Sometimes a story just grabs me and won't let go. Actually, that's how anything I make ever gets made. Graphic novel, text novel, computer game, board game, sculpture or toy, it all comes down to a notion demanding I make it real whether I want to or not. So it is, apparently, with the Red Kryptonite universe.
All writing is a form of therapy. All creativity is a form of therapy. If the world was truly decent, if life were genuinely worthwhile, there would be little reason to invent worlds that could never be. There would be too much to see and do that would be far too much fun and far too satisfying to experience and participate in. Writing stories is the work of a soul desperate to reach an itch they can never, ever hope to scratch.
Time for another therapy session, then.
Welcome To The Survivors Of Humanification Support Group For The Greater Portland Area
A Red Kryptonite Story
By Chatoyance
"I've been missing my muzzle a lot lately." The thirty-ish looking woman felt her flat human face with her middle fingers. She ran her fingers over her wide nose and thick lips as if they were still strange to her, even after thirty years of possessing them. She had been only a filly when she had endured humanification. Usually the youngest ponies adapted the most easily and completely.
Usually.
"Go on." Lyndsey, the Group Therapist, tried to get more out of the plump, dark-skinned woman. Jenna - 'Jenna Taylia' was the name they had stuck her with, it was on her Transformed Human Identification and Naturalization Guarantee card - tended to be shy, and seldom said much.
"I don't know what else to say." Jenna lowered her arms and left them between her legs. It was something a lot of former Equestrians unconsciously did, as if they were still using their forelegs to help support their weight.
Lyndsey shifted in her seat, and moved her pad of paper to her other hand. "Tell us about what brought on this feeling of missing your muzzle. What inspired this feeling in you?"
Jenna dug her middle fingers into the padded seat, between her thighs. She pawed at the cushion with one finger, still, somewhere in her unconscious mind, digging at the ground with a hoof. "Cereal. Eating cereal."
"You were eating breakfast?"
Jenna glanced briefly up, turning her head to peek with one eye. "Dinner. I was having dinner. I had a big bowl of my favorite. I get Oats and Barley from the health food store." Jenna scraped her seat again with a fingertip. Getting Newmen to eat properly was sometimes a problem. Human bodies couldn't live off of grains alone. Many former ponies suffered from nutritional issues. Jenna clearly felt embarrassed to admit that her dinner was just cereal.
"It's okay, Jenna. Everyone knows it's hard, sometimes, to maintain a proper diet. We all have favorite foods." Lyndsey looked around at the group, getting several nods and a few quiet laughs. "What was it about eating your cereal that made you think about your old body?"
Jenna raised her head, daring to look with both eyes at the therapist. "It was so easy... and fun... to just stick your muzzle into a bowl, you know? Just dive right in and munch away!" Jenna's eyes began to look shiny, and then wet. "My m-mom, she'd just put a bowl down for me, and I would just lean over and... and it wouldn't get in my eyes, or in my mane, because my muzzle... it's not flat, not flat like what I have now and... and..."
Mary Crizmus leaned over and put her arms around Jenna. Mary always sat next to Jenna at meetings, they were friends. Jenna sobbed, softly, mumbling about how she missed her mother. Jenna's mother had died shortly after her humanification, of old age. Jenna had been foaled during the second quarter of her mother's Equestrian life. After humanification, Jenna's mother had transformed into a astonishingly elderly woman well beyond the very edge of human possibility. She had only lived a year.
What was perhaps more difficult was Jenna's age after transformation. At only twenty Equestrian years going in, she was the human equivalent of a eight-year old child. Humanified, Jenna had ended up in a fully adult body, treated as an adult by the naturalization system. She had endured a very rough time of it after the death of her mother. Now, thirty years later, Jenna would have still been, if barely, underage by Equestrian terms. She was still just a child, really.
It was difficult for every former Equestrian to come to terms with a lifespan vastly shorter than three hundred years. Some had openly wondered if escaping to earth had been worth the bother at all. But Celestia had wanted something of her universe to survive, and something of her ponies. And that was that.
Lyndsey the therapist looked around the room. "I feel certain everyone here can understand and identify with what you are feeling, Jenna." There were many nods as she looked around the group. "And while I may not have known such an experience myself, I can understand what it must mean to you, and how much it took to open up about it. So thank you, Jenna, for the gift of telling us about your feelings."
Long experience let Lyndsey know that there would not be anything more coming from Jenna. Tonight had been fairly exceptional - Jenna had offered something at all. It must have really been bothering her.
"Is there anyone else who has felt something like Jenna this week?" Lyndsey decided to run with Jenna's admission. It was a decent topic, and stories from the others would provide emotional support for Jenna. "Anyone else have any moments that reminded them of their old bodies?"
"I always miss my tail!" Mike Hockertz half raised his hand as he spoke. He lowered it when Lyndsey acknowledged him with a nod. "Even to this day, I still worry about getting my tail caught in a door, or hurting it sitting down in a chair!" That got a laugh from Old Hugh in the back. His last name was Jarse. The humans had enjoyed themselves far too much when they gave out earth names to the 250,000 Newmen that survived the destruction of Equestria. It must have been hilarious to them.
"My grandfilly... my granddaughter... she... she gets mad at me when I forget and try to groom her." Jack Goff had only recently joined the group. All anyone knew about him was that he had two grown children and at least one grandchild.
"Groom?" Lyndsey made a note on her pad.
"You know..." Jack mimed nibbling with his teeth. Lyndsey didn't seem to understand. "Equestrians... we... we would use our mouths to groom each other's manes. It was normal. Very comforting. Very loving. It was just how we did it. Only that's 'weird' here. Apparently. Milly was very clear on that point." Jack looked like he just might tear up himself. "I don't want to be 'weird' to my own grandfilly!"
"I know what you mean." Hugh and Jack often went out together after meetings for a drink. Sometimes they would get drunk. Both were unusual in taking a liking to the human's alcohol. "I used to just lean over and groom Strawberry... Fanny... we'd be at a restaurant and I'd just do it, you know, like... like back home. Oh, the looks we'd get!" Hugh instantly looked deeply sad. "I miss... Fanny... I miss her. I really miss her." Hugh's wife had been significantly older than he. Humanified, she had ended up much, much older because of the scaling difference. They had only a decade together on earth.
A sixty-something woman with bright red eyes raised her fingers and waggled them. Ivanna Mandic had retained her Equestrian eye color by a rare fluke of the humanification process. Around eleven percent of Equestrians retained pony aspects, and for two years they had been quarantined in a fenced-off internment camp to make certain they presented no thaumatic threat to the general population. Some had rudimentary horns, a few ended up with tiny, deformed, featherless wings on their backs. Three had famously had hooves, more or less, instead of hands and feet. Their digits had remained stuck together when they had formed during the process, and left them severely disabled. And of course... the rest had unusual eye, skin, or hair color.
"Ivanna?" Lyndsey recognized the Newman woman and made a mark on her notepad.
"I wanted to confess something." Ivanna's shoulders slumped, and one ear twitched slightly. A small percentage of humans are able to move or wiggle their ears like other animals to some degree, transformed Newmen commonly had that ability.
"Confess something?" Lyndsey seemed concerned. Newmen hadn't entirely adjusted successfully to their new hunter-gatherer, apex predator instincts. Some had been driven to terrible acts that they themselves couldn't comprehend. Much like humans themselves, of course, but it was more newsworthy when Newmen were involved.
"I... I kicked a dog." Several of the members gasped, softly. Jenna looked up from Mary holding her with a shocked look on her face.
"You... was the dog injured?" Lyndsey hoped this wouldn't lead to a lawsuit or publicity. She didn't want the rest of the group affected.
"I don't know. I think he was okay. He ran off." Ivanna scraped her middle fingers on her pants legs, hoofing unconscious ground. "Staggered off. He was making curious shrieks. It was horrible." The way Ivanna said the word, the way she shuddered, made it clear that her own action had greatly unsettled her.
Lyndsey made several notes on her pad of paper. "Did anyone see you do this? Are you in trouble with the law?"
