden" vibe from this. *Flood of high-school reading nostalgia...*
alice is wonderland my ass
THIS IS 100X BETTER!
Error found, "I know she wouldn't dare looking for us here."
... That tail business does upset me greatly. I have met two people who were born with tails and had them removed before they ever had a choice.
On a lighter note, with two performers, one completely silent, would you get the joke if I said, "Zutty - Zutt Zutt"?
Oh buck yes! I am so going to read this... soon...
Petra is back! She always did interest me.
And is Plantian Arces the little filly that whose mom complained about to Petal?
Loving the story so far.
2787926
I don't understand. Maybe I am confused... I don't see the error? Could you explain?
I am always a Babylon 5 fan. More than this, I am quite the fan of Pen and Teller. Met them once. Very nice, very friendly people. Pen is always reserved, inside, though. He's got a wall ten miles thick. Teller is... I don't know what to make of the man. He is also heavily walled off... or else he is utterly, frighteningly quiet inside. I can't figure either of them out, to be honest. But... they are very polite and nice.
Well, unless Pen has an ISSUE with something. Then, angry hilarity.
2787944
Teacup, actually, and yes. Plantain also appeared in The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society!
Ohohoho~!
This... is wonderful... I can finish my new story in an entirely new way now...
2787987 Whoops
guess I got them mixed up.
Her shows definitely sounds interesting.
2787972
About the line, "I know she wouldn't dare looking for us here.", it seems it should either be "I know she wouldn't dare GO looking for us here." or "I know she wouldn't dare LOOK for us here."
2787972
Say it out loud. I think it could be fixed by changing "looking" to just plain "look"
And so, with a ladder and a kind word, Petra says her mother's prejudices are all just wind and sails.
Are we not men? We are pony! Are we not men? P-O-N-Y!
Sorry, needed to get that out of my system.
Anyway, a great start. Definitely looking forward to where this one is going. So many questions come to mind, especially regarding thaumatic radiation.
Also that "I guess we're both real!" line made me think of Through the Looking-Glass. Nice subtle reference there, if you intended it. If not, then that just means it's even more subtle than I thought![/pinkielogic]
Well, at least the Bettencourts are paying attention to Petra and instilling a sense of obligation, instead of playing golf or capturing ponies for dressage until she goes full Paris Hilton. Maybe that was part of their deal with Celestia. It's almost enough to overlook their filling her head with egregious lies, such as that our lineage split with mollusks after there were snails.
...Well, I suppose the whole speciesism and classism thing is pretty bad, too. So far, though, Petra's mom and dad are the only adult humans we've been told about, so I have to wonder if that's common or if they're just assholes.
This is really exciting so far, and I love the different illustration style and slight change in prose voice to capture the Lewis Carroll vibe - "[noun] is ever so [adjective]," and so forth.
I also really loved all the references to your other stories, it was a total "squee" moment when I recognized them.
I like this story so far,
Favoriting, and looking forward to reading this at some point...
my only comment pre-having read it however is...doesn't this kind of invalidate some of your stories? I thought the whole idea was that in your universe of the TCB genre that humans quite simply couldn't live in Equestria.
I certainly look forward with interest at this story.
New Chatoyance fanfic?!
Please, MOAR!
Btw, my like and fave
- I think the "that" needs to be a "than".
I'm presently imagining Plantain having a voice similar to Fluttershy, and Creme (sorry, don't know how to get the accents here without going to a word document) as the offspring of...
Creme the rabbit from Sonic
th02.deviantart.net/fs38/PRE/f/2008/325/b/8/creme_and_chao_cheese_by_Shadows_penn.jpg
and one of the Long Patrol hares of Redwall (or more accurately Salamandastron).
fc09.deviantart.net/fs24/f/2008/017/d/a/daa7b421c4bf4fe5.jpg
I'm liking how this is coming along, and I'm being reminded of Matilda in addition to Alice in Wonderland. Of course that means I'm reading this story in Danny DeVito's voice along with whoever voiced Jervis Tetch.
[Sorry for the quality in the first video. T for Teen content. Also; Batman: Arkham City quotes.]
[youtube=JbrfCJgSBqo]
[youtube=nPFO97SwDu0]
AHA knew the name Alice had to be in there somewhere. Σ:♪
How does the little crocodile, et cetera... =^_^=
i like you are doing tcb again.