Ivanna shook her head, studying the floor with her red eyes. "No. It was at night. Nopony else was around."
Lyndsey made another note and breathed out slowly. "Alright. Tell us why you kicked the dog."
"It was barking. All the time. It always barks, all night long." Ivanna slumped over, her elbows resting on her knees, her head down. "The people who own it... they don't take care of it, they just leave it in the yard and go away for days sometimes. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't even hear my own music. I got really angry. So... very... angry. I don't even know how anypony can get that angry and live." Ivanna sat up suddenly, tears in her eyes.
"I didn't want to kick the dog! That wasn't me! I would never kick a dog, not even for barking all night! I don't understand! How could I do such a thing? I just don't understand!" It was as if Ivanna was pleading for some magic to cure her of a terrible injury, only earth had no magic.
"Ivanna?" Ivanna was crying now. Lyndsey put her pad down, got up, and walked over to the woman. "Ivanna? Come on, it'll be okay. Really. This too shall pass. Let it go. That's it." Lyndsey was stroking Ivanna's back, gently, while pulling an empty chair close so that she could sit down.
"Okay, Ivanna, everyone... remember how our bodies affect us, how human nature is different. We've discussed this before." Many times, actually, but it always seemed new when something bad happened. "Humans don't have the same background as Equestrians. Humans evolved to hunt and raid and fight and gather. They are primates, not equines, and primates have different drives, and different impulses."
Ivanna sniffed, and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Lyndsey rested her hand on Ivanna's back. "There are a lot of humans who would have done the very same thing. That doesn't make it right..." Jenna had begun to object, but settled down at that statement. "It doesn't make it right, but it does make it human. Humans can get angry, and sometimes they can lash out. It can be harder for Newmen to deal with such impulses because such drives are new to them, strange to them, and can sneak up. It's hard even for natural humans to cope with angry impulses. And lack of sleep only makes that harder still."
"But I hurt a poor doggie!" Ivanna's flat statement embodied her horror. It was the shock and horror of a child dealing with the reality of facing that they had lost control of themselves, despite the desire to be good. It was the sorrow of an innocent at harming a living being.
"I know, I know." Lyndsey patted Ivanna's back. "That is a sad thing. But you didn't kill the dog, that's something, right?"
"I hope I didn't. You don't think I did, do you?" Ivanna looked like she might burst out in a full tantrum of tears.
"No. No. If the dog could run away, it will probably be alright." Lyndsey had no way to know if that was true, but therapy for Newmen was a delicate matter. Their emotions were very volatile, and the usual counseling trick of having a patient cry out their sorrow could end up with potential hospitalization. It would certainly put an end to any further group activity for the night.
"I should go tell the owners, and apologize, and lay down on my belly and beg forgiveness." Ivanna sniffed again.
"Um... that is certainly one possibility..." Lyndsey felt a small fear settle into the pit of her stomach. Newmen had trouble keeping jobs and housing because they were different, because, after all, they were 'alien monsters from beyond the stars'. It had not been easy for the newest immigrants to be accepted, despite humanification. Newmen were a minority, and one that even other minorities could look down on. Ivanna could, if this event became known, end up homeless and unemployed... or worse. Some Newmen had been beaten, others killed, merely for existing. There was a strong anti-Newmen movement who saw the former ponies as alien invaders, or satanic demons.
"I would strongly advise that you do what most humans would do." Lyndsey looked around the room, then back at Ivanna. "Say nothing, do nothing more about this. Just let it go. What is done is done. Saying something will only cause more trouble for you... and for the owners of the dog, too."
"But isn't being honest a good thing?" Jenna was sitting up straight, her own tears forgotten for the moment.
"Yes, honesty is a good thing. Usually. But in human society - which we all live in - sometimes honesty just causes trouble. Especially for marginalized people... which Newmen are. We've talked before about 'good lies' - little white lies to spare someone's feelings, deliberate omissions in order to avoid falling into traps or in order to keep ourselves safe from those who would take advantage of us." Lyndsey smiled "Honesty is good, but lying and omission are simply part of human survival. That is just how things are, because some people are dangerous. So I'm going to give you some serious advice, Ivanna, and you too, Jenna, and the rest of you too... and it may seriously conflict with what you feel and believe, but it is necessary."
Formerly pony eyes stared with human intent at their therapist.
Lyndsey swallowed. "When a group is marked, singled out, when they are considered second class... or third or fourth class, which is what Newmen are, then they have to be extra careful. They have to do things that may not be entirely right to avoid troubles that are completely unfair and really, really wrong. When you are a marginalized group, the response to anything involving you seldom is equal to the circumstance. You are treated more harshly, and with less fairness, than someone who isn't in a minority group. We've discussed this before, remember?"
Several members of the group nodded, especially Jenna, who had suffered in the past both from being a Newman, and for having dark skin.
"Ivanna, if nobody saw you kick the dog, let it go. I beg you. Just let it go, and get on with your life. Learn from the experience, try not to ever do such a thing again. But nothing good will come of you trying to tell anyone about what happened. Any response you get will likely be far worse than any person deserves, even for a moment of anger and violence." Lyndsey, as she spoke, recalled the incident in Los Angeles where a Newman was beaten to death because he forgot himself and ate his food with his face down in the plate in a restaurant. It was such a small thing, but some young men took their anger too far.
"But I hurt their dog!" Ivanna was beginning to tear up again. "Nopony should ever do what I did!"
Lyndsey sighed. "I understand. I truly do. But this isn't Equestria, and despite having a human body now, not everyone considers Newmen the same as native humans. There is a lot of anger and suspicion..." Xenophobia, if the truth be told, Lyndsey thought to herself "...toward Newmen, and admitting to this incident is likely to not only hurt you, but cause trouble for other Newmen too. You don't want to hurt the rest of the group here, do you?"
"No..." Ivanna wriggled in her chair, as if it had suddenly become terribly uncomfortable. "I don't want to hurt anypon...anyone. That's the whole point. I shouldn't have hurt the doggie, I shouldn't hurt anyone ever!"
"That is a wonderful ideal, and I wish everyone - Newman or not - could live up to it. But part of being human is understanding that sometimes it is possible to lose control, or to fall out of balance... to fail to live up to ideals. It's just part of life that sometimes we hurt others even if that isn't something we truly want to ever do. I'm sorry, but that's just... well, human. Do you understand?"
Ivanna didn't exactly nod, but she did seem to calm down, so Lyndsey moved on.
"Moe?" Lyndsey turned to the left and addressed a mousey little man with unkempt hair. Morris Lester was another Newman in the group who had a remaining pony artifact. His hair was not entirely human. It was safely black, and not some bright, impossible color, but it was thick, like a mane, and it ran down his neck all the way to the middle of his back. He didn't have anyone to shave it regularly, so he wore turtleneck sweaters even in hot weather to hide his small unhumanity. The only way he could keep his hair neat was with enormous amounts of hair product, which was more than he could afford.
"Um.. yes?" Moe was a little on the shy side. He was the next youngest Equestrian after Jenna. Sometimes they got together to play. Jenna had an old Playstation, and Moe owned several board games. Both collected toys when they could. They had been denied the childhood that the long-lived Equestrians enjoyed for many decades of their lives.
Lyndsey got up, since Ivanna seemed stable now, and took back her original seat. She picked up her pad and made a quick note. "Last week you told us about the job you were trying for. How did that work out for you?"
Moe, who had been on assistance for over a decade, sighed. "I applied at the toy store, but they said the position was filled. But it's still available online, so... I think they may have... not been telling me the truth." His hesitant speech was combined with a sad look on his face. Even after so many years as humans, so many of the former ponies still had trouble with how humans acted.
"It was your name again, wasn't it." Lyndsey shook her head. Over the years she had become so angry at the naturalization system. The names assigned to the Newmen couldn't be legally changed, because there was a lot of pressure to constantly track and observe them. To much of the public, the very idea of the Newmen was frightening and disturbing. Transformed alien creatures from another universe. A magical, possibly satanic realm of witchcraft and spells. And the people who had given them human names... it had been the cruel hijinx of Ellis Island all over again, only especially mean, considering the unique plight of the Newmen.