2788008
Oh... I looked at that twice and STILL missed it. I am derp.
FIXED!
2788071
Oh, thank you for that. Someone who knows DEVO. I was hoping...
2788500
FIXED! Eldenath is off to the Renaissance Faire this week, and so I didn't have her to read out loud to, and work together to catch errors. Sigh.
2788253
As you will find, no, it does not. I am finally answering a set of questions that some have asked - why did the ruling families of the Worldgovernment agree to ponification? Some of this has been revealed in Recombinant 63, but the full story is going to be explored here, among other issues.
Consistency of universe is something I consider mandatory for good science fiction or fantasy.
Buckle in, it's going to be a ride.
Well. This is shaping up to be interesting. Faved.
EDIT: For anyone who says that humans can't survive in TCB Equestria, there is precedent for it. In "Tales of Los Pegasus", the fifth or sixth chapter is from the perspective of a severely wounded HLF soldier being kept alive in a hospice in a shielded, thaumaturgically sterile area of the Everfree Forest.
2788253 What if they aren't Earth humans any more? You know, those theorized 'magic humans' that a few people think about? What if that was the deal the Masters of the Universe made with the RPS?
Wild mass guessing here.
I have nothing against this, but..
Seriously, how many Conversion Bureau stories do we need?
This might seem silly, but when I first read the description, I thought that since only magical creatures can live in Equestria, that this must be a magical girl. A magical girl complete with talking animal sidekick, transformation sequence, and a destiny to punish evil on behalf of the moon princess.
2789484
Conversion Bureau stories are science fantasy stories, sometimes even hard science fiction stories. The Conversion Bureau and the Optimalverse are the two most intelligent, vital and original genres within the pony community. They explore issues of identity, humanity, cosmology, higher dimensional spaces, xenobiology and much more.
Transformation stories are as old as humanity, and have always fascinated mankind, from before Ovid to today. They are an excellent way to examine the human heart through the guise of a presumed alien other. And the Conversion Bureau offers the most original, detailed, and self-consistent fresh new take on the classic transformation story that is available today - and that from, of all things, smart people watching a cartoon!
How many more Conversion Bureau stories do we need?
How many more brilliant works of science fiction do we need? How many more Fireflys, Babylon Fives, episodes of Doctor Who or movies like Blade Runner do we need? The answer is simple for both the Conversion Bureau and science fiction in general:
As many as humanly possible!
Surprised more people aren't talking about the elephant in the room. From past stories any humans that tried to cross over got turned into pudding/confetti/cotton candy. This chapters is raising a lot of questions. Fun.
oh my, this really is quite interesting! It turns a lot of things on their heads, but at the same time... makes sense. It makes me want to see what the rulers of Earth are getting up to now they're essentially squatters in paradise. I can't help but think of the scene in the last battle with the dwarves in the hay shed...
2787926
I believe that "dare" in this sentence is being used as either an auxiliary verb or in the sense of "hazard". In either of those cases, the sentence is correct (if unusual) as written.
The question is of course... just how deep the rabbit hole goes, and would Alice really want to live in the looking glass? Was life really but a dream?
2790155
This is a conventional speech usage, and something I have heard spoken in real life. It is not only permissible but desirable to violate proper English for dialogue, because people do not normally speak in formal English, but rather in short bursts -often not even in complete sentences.
"You wouldn't DARE trying that if Big Joe were around!"
Or even
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Try me."
2788907
Ah, okie dokie then. Well, I must say, the cover is great, and the premise sounds interesting. Though I'll freely state that the idea I'm drawing from the summary (that only the ruling elite of Earth weren't ponified, feel free to refute this if I am incorrect) rubs me the wrong way. But that's just me.
Will read later today while I continue my hunt for more pony music.
2789199
The thing that occurs to me is, provided I understand the serum used in Chatoyances verse correctly (feel free to correct me if wrong) its a combination of Earth Technology and Equestrian magic...
which consequently, seems to be what kills humans off via the barrier in the first place. I tended to assume the technology had something to do with keeping the magic component from killing people.
I've had the thought before that perhaps an incredibly small segment of humans might be resistant to the magic of equestrian, or that theoretically using some gene-splicing type of thing you could genetically modify humans to be able to live in Equestria without ponifying.