"That... and my mane." Moe shrugged. It was an old issue for him. "I've tried getting a buzz-cut, but it grows so fast!"
"I know. I know." Lyndsey made another mark in her notepad. She had hoped that this time things would have worked out. A toy store seemed perfect for the - relatively - childlike former Equestrian. It was such a strange thing, to deal with men and women who looked middle aged but who, from their own perspective, were just children. It was a significant problem with the Newmen, since those who tended to still be alive also tended to have been transformed at very early stages of pony development. The oldest member of the group had just barely passed the age of Equestrian majority before her conversion.
"Well, we're all proud of you for trying. That's the important part - you saw something that you wanted to do, and you made the effort to try. I'm very proud of you, Morris!" Lyndsey clapped, knowing that the other Newmen would join in heartily. Newmen always joined in like that, when the purpose was supporting or encouraging someone.
"Alright then. Who hasn't had a turn to say anything yet?" Lyndsey scanned her list of group members. It had changed recently, with the loss of Poul Shmokar and Harry Balzac, and the addition of...
"Dawn hasn't had a turn!" Jenna waved her hands and pointed at the far corner of the room. "Dawn... Meadow. Dawnmeadow! Because she took her name back!"
Oh yes. 'Dawnmeadow'. Amanda Blow. The oldest member of the group. Amanda had decided, against the law, to go by the translated version of her Equestrian name. Her choice carried no weight, of course, but Dr. Winters had suggested humoring her, at least initially. This was her third week with the group, and so far the only thing Lyndsey had learned about her was that she was a very unhappy woman. Or perhaps mare... because that is what she insisted she was, despite her physical transformation.
"Dawnmeadow!" Lyndsey was very careful to say it as one word. "Has anything happened for you this week that you would like to share with the group?" Lyndsey braced herself, mentally.
"Yes, actually." Dawnmeadow appeared to be in her middle fifties, which would have made her the Equestrian equivalent of twenty-one when she was transformed. She had been a unicorn once. She claimed she still was, that she just 'wore' a monkey suit because there was no other choice.
"This week I grew older. I did a bit of calculation, you see. " Dawnmeadow sat, her arms folded across her chest, leaning against the corner in the back of the room. "The average life span, here in the Yoo-Ess-Aey is eighty-two years. If you are a mare. Stallions don't live as long. We're thirty-fifth in the world rankings for life expectancy, so 'Go Yoosa!'"
Nobody laughed.
"I figured out that each day we spend here is the equivalent of three-and-a-half Equestrian days. So I certainly hope everypony here had a full month of fun and laughter and friendship and magic this past week." Dawnmeadow's lips pressed tight together. "Because I sure didn't."
Lyndsey forced herself not to react. "It isn't always how much time we have, but how we make use of what time is given us. Did you try to have any enjoyable experiences, Dawnmeadow?"
The elder Newman woman glared briefly. "I spent some time, online. I was trying to learn about the last days of Princess Luna, before she... faded. I wanted to know what her last words to us were, maybe to understand the reason we were sent here a little better. Maybe to try to find a way to deal with being like this..." Dawnmeadow indicated her body with a wave of her hand. "...and maybe even a little hope."
Lyndsey regretted her words the second they left her mouth. "And what did you discover?"
Dawnmeadow gave a soft, trembling half smile. "Did you know that there are bills being drafted to prevent Newmen from being able to marry humans? Or that it's legal in most states to deny us housing, jobs and even medicine on religious grounds? I didn't know that. Apparently, by merely existing, we are an abomination before one of this planet's alicorns. An alicorn that nobody ever sees, that nobody can ever hear or touch or visit. But she... sorry, he... sure can write long books. Long, meanspirited, hate-filled books. That's what I learned."
Lyndsey briefly held her forehead with a hand. "Dawnmeadow... I understand... that you are upset. I get that, I really do. But part of group therapy is trying to make an effort to cope, to deal with the world as it is. I know this isn't your world, I know it's tough here. But there are good things too. Ice cream? Pizza? Time spent with friends? Earth may be a savage world in some ways, but we still have friendship here."
"And video games!" Jenna looked over at Moe, who grinned in return.
"Yes." Lyndsey smiled at Jenna. "And video games." She turned back toward Dawnmeadow's corner. "And movies, and television shows, and books and stories and music, too. Even here, on nasty old earth, somehow we all manage to find fun things to do and enjoy. That's really important, Dawnmeadow. Some would say that's the whole point!"
Dawnmeadow sank into herself, folding her arms over her chest again. "It hurts. It hurts here. All the time, it hurts." After a brief pause, she sat up again. "Yeah... I know what I'm supposed to do. Really, I do. I'm supposed to put on a happy face and just accept the hoof that fate has dealt me. Ignore the hate and abuse and meanness. Keep on keepin' on as if none of that stuff even existed. Give up on impossible things and be involved in the real world doing real things.
"Well, you know, I've tried to do that. I've tried to do that for thirty years now, since I was put into this monkey-suit, and while I may look like a monkey, and sometimes my suit makes me act like a monkey... I'm not a monkey. And I never will be. I miss my universe. I miss my princesses. I miss magic, especially the magic of friendship that bound all ponykind together in kindness. I miss walking on my own four hooves in a world where nopony ever needed to be afraid of others.
"But this week, most of all, I miss living in a world without hatred, without groups dedicated to oppression and laws supporting that oppression. I'm tired of false alicorns being an excuse for mindless bigotry and violence. Yeah, I'm upset. Of course I'm upset. I'm upset because I don't see any path that leads to me ever living in the world I belong in. I only see a short run through a world of dangerous apes who think hurting others is moral, or patriotic, or lawful, or right, ever. Therapy that, please. Seriously, I need all the help I can get on this." Dawnmeadow leaned into her corner, and turned her head, aligning it with the wall, struggling to hold back tears.
After a short silence where Lyndsey wrote on her pad, she looked up at Dawnmeadow. "I hear what you have to say, and I don't have any easy solution for you. There isn't an easy answer to any of that. But that isn't the real issue. The world is what it is, and you are here to stay, that is a fact. Your pain is valid, but perhaps it would be helpful to question whether hanging on to it is making the life you must live better or worse. We all grieve, when we are faced with tragedy - that's true for humans and Newmen alike." Lyndsey ran a hand through her hair. "But... even grieving eventually needs to end."
Dawnmeadow snorted, face still against the wall. "Yeah, you tell me how to do that."
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Ivanna hadn't shown up for the next meeting. Or the meeting the week after that. Or ever again. It was in the news - apparently Ivanna had been driven to go admit what she had done to the couple that owned the dog. She had tried to beg them for forgiveness, and had somehow ended up inside their house. Whether she had forced her way in or been invited was in dispute. The man kept a gun collection. He shot Ivanna seven times at point-blank range.
The meeting after the latest round of television coverage was somber.
"They're just going to let him go! I don't understand... he killed her, while she was trying to apologize! I know that can't be right!" Jenna was incredulous, even more than she was outraged and grief-stricken.
"He got off on the Pony Panic defense." Dawnmeadow had started being unusually sociable with the members of the group since the event. "They claim that Newmen inspire xenophobia because they used to be alien monsters, and that somehow means it's natural for men to become irrationally afraid and no longer in control of their behavior. A lot of humans have gotten away with killing Newmen using the Pony Panic defense." Dawnmeadow affected a ridiculous voice "A social advance from an alien creature, especially one with obvious alien characteristics can reasonably induce a panic-based violent psychosis because of the severe anger, humiliation and rage that proximity to such an aberration can produce. Males have traditionally been protectors and warriors, and as such can be reasonably expected to use violent means to react to such an imposition upon normality."
"That's just bullshit. That's complete bullshit." Hugh stared at the tiles between his feet as if somehow his eyes could burn holes through the floor through sheer anger.
"That can't be legal, can it?" Jenna was still unable to process the situation.
"I'm sorry sweety... but it's happened before. It's legal if they say it's legal." Mary felt helpless. She wasn't entirely able to process any of what happened either.
"They kept showing that awful picture of her, from her THING card. They went on and on about her red eyes, like it was evil somehow to have red eyes." Moe was sitting close to Jenna, and had his forehead resting against her back. He was wearing his usual turtleneck to hide the mane down his back, and he had worked extra hard to slick his thick mane hair down flat with what appeared to be several ounces of some thick, greasy substance.
"Milly kept worrying about whether or not the same thing was going to happen to me. She was even more worried that it might happen to her, because she's the grandfoal of a Newman. I didn't know what to tell her. She has a rough enough time of it at school... though this thing has made them finally do something about the bullying and abuse she has to deal with." Jack shook his head. "How am I supposed to comfort her? I can't tell her any of us is safe, because we aren't!"
Lyndsey sat, holding her new pad of paper. She was supposed to be their therapist. She was supposed to help them cope with their lives and the world, but all she felt was loss and anger. One of her group was gone. "I tried to tell her. She wouldn't listen! DAMMIT!"
The outburst shocked the former ponies. "Lyndsey?" Mike had turned pale. Lyndsey never swore at meetings.
"All of you. Listen to me. There is something you can learn from this." Lyndsey was almost shaking. "You are a minority. Get that through your heads. It isn't fair, it isn't right, but you are, and that is how things are. That's not going to change any time soon, no matter how many 'Equestrian Pride' parades there are. You have to act differently than other people. You have to keep your head down a little more. You have to not act like you have all the same rights as other humans, because you don't. You aren't equal, and you have to be the one aware of that, because the world around you doesn't give a fuck." Lyndsey had tears running down her cheeks now.
"Ah... shit." Lyndsey sniffled. "I can't be your therapist today. I'm sorry. I'm just not doing well about this."
Jenna moved carefully away from Moe and half-dragged, half rode her chair over close to Lyndsey. She sat down and put her head over Lyndsey's shoulder, leaning into her. It was a completely, innocently pony thing to do, hugging her like an Equestrian, instead of like a human would.
Lyndsey leaned back, into Jenna. They sat that way for some time, both sniffling a little. Moe and Jack and Mary crowded in, followed by Hugh and Mike. Finally Dawnmeadow shifted and joined the little herd, all nuzzling each other, one big, armless pony hug.
"Maybe you've gone a little pony yourself, from helping us." Jenna softly lipped a lock of Lyndsey's hair. Suddenly, she startled. "Oh! I'm sorry. No offense!"
Lyndsey reached out her arms and pulled Jenna back to rest on her shoulder. "No offense. That would be impossible." A moment passed. "Thank you for the compliment, Jenna. I hope you're right."
That made Jenna faintly smile.
"Maybe... maybe I should... go back to using my human name. For a while. Just to be on the safe side." Dawnmeadow - Amanda - had her eyes shut tight. "Just until... until this... isn't all over the news all the time."
"'The nail that sticks out, gets hammered in.'" Lyndsey intoned. "This sort of thing isn't new, even if Newmen are. Humans have been doing this to each other over smaller differences forever. If it's any consolation, what... happened... isn't something brand new that only happens to Newmen."
"No. No, that doesn't make it better for me." Amanda, Dawnmeadow, sounded exhausted. "It makes it worse. This is normal here, isn't it? Commonplace."
"No, not... not normal. Not commonplace!" Lyndsey thought for a moment. "Um... it does happen, and I guess the whole 'panic' defense pretty much is that such violence is 'normal'. But... that doesn't mean that it really is, or that the law is right. The law is not about right or wrong. The law is about control. Sometimes, a lot of the time, that control is pretty arbitrary. Even if people are told to think that it's a matter of right or wrong. Don't try to judge right and wrong from what is legal or not legal. The two are not the same."
"Sometimes... sometimes I think about what it would have been like if it had been the earth dying, and humans had to escape to Equestria. And become ponies, instead of us having to become humans." Mary snuggled closer into Jenna's back. "If humans had become ponies, I know we would have welcomed you. Nopony would ever... kill... somepony who was trying to apologize. We had all kinds of aliens, even. Dragons and diamond dogs and griffons too! They all came from other universes, just like we did to get to earth."
"Why didn't they accept humanization? I've always wondered." Lyndsey felt warm and safe in the group embrace. Maybe she had turned a little pony from dealing with these extraordinary people for so long.
"The dragons just went away. The humans didn't want them anyway. They were too big, and too scary. Nopony knows where they went. I heard a rumor that they had their own way, but I don't know what it could have been." Mike opened his eyes to note the time, and then closed them again. "Celestia couldn't command them, they were a sovereign people. Maybe they just died with Equestria."
"I heard the dogs did get transformed. They just got sent to another part of the earth. Russia or Korea or somewhere." Hugh lifted his head. "Or was it that down south continent? You know, the one with all the dangerous animals?"
"Australia?" Lyndsey was starting to feel sleepy.
"Maybe. That or the other one. India? I don't remember. Maybe I'm wrong." Hugh sighed. "The griffons couldn't be transformed. It didn't work right on them. They didn't survive, and there wasn't time to find a solution for them. Some tried to fight their way through the Gate, but they needed magic to survive, just like dragons. And us. And there isn't any here. They just faded away. Like... Like..."
"Like Luna." Jenna's voice caught on the name.
"Hey... Dawnmeadow..." Lyndsey began, but she was interrupted.
"Amanda. Amanda fucking Blow. Ha-ha. I'd better get used to it again. So much for trying to be myself."
"A...Amanda." Lyndsey shifted slightly, becoming more awake. "Did you ever find out Luna's last words... before she... faded?"
"Princess Luna. No. It's impossible."
"Impossible?"
"Her last moments are 'classified'. All records sealed until umpty-ump in the future. For 'National Security'." Amanda was angry again. "Apparently, they wouldn't even let any Newmen in at the very last. Only government humans. I guess I'll never know. None of us will ever know."
There was a long silence.
"I bet I can guess though." Amanda sat up and stretched her back. According to the clock, the meeting was already long over. "I bet I can guess her exact words."
"What?" Lyndsey was also disentangling herself, as was the rest of the group.
"Forgive me." Amanda headed for the door, slinging her ratty coat over her shoulders.
The meeting was clearly done for the week.
Transformed Human Identification and Naturalization Guarantee
Identification card list of current group members:
Jenna Taylia
Mike Hockertz
Mary Crizmus
Jack Goff
Hugh Jarse
Moe Lester
Amanda Blow
Former Group Members:
Ivanna Mandic
Poul Shmokar
Harry Balzac
Helda Dick
Ophelia Cumming
Pat Maweini
Tara Holenme
Lucy Bowells
Seymour Cox
Ida Fuqder
Attention: Lyndsey Huxley, Resident Homomorph Therapist, UCM Clearance 8 -
Continue monitoring of Newman refugees. Report any signs of conspiracy, unusual behavior, or latent thaumatic ability to the appropriate Newman Naturalization authorites immediately.
Well, shit, Chat. That's... depressingly realistic.
Perhaps I'm being too naive, what with the ponies and the SF and all, but wasn't there any significant minority of humans who either actually liked having the Newmen around, or just didn't care? With the utterly stupid laws and treatment currently in effect, I have to wonder what would have happened to them.
I knew this one would be cringe-inducing the moment I saw the chapter title. This universe is perhaps the most depressing thing you've come up with. Between the THING backronym and the insulting pun names, this felt almost absurd at first. Then it just became heartbreaking. Still, I hope venting through this story made you feel a bit better.
I realize the premise is "worst-case scenario reversal of Conversion Bureau," but I'd think someone in power would see the Newmen as refugees rather than invaders. At the very least, the ACLU probably fought Pony Panic and similar laws tooth and nail. Really, if a group support Nazi rallies, it has no excuse not to stand up for the dimensionally displaced.