I would obviously assume something has been done to make it so they can live in Equestria
2789027
That's what I was thinking of; however, it was in the Everfree Forest specifically because that is the least magical part of Equestria... how much more energy would it take to shield a fortress enclave of humanity's wealthiest, close to Canterlot?
I was going to say that the "Good Families" are on crack for wanting to live in walled-off palaces away from everyone else and only associating with their own, but then I remembered that you didn't make that up.
Huh, humans in Equestria after the earth's mass ponification. Seems similar to an idea I had at one point. Still, well done for now. Can't wait for more!
....Okay, just one question. Why is Petra speaking out of her time? Even the ponies speak with a 21st century dialect. It's nothing more than an observation, but I still want to know why.
2790494 Hmm, yes, I see where my miscommunication was. I'll explain in more detail.
The ponification serum utilizes a combination of magic and nano-tech to transform a human into a pony. Imagine instead a serum that transforms a human into a demi-human, a creature that's nearly identical in function and form as a Terran human but instead out of the stuff native to the world of Equestria. This being would be native as it would be artificial, but it's the only way I can think of to wander Equestria freely as something that's close enough to human that nobody could tell the difference.
Granted, all this is contingent on the conceits presence within this incarnation of TCB. Also, I could be totally wrong. But it seems like this is the sort of demand that The Masters Of The Universe would make, so until I'm shown to be wrong, this is what I think happened.
I feel that the first chapter of a story is always way too early to say anything meaningful.
That being the case, I instead choose to say, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh."
2787972
How exactly does one come to the conclusion that someone is 'frighteningly quiet inside?' That seems like an awfully big judgement of one's character, I can't imagine getting a read on anyone that quickly.
2791266
Ah, so pretty much a magicfication serum. It takes a human and transform them into an Equestrian Human, which is for all intents and purposes the same as a Terran human except for the whole not getting killed by Thaumatic radiation bit.
2791367
if you had grown up with my parents, and especially my psychopathic father - not to mention some of the truly dangerous, emotionally stunted children I met over my life - the notion of a person becoming frighteningly quiet would make total sense to you.
Often such quiet was the prelude to Really Bad Things, either emotional, or physical.
After a while, even a mere child will become very, very aware of any such change or alteration of mood. I certainly was. Hypersensitive to it.
We will see more of Petra's family, and of her life.
At the current moment, the like/dislike ratio for this story is 47/23 despite all comments being supportive and the general mood being positive.
This is why I want thumbs removed entirely. I have seen this happen with every single one of my stories, and many of my comments.
Thumbs down are a passive aggressive weapon to silence those who are blindly despised, and to prevent acknowledgement or front page popularity for the stories of those who are blindly despised. From the comments, there shouldn't be a single downvote.
At least the petty little bastards are being quietly abusive this time. Sigh. I know one of the shits has at least ten sockpuppets for this, because I watched him use them last night while I worked.
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Disturbingly quiet I can understand, I guess it was the 'inside' part that threw me for a loop.
While the concept is interesting, I just can't get into it. Not upvoting/downvoting.
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Yes, that seems to be a recurring theme of your stories.
Any time you want to pass the torch of most-hated TCB writer, I'll take up the mantle. I've always wanted to be judged by the enemies I've made.
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I understand completely, it throws users, who actually use the voting to depict good stories from the bad, off balance towards whether the story is good or not considering that there is no moderators for voting allowing people to vote negatively or positively depicting upon their point of view towards the author rather than the story itself.
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I did, for a long time.
But then I went to a counselor, I got some therapy for my abuse, and one of my assignments was to take back some personal power by confronting what had been done to me. So I posted my four-part blog on what had happened. I got a lot of positive feedback and support. That reminded me that even if some people take their hate of me into the real world, there are a LOT of people here who value my work and look forward to my stories. People who are good and decent and kind to me, and to others.
And the ultimate taking back of power is to choose to write again. Writing is my greatest happiness. If I let evil little shits take that away from me, then how can I respect myself?
I am back. And I am going to write up a fucking storm.
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Check her blog post
New story! This is so wonderful! And it looks like it's going to be a big one. Human in Equestria? I never thought I'd see the day... (Well I guess there's that dude stuck in the Everfree, the one with a broken neck.)