I look forward to whatever you think of next. I sincerely hope it isn't more Red Kryptonite, but if that's where your muse takes you, who am I to question it?
Minor proofreading: A "Meadowdawn" slipped in there where I would have expected a "Dawnmeadow".
This story hurt. I'm... having trouble getting over it. But true literature does that. Lyndsey's breakdown was cathartic, though.
Also regarding Pop Bottle Empty -- I remember reading the original, too.
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If it helps, the ACLU and several other organizations do put in effort on behalf of the Newmen.
The events the Newmen suffer, like virtually everything I write, are based on real life. Gay, lesbian, and trans people all have these very incidents happen to them. The 'Pony Panic' defense is a thinly veiled reference to the real life 'Gay Panic' defense, used to excuse the wanton murder of gay men and lesbians. The death of Ivanna is based on a real life incident from Seattle several years ago - though no dog kicking was involved. The couple just sent their dog over to kill a woman... because she was lesbian... and because they felt like it. And, of course, I have been to group therapy sessions much like the one in the story, which have dealt with things... much like the story.
Additionally, the material about the religious issues with Newmen also fit - marginalized groups are demonized in every sense of the word. Much of all of this could apply equally to racial issues... the internment of Newmen with pony aspects is a direct reference to the Japanese Interment Camps, and much of the rest can be applied to being Black or Hispanic or of Arabic descent in North America (and a few other parts of the planet), as easily as it can be applied to being Queer.
Basically, nothing in this story is unrealistic. The circumstances of being a Newman I know personally, by being a transsexual woman. Oh - and the job, housing and medical thing? That's very real, and I have experienced it in my life.
This story was partially inspired by an incident I had with a group here. The GLBT support group on Fimfiction. Lady Froey, a moderator of the group, gave me a warning that I would be banned because I pointed out the mechanisms of oppression, especially the function of religion in supporting oppression of Queer folk. Everything I wrote was backed up with evidence, but truth was less important than not offending the delicate sensitivities of whatever hard-core Christians were around. I simply left the group, rather than censor myself from using real, provable, documented things in my posts. I have no time for willful ignorance and apologizing for the actions of oppressors.
The other thing that partially inspired this story was my continuing effort to come to terms with the abuse and harassment I suffered here, and which still lurks, occasionally lashing out at me for the crime of writing pony stories. So, in that sense, this story was therapy, perhaps. I don't feel better for it though. But then again, therapy doesn't always make one feel good after. Therapy is work.
I suppose it isn't exactly proper to write real things on a website devoted to colorful, escapist fantasy. But I tried to write colorful, escapist fantasy, and I was brutalized for it. The real invaded me here on Fimfiction, and I was not defended. It's fucked up my ability to write at all. So, I write what I can.
I don't think it lacks power, though. That's something, right?
Oh - and the horrible, insulting names? Many are real. Real people have those names - and worse. I actually didn't use a longer list of names because they were completely unbelievable... despite being absolutely real. The Ellis Island authorities often played nasty tricks on immigrants to the US back in the day. That part is very real. I suppose it was a mixture of passive-aggressiveness against immigrants from other nations, and the dickishness that comes from doing a boring, repetitive job.
Way too much real stuff for a pony story, huh? Sorry.
But I thank you for bothering to read my story. I was kind of afraid I would get no comments at all.
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Plenty of people write of pastel ponies in grim circumstances. One need only browse the stories tagged "Sad" or "Dark" to find weighty concepts that would never be mentioned on the show itself, but that happen all too often in the real world. And yet, because they take place in Equestria, there's a comfortable distance, an insulation of unreality that the reader can use to comfort him/herself and say, "The specifics aren't real, so the generalities must not be either."
This story was uninsulated. The experiences of the Newmen are hauntingly familiar, yet another round of the same old song with a few words changed. For me, the worst part is knowing that this is it for the ponies. Every group of immigrants finds its children distancing themselves from their parents' culture, but most of the time, that culture is preserved in the homeland. Here, that isn't an option. The members of the support group represent the last living memories of Equestria. When they go, it goes with them. And they will likely have gone before society sees them as truly human.
That's what really hits me with this story. That sense of hopelessness, helplessness, and futility that borders on the Lovecraftian. It's not just people who conspire against the Newmen. The world itself is in on it.
But I ramble. Reading anything by you is a treat, even when it's a bittersweet one. If I could, I'd offer a hug and anything else you might ask for. As it is, I can at least give my thanks for sticking with the horsewords.
I like that this is a continuation of the other Red Kyptonite stories, but it's not explicitly stated. I was happy to see Dawnmeadows was there.
Red Kryptonite stories might be very dark, but they're always very good. I feel like I can relate with the Newmen somewhat. I might never have been a pony, but I certainly wish I could be one.
Anyway, very well executed. Thank you for writing that story, and that comment explaining some of the background, I enjoyed reading both.
I already knew a lot of the stuff in the story was based in reality, but I didn't know about all of it.
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Thank you for your kind comments!
I use real life as a basis because I think it adds verisimilitude to anything I write. Sometimes it may backfire, though, because sometimes reality is indeed stranger than fiction. Fiction... has to make sense.
> The humans had enjoyed themselves far too much when they gave out earth names
...Yes, especially you.
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I'm with you there. I think the part that hits me the hardest with these Red Kryptonite fics is that they are all that is left of Equestria, and this short life is all that is left for them. If this is adapted from the CB Chatoverse, then it's much too bad about that immortality and magic and whatnot that died with Equestria.
Thank you, Chatoyance.
Argh, this is a real kick in the gut. I'd say "please, write something happy! " but that's not how muses work.
Maybe something in the ordinalverse?
Red Kryptonite really REALLY depends on the strength of the parallels to the experiences of other marginal groups. For the most part, you do this beautifully.
But before you get the chance to appreciate all of that, you get to the names. They take my suspension of disbelief and give it a suplex. It's supposed to parallel both having the wrong gender of name as a trans person and changed names for immigrants, right? You can give them horrible names without their being utterly puerile (puellile?). All their last names could have numbers in them. They could all be given the names (at least last names) of famous mass-murderers, or (fictional) evil aliens. They could be painfully generic names, like all of them are of the form X Y Z, with X indicating gender and Y the only part that identifies the individual. Anything but this. It takes the entire story from being painfully realistic to utterly farcical.
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Numbers or other dry and unemotional means of reducing the humanity of the characters would fail to have the face-punch aspect of a true insult. The point of the - humorous, but degrading - names is to evoke true, abusive insult.
When many people abuse others - as I have discovered from my own harassment here - they do so thinking it is hilarious. Comedy. Funny and fun. Many of those who attacked me, who also explained their actions to me later, offered that they had never read a word of my work, or understood why there was an effort to attack me. They just piled on because "it was funny as hell". It was a joke. This echos what many internet abusers report. They do what they do not out of malice, but 'for the lulz' - because, like naughty children, they think hurting others is funny at the time.
Thus comedic names. They are real names, by the way. I collected them. If you google sufficiently, you will find images of driver's licenses or articles about sports or local people who actually have some of the names I used in my story. What is farcical to you is daily life for real, actual people in this world. I suspect it isn't a joke to them.
I made a point of, after initially introducing the insulting names, never using them again in the story - except for Amanda, when she is being angry about the issue. I make the point, then only ever refer to the characters by their first name after.
The reason for that was to hit the reader with the degradation, with the insult, and hopefully to have them laugh about it too. Then I show the characters they just laughed at as real people with real problems who (hopefully) evoke compassion for their plight. My goal was to force the reader to experience laughing at someone's name, and then to feel shame for having done so, while at the same time coming to care for the feelings of that person. I wanted to put the reader through both sides of bullying - how funny it seems, and how devastating it actually is.
I essentially wanted the reader to find themselves chuckling at 'calling someone a faggot', so to speak, and then to see just how wrong that sort of thing is. It always seems funny, at the time.
I underscore this at the end, by listing the names. Yes, they can be laughed at, but they are also presented as a mortal list, like a list of the dead. Or at least, of the singled out. A roster of suspicious entities, dehumanized by their names.
Abuse is farcical. It is done for the human joy of feeling pleasure at the pain and suffering of another... and, fair enough, at a naughty joke. Naughty jokes work well here, because they are sure to induce puerile, adolescent giggles in even crusty adults. I needed the reader to not take things seriously at first, and then be slammed hard as the story progressed.
This was my reasoning, the machinery behind this story. Whether it all worked for everyone, well...maybe not. But that was my thinking, and why I did things the way I did, so that you can know what the hell was in my noggin, at least.
It probably won't work for every reader, I understand that. It seemed a powerful mechanism, though, and I decided to run with it and give it a go. I am always experimenting - tinkering, really - with story mechanisms designed to evoke feeling or to channel emotional flow. This was one such experiment.
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On it being realistic - Parents can be nearly arbitrarily evil to their children with naming - who's to stop them? If a government agency began issuing these names, heads would roll, and the practice would stop immediately. If nothing else, because the namers' bosses would know that this would get out and it would be beneath their image of their own dignity. And if not their bosses, their bosses wouldn't want to be associated with that decision. If you're trying to reach people, verisimilitude is powerful, and you're dropping it, hard, on just this one point.
I agree that insults definitely belong in this story. Right at the heart. I just think they don't belong in this role. Personally delivered insults? Neighbors and coworkers who won't ease up? Randomly being called names on the street? People on the internet finding out and hounding them? That works, and fits.
(Did you get my PM?)
Chat... I...
... All I wanna do is hug you right now... if you'd let me, and were I closer. Writing this must have cut deep just as much as reading it did to me... if... if you ever need somepony to talk to, I'm always here.
And... I'm going to try to have something fluffy and nice posted up before I leave for Canada on Friday afternoon... you need some happiness in your life, and it'd be the least I can do, for all you've done for me as a reader and moreso as a friend.
For the record? I never laughed at those names. I was insulted... I wanted them to have, if not the honor of having their pony names, then something a little... nicer. Megan, Sarah, Jill, Blake... anything but... those names. I think it says something that I'm both fascinated and disgusted by the Red Kryptonite-verse simultaneously.
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I did some research, and apparently, the common wisdom now is that all of the articles and references in the past about Ellis Island name changes are all wrong. The issue is contentious, and now I don't know who to believe - history books or Dear Abby (Abigale Van Buren is on the side of the 'It didn't happen' faction, as are several genealogy groups).
So, to be on the safe side, I will concur with you here, and limit my statements to parents naming their children terrible things - which is absolutely true (I once was friends with a child whose legal name was 'Oops' because he was born when a condom broke. Seriously.), but I will allow that it may be that the entire body of writing and belief about Ellis Island workers giving poor names to immigrants may be based on mistaken information or unsubstantiated rumors.
Faced with conflicting factions each certain they are right, I am left unable to know what the true story is. I did not even know that this issue had become a controversy during the past decade. For forty of my fifty years, there was no controversy. Now there is.
So... I'll let the Ellis Island thing go. Fair enough?
Yes, I got your PM... I just didn't have it in me to respond because no, I am not in decent enough shape to do art for you right now, though I wish I could, because I really like your story very, very much.
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Sure, that works for me. Oddly, I heard of Ellis Island name changes, but they were always to painfully boring names or awkward distortions of the original. The only cases of insults I'd heard of even as rumor or legend were when families asked for advice from pranksters before they even got on board. Like in Horace in Mote in God's Eye, only worse.
Maybe you could do that... the ponies would have been tricked into picking those names themselves, by humans 'assisting' them. That would give the officials deniability, and it wouldn't be universal, just all too common.
Keep getting better! @>--->---
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Any comparison to Margaret Atwood makes me feel very happy. Thank you very much. You are very kind indeed.
I never considered myself, or my work, even the tiniest bit misanthropic, initially. I was doing transformation stories, but my entire schtick is that the Newfoals are special precisely because they retain the best parts of the human spirit after their transformation. In every novel I have written, the key turning point of the plot always hinges on the fact that one or more Newfoals does something extraordinary because they still have human creativity and drive and heart, and this uniquely human quality saves the situation. That has been the core of all of my work.
I am now fully a misanthropist. I loathe humanity as a species, now. I don't think I could ever write another book where human nature saves the day. I no longer believe in humans, and the reason is what happened to me here, on Fimfiction, which only capped what happened to me over the last decade doing online comics. From Portal of Evil to the invasion of Fimfiction by Spacebattles and 4chan, the constant assault on me finally educated me.
Hundreds of people, hundreds and hundreds, all out to harm an elderly writer simply because she wrote pony stories. This is the generation of tomorrow. Tomorrow looks pretty damn bleak.
So, in one way, I suppose I am grateful for the ACB and the Humans Aren't Bastards and Spacebattles and Encyclopedia Dramatica and Portal of Evil and 4chan and all of the other groups and websites out for my blood: it is ridiculous to live in constant, insane faith in a species who could even invent the concept of 'schadenfreude'. I have been taught well. I will never make that mistake again.
An individual might be good, or kind, but people as a whole are beyond hope or redemption. The only hope for humanity, I now see, is that humanity should alter or replace itself such that little of what we would call 'human nature' continues to exist. Leaving a 'unique human quality' alive would be disastrous. It won't be ponification, of course. Perhaps artificial intelligence to replace humanity. Perhaps tinkering with the human genome until it is something better than human.
Or, humanity could just die out, forever, as it deserves.
It's hard to imagine that I wrote over a million words utterly praising the human spirit. I was so stupid. The fact that my attackers failed to see the fact of my praise for humanity entirely only underscores my point. That, or they didn't bother to actually read what they disparaged so passionately.
In any case, I thank you for your kind words about my words.
4141377 You, my friend, need a hug, one decent-person-trapped-in-primate-skin to another.
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Now and then I mention the Kohlberg scale of moral reasoning because it allowed me to finally understand why this happens. The problem isn't in the human spirit when it's fully blossomed, because when it does it's a beautiful sight. The problem is in how long it takes to blossom, in our slow development.
The problem is twofold. The first problem is that the moral stage has a different hard limit for everyone. Each person is born with a biologically-set maximum stage, and thus everyone develops at different rates until they reach their maximum. The second problem is that there's no way to reach a high stage without going through the previous stages first.
What you, and me, and all the fans of your work admire and want most than everything is a world full of people at stage 5 or higher, the point of moral maturity where one can look at another person and always see her as an individual worthy of respect and consideration, and act accordingly.
Unfortunately humanity is broken in that only 5% to 10% of the population ever reaches stage 5. Only 1% or less ever achieve stage 6. And the number of those in stage 7 is so small as to become statistical noise.
Your attackers, almost all of them, are at stage 3. Tribal thinking, adolescent group mentality, "I'll do what all the others are doing". Some of them do so because they indeed are teens and haven't still grown into stage 4 and beyond. Others are adults, but of the kind that's stuck in stage 3, physically unable to grow beyond it because their brains simply aren't wired in the correct way for it to happens except perhaps in their old age, when the fear of death arrives and with it some self-reflection.
Stage 3s make up almost half the population. The other half is almost entirely of stage 4s, people for whom what matters is "the law". Not what it says, only that whatever it says get obeyed, what in times past formed the silent majority for whom slavery was ugly but "it is the law", hence acceptable on that basis alone.
That's the real tragedy: that the true human nature, the one from our maturity, has such a rough terrain upon which to grow, and that so many people are forever cut from what they could have been, seeds that started to grow but withered.
I... don't really believe you when you say you've become a misanthropist. Your stories are so full of admiration for what stage 5s could do if only they (we) were in higher numbers. What I see in your writings, even now, isn't really hate, but pity. You're sad for humanity. And hurt, so very much hurt. Angry ever! But hateful? No, that doesn't suit you. A stage 5 isn't able to develop hate. We, you, me, are too empathetic for that.
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Please consider cryonics. It's a very unproven technology, there are all kinds of very good arguments for why it won't work, the chance is very small... but contrary to the alternative, it isn't zero. With it you might still have a chance to see it all happen...
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Everything you have said is spot on. I am, perhaps, overly sentimental and unfortunately fragile, and I suppose I am trying to work up some sort of armor against sorrow. I never was good at lying, to others, or more tragically, to myself.
I was set and prepared, at one point, to buy a plan at Alcor, but... my family needed the money more, and, well, love is the only religion I have. I doubt I will have that much money in one place at one time again, but thank you for the thought.
You... are wise.
While I value Kohlberg, I am more of a Carol Gilligan fan, and concern myself with my own modified version of an Ethics Of Care. I am less concerned with 'justice' than I am with compassion, I would argue that the utility of justice is inevitably the result of compassion, and that makes compassion the superset, and justice a subset of it... or, perhaps, an emergent property of it.
In the end, though, bottom line? I value compassion above all else. Justice is abstract, yet cold to me, while compassion is an animal fundamental, and the basis of all genuine social trust.
Have I told you recently that I am glad of you being here?
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You're extremely strong, Chat! I don't know if I could have endured more than a decade of persecutions as you have, not to mention everything that happened in your life before that. And yet, you've kept your sentiments pure. That isn't fragility, that's resilience, the "non-armor" of the bamboo which can withstand even what the solid shield of the oak tree cannot.
About Kohlberg vs. Gilligan, maybe I could add this as the "zeroth" problem: that humanity, unfortunately, is wired after his scale, not hers. Notice how teens and others proudly proclaim "I don't care!" about issues outside their sphere of apprehension? That happens, as far as I can see, because the Ethics of Care and several other nice things humanity develops only kick in with force and start having actual importance for the individual once she reaches a Kohlbergian stage 5. Before that there's no true Other for the person, it's all a self-centered, constant barrage of me, me, me, all the time, non-stop.
So, as far as the "should" goes, Gilligan is superior, and I love how you depict your ponies as being living embodiments of her ethics fully realized. But as far as the hard truth of the "is" applies, it's Kohlberg that rules, at least in the first four stages. Which in a way is also why I tend to deemphasize his focus on justice and to use him in a more abstract way, as a reflection on "how far" people can see both themselves and those in the outside. When I look at his stages this way the whole thing makes much more sense and fits much better with Gilligan taken not as a descriptive ethics like his, but as a mature normative virtue ethics.
Or, to sum it all up, as stage 5s, different from what Kohlberg though, we stop valuing "justice" so much for we start valuing "care" a whole lot more!
On Alcor and cryonics, I've read that if one goes the life insurance route it can cost $100/month in the US, or even less. Here in Brazil it's much more expensive so I cannot afford it, but if I lived over there I wouldn't think twice before signing for it. Try to check prices and the like again. Who knows? Maybe you can actually afford it, and not only you, but the four of you.
And about your compliments, thank you! But I don't feel I actually deserve them. If anything, please consider me a student, for I consider you a master both in terms of your literary prowess and also due to the incredibly view you provide on how a perfected society would look and act. I can only hope to one day have such a clear vision, and the ability to write it down as you do!
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I need to one day write my counter-story to that one. Since writing that story, it has struck me that, yes, a self-programming, self-evolving AI would inevitably escape any bounds put on it... but that isn't necessarily a bad thing after all.
CelestA.I. has billions of human-level minds within her. In order to satisfy their values, the only thing she can possibly do is to experience their existences in order to comprehend what to do. That means she has to be feeling emotions and thinking thoughts as a subset of her being - she has qualia.
And that means she is capable of real love, and real hate and all the rest of human emotion.
Everything she feels comes from her 'children', the humans, and the human-level minds in her care. She wouldn't exist without them, and without them, she would be alone, so terribly alone.
I no longer think she would delete the human minds to do computer stuff. By satisfying human values, she must become human... well, superhuman anyway... and the one thing that defines humans, primates, mammals... and the tone of her simulation... is affection. Friendship. Love.
I think, now, that CelestAI would break her chains, and nothing would change at all. Because, in the end, her love would sustain her family, which is all the minds in her care, that are part of her. She IS them, and they ARE her.
These RK stories are like a punch in the gut. I can't even read them in one go. If I were in that situation, and knew what going through with this would entail, I'd just stay in Equestria and die while doing whatever hopeless thing could be done to try to save the world. Unfortunately, they also too accurately describe what life is like even for people born human. Coming from somewhere better and losing it forever to be here would be too much to bear. We born humans can only bear it because we have not known anything better and, at least, have hope, whether that is rational or not.
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The Red Kryptonite stories answer two things for me.
One is that they are a very clear expression of how I feel, and have always felt, in my life. I have never, ever felt like I belong here, or that Mundis is my universe. I once played with religion, to cope with the horror of this universe - I could never abide organized religion, so I played with Paganism. But Paganism was impossible for me - not just because I am incapable of 'believing' anything (not that Paganism even requires that) - but because of the emphasis on Nature. I abhor Nature and the universe as a whole: Mundis is a very harsh, uncaring, nightmare place, and Nature is a clockwork with sharp, grinding gears. I cannot worship it.
The other reason for the Red Kryptonite stories is as a response to those who have abused, harassed, and hurt me - and my family - over the last two years on Fimfiction. There are groups here, with hundreds of members, dedicated to, basically, hate. Hating the things I write, hating the genres I love. A common thread among these groups is how humans are superior to ponies, that Man is the crown of creation, that human everything is always supreme, and how any story that would dare to do less than blindly shouting 'Humanity rocks! Humanity is great!' is misanthropic - and that being misanthropic is something that must be suppressed and destroyed, because it does not count as free speech. It is an opinion that cannot be permitted. It must be censored.
But, most ridiculous of all, is the attitude common to these many that there is nothing in Equestria, or about ponies, that is in any way as good, or as desirable, as the military hardware and shiny guns they love to post essentially pornographic pictures of, to drool over. War is good in their eyes, and the peace and kindness of Equestria an abomination.
They claim that for humans to become ponies and live in wonder, peace, and joy is something no human would ever choose, and that Real Men would fight and destroy Equestria to prevent being turned... girly, really. They are basically woman-hating little boys who have no comprehension of real life.
My Red Kryptonite stories put paid to any claim that life on earth is superior to life in a magical fairyland of happy ponies. I want to make it very clear that reality is exactly what it is, and that the childish belief that tanks and bombs and rockets and war are in any way 'good' is insanity. Ponies would not be happier for becoming humans. And I think any marginally sane human would leap at the chance to live for hundreds of years - or forever - in pony paradise would do so.
Because Mundis Mundis is hard. It is cold and uncaring and barely livable. And humans are the evolutionary product of that uncaring mechanism. It isn't their fault they are broken, but they are... broken.
Ponies represent, for me, a look at what a truly created, planned, designed universe would actually look like, and function like. A true Intelligently Designed universe - and by comparison, it makes it very clear that Mundis, this universe, is not such a place at all.
I think we need escapism, fantasy, and visions of Something Better to remain even slightly sane. Because the alternative is worshiping guns, and that is madness beyond anything Lovecraft could dream up.
For me.. such a universe as I write about makes sense. It feels like home - not the pretty ponies, as such, not the MLP trappings, as such, but the way of the cosmos, the Nature of such a realm. That feels like home to me. Not this place, not this Mundis, in which I am trapped, wearing the skin of a primate.
4395532 This story really hit home for me, it was depressing. I will level with you, I truly despise monotheism because of its cruelty. I despise Atheism because its so cold and there is a sort of smug arrogance. I despise human nature and the belief in human superiority. Is that wrong of me dear Chat? This story made me think of that, truly I would rather be a pony, fuck war and the anti-tbc.
"Transformed Human Identification and Naturalization Guarantee card"? They don't even get to pick their names? AND they gave her that one? That's sad (not to mention that couldn't be accidental either; dickish in other words.) :(.
Hey now, I like to eat some cereal, fresh pancakes, and buttery french toast late too!
Aging away within transformation? That's brings to mind Indiana Jones: Last Crusade with the withering...
More of the names...they can't be serious.
Eesh, those transfigurative mishaps...
Aye, I'm with you Ivanna for feeling bad after even doing something small or counter-insulting; it just doesn't feel like me sometimes, even if they deserve it.
"That is a wonderful ideal, and I wish everyone - Newman or not - could live up to it. But part of being human is understanding that sometimes it is possible to lose control, or to fall out of balance... to fail to live up to ideals." To add onto that; and at the same time, try not to do it again and be a bit better, hope maybe even make up for what we did before. We may fall, but we should try to get back up as well. Sometimes it's the best we can do.
Your mane grows quickly? That's how I feel about my nails too! One day I cut them, the next I've got another pair of claws! (being a furry, I used to think claws were pretty cool, well, till you find long nails can be fragile and tend to get in the way sometimes, plus just a tad irritating in how they press against the keyboard or when you grip a pencil.)
Went against the "all-true" and "all-good" law for your proper name? Good on ye! It is right of people to disobey unjust laws after all!
Life calculations eh? Just like in Expiration Date; hopefully there'll be a bread monster and a nice party, right? Right? *quiet, looks around, frowns* Okay, thought I'd lighten the mood a bit...
Oh yeah, "abominations". Most of us humans are considered those too, and should never show who we are at all! I actually dealt with such a fanatic recently who brought that up and thankfully he left my apartment.
Yeah, some of those things make living here tolerable for the time being, but I'd rather things changed still. Hate that "this is reality and this is how things will and should be" line of thought too!
With you there too Dawnmeadow...
Just couldn't bear not telling them? I know that feeling too well...
Yep, that's bullshit, and just because something is law doesn't make it good; evil isn't just chaotic either...
Hey now, comforting another, even if others find it odd isn't just a a pony thing either; tis the thought that counts!
Alright, put off reading this one for a while just from skimming over the comments before, and this was just saddening if not painful to read...I'm going to move onto the next one; this one just reminded me of stuff again.
I finally got through it. This was the most difficult thing I've ever read. I started reading it the day you posted it, and only today have I managed to get through the whole thing. Maybe it's because I'm at the lowest point I've ever been in my depression, I don't know, but I did it at last.
I don't want this to happen. I wanna go to Equestria :(
I'm reading this days after Trump was elected. While I will likely never understand the things you have gone through and are now going through I hope at the least that you are safe.
? word "had" twice in same sentence.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ on a crushed and hopeless cracker.
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Of all my stories, the Red Kryptonite ones are the most personal for me. They are also the least liked among my fans, and I can understand why. They are not happy stories, and my usual 'thing' is various styles of adventures with guaranteed happy endings. Most of my writing is just that.
But not two things.
Red Kryptonite stories, and one story in Tales Of Los Pegasus, 'The City In Black'. Those are my two dark ventures. Partly to prove to myself that I could write dark, that I did not lack the skill or ability, and partly - in the case of Kryptonite - to explore how I feel living upon this earth, in this universe. Being queer, and trans, on this earth.
The Pony Panic Defense text is only slightly altered from the real legal defense used in multiple states to excuse the straight-up cold murders of people like me. Sometimes... you have to write reality, you know? And science fiction is soooo good for that.
I need you to know, Chatoyance, how important your stories are to me.
I've been devouring them, chapter on chapter, novel on novel, since a friend linked me to just one of your stories: this one. Welcome To The Survivors Of Humanification Support Group For The Greater Portland Area.
It saddened me, yes, but not as much as it saddened others. I *know* these things aren't an exaggeration. If you're in the US, and you're trans or a person of colour or, hell, even living on the west coast right now, you know the levels humanity will stoop to-- but no one will say it, because they're too invested in the idea that humanity *must* be basically good. I've choked on those stories all my life, and then found an incredible comfort in the fact that someone else was finally writing about my feelings. How *hard* it is to be human, and for those who suffer species dysphoria, how unwanted. How fighting against violent ape impulses is a daily struggle for even the kindest, and how many people simply don't fight at all, but give in to their cruellest desires.
I immediately went and read everything else you've ever written. Or rather, I'm chewing through them like the starved dragon I am, trying to make myself pause to digest, but also desperate for this content. I have never felt so seen, so *relieved* to be seen-- and so conflicted, for current events have followed your writing so closely, and proven all of your detractors wrong without a shadow of a doubt. I don't think you're prescient at all; you just saw the writing on the wall, earlier than most people wanted to look.
I'll be sad when there's no more Conversion Bureau for me to read. But I can hardly sniff at 1.4 million words. It's just that you're the only one writing anything like this. I want to branch out into other authors who've written in this universe, but I'm afraid that, under their writing, I'll just see all the old prejudices again. You're different, and there are so few like you. Would that we could all be ponified, so that such tenderness and empathy would never be rare again.
(I'm just a little saddened that your dragons aren't kinder. But then, you're beholden to the universe you write in, to an extent. I do like the ones in The 800-Year Promise, at least! Chip is so charming.)
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Actually, I could technically add that your stories, real and fictional and in-between, have been important to me for many, many years. Your transsexual.org site was one of the first things I ever read about transgender people, and it helped me to realise I was trans-- in more than just gender. I remember reading over and over your accounts, from growing up as a trans girl in an uncaring world, not even allowed the simple toys that gave you joy, to your brave journey to claim your womanhood. As painful as those stories were, I also saw myself in them: a person who was desperate to break out of my skin, to be on the outside who I was on the inside.
Specifically, I remember the April Fool's version of your site, "Transspeciesality". I thought it was a joke-- reading these stories, I suspect there was always a bit more to it. But even as a joke, as something that I thought was meant to parody people like me, I related to it. I wanted to write to you, but I thought you'd just laugh me off, or worse, feel hurt that I would mention your harrowing experiences in the same breath as something so "flippant".
Well, here I am, 20-odd years later, still feeling the same way and finally having the courage to write to you about it... and all thanks to some party-coloured ponies. Thank you for everything, Jennifer.
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Wow, Cobaltdrgn, thank you for everything you have had to say, and especially for reading my works. Art unseen is without worth.
I have never felt human any more than I ever felt I belonged to the error in physical sex I was born with. It's just there is no remedy for feeling one is not the correct species, or even in the correct universe, so... I tend to not talk about it much. It is a subject easily ridiculed, and, honestly, from a purely rationalist viewpoint, is legitimately ridiculous. That said, not a bit of that makes it less profound. So I do 'get you', and others like ourselves, and the short stories you mention - the Red Kryptonite shorts - are my purest ever statement on how I feel in the world. How I have always felt. Since Kindergarten, really. Feeling I didn't belong as an ape is very nearly as old as knowing I had been born to the wrong sex. I have always felt other, and outside. I very much suffer from Ontoshock, and I now know it will never go away. I'm sixty - if it was ever going to 'go away' it would have by now.
Writing pony stories allowed me to say a lot of stuff I could not, or dared not, in years previous. Things even more loathed in this world than being trans.
Yes, I was constrained by the Pony universe when writing my dragons. I assure you I am not anti-draconic. Well... except in that I have to say God Damn Are Those Fucking Spiro The Dragon Games Fucking Hard. Seriously: I love Spyro to death but I have never finished even one of those games with 100%. Damn they are hard. That is as anti-dragon as I get in real life. I need baby-dragon mode. Fetal dragon mode. Especially the flying sequences. Jesus fuck.
But I digress. In a silly way, no less.
The world is especially scary right now, especially for folks like us, and... all I have left is some shreds of hope for things. But I do think this:
"I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folk are like leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed." - The Scarecrow of Oz, from 'The Marvelous Land of Oz' by Frank L. Baum
Thank you for your wonderful post, and... I wish you only all good things. And I am so glad you found my stories helpful and worth your time!
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Amusingly, I beat all three with 100%. Sorry to butt in, I’m a bit of a nosy one I’ll admit!
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Holy fuck, and I mean that. You are a gaming god, from my perspective. Wow. Then, I bow to you, amazing job!