Adrift Off
Fiddler's Green
A C o n v e r s i o n B u r e a u S t o r y
By Chatoyance
2. The Scent Of Something More
"I just... don't remember. I'm sorry. I suppose I'm not being a very good interview, am I? That's the word, right, interview? Or is it subject? Probably subject of an interview, or is there some colorful Newsie term? In any case, I expect I am not being a very good one, am I mister Frontpage?"
Frontpage finished scribbling with his mouth. He was always very careful to note the least little statement, however banal. Anything might be the perfect slant, and the slightest thing might turn out to be the nutgraf that made the piece - or even a golden lede, straight from the pony's mouth. Frontpage had awakened on the table after Conversion with his cutie mark - a fedora with a press pass - already in place, on his flank. Being a reporter wasn't just a job for him, even when he had been human. Across two entire universes, it truly was his life's calling.
"You're doing fine, Ms. Acres." Frontpage considered other papers that might take him. The Manehatten Bugle? Equestria Today? The Los Pegasus Tribune? The Trottsville Tattler? The Foal Free Press? No, he was a little old for that one... oh, Sweet Luna, why wouldn't Gotchararzzi understand that even in Equestria... there were ponies who wanted real news, not just stories about Canterlot celebrities and the dregs of old dead Earth's wealthy elite...
"Mister Frontpage?" Crimson had stretched her neck forward to stare intently at the reporter. "Are you alright? Is it the heat? It's perpetual summer here, all year round. For the bananas, you know. Would you like a fresh melonade? I could put some ice in a bag..."
Frontpage startled, and dabbed his foreleg at the sweat dripping down his muzzle. "Sorry. Um... yes, the heat. It is a little warmer than I am used to. My apologies." Crimson was beginning to rise, probably for ice or more to drink. "Please... I don't need anything. Well, other than this story. I really need this story. I need something, anyway." He regretted his tone the moment the words left his mouth.
Crimson's ears perked. "Mister Frontpage?"
Frontpage sighed. "My job is... sort of on the line here. This isn't my usual five W's with an H on the side. I've never been comfortable with pony-interest stories, I can never figure the slant, I can't figure out how to get a pony-interest piece above the fold, you know?"
"What do you usually write about?"
Frontpage shifted on the couch he was laying on. "Heh... I suppose you could say I like the big stuff. I like to get to the heart of what makes things work, the events that shape history, the secrets behind the everyday world. Some of my colleagues say I like the weird stuff, the oddball stuff too much. Maybe I do." He carefully sipped the last of his melonade. "My last story was about the Bluebloods, and the so-called 'distant nephew' of princess Celestia. He's no relative, not even close. There's something strange going on there, but my blind interview took a powder, my inches got buried, and now I can't go within thirty hooves of any relative of the Blueblood clan. But there's something redletter there, something big, something being covered up - I can smell it." Frontpage tapped his muzzle with a hoof. "I've got a nose, for news."
"I don't think I have any big juicy secrets for you." Crimson got up, off of her own couch, to pour more melonade for herself. "More? I'm up already." The reporter nodded, so Crimson filled his glass too. "I'm pretty sure the whole issue of the Covenant, and the Masada, are known by now?"
"Old news, I'm afraid. Most ponies didn't even know there was a colony of untransformed humans living on the back of Canterlot Mountain, and the only reason it even became an issue was... well, because of you and the other fillies and colts with you. What happened to all of you, and why, made Celestia's decision to void the agreement and end the Masada a very popular decision. Very convenient for her, actually..." Frontpage stared off, out the window, at the bananas for a while. "No. No. That really is tin-foil-hat time. She's smart and powerful, but she isn't devious. Well... not devious in that fashion, anyway. Not in a cruel way."
"Mister Frontpage?" Crimson tried to see what was out the window, but it was only an endless sea of mature banana plants. As always.
"Oh, sorry. Always looking for a scoop." Frontpage opened his notebook again, it had fallen shut when he had sipped his melonade. He flipped the pages, scanning them. "Tell me about your sister, then. She was a performer, right? Part of that big show in the sky way back when, the one seen all over Equestria?"
Crimson brightened. "Yes! Plantain is oh-so-talented, just incredible! She had the spiders doing rhythm - their entire language is made up of syncopated clicks, you know - and of course the bunnies, she had an entire troupe of... um..."
"Ms. Acres?"
Crimson raised her lowered ears and looked up. "They're all gone now. There was... an incident. But that was long ago. Long ago."
Now Frontpage brightened. Considerably. "Incident? It's clear that whatever it was, it was a traumatic moment. It must have been very difficult for you. Could you tell me a little about what happened?" Frontpage couldn't help but lean forward, pencil in teeth.
"It was Snow Bunnies. It's always Snow Bunnies with her. Ever since Crème..." Crimson stared off, out at the forever summer outside her windows. "They can't help it, the poor little dears. Snow Bunnies, I mean. The slightest thing can set them off. I have no idea how her little Crème kept herself in check for so long. She was only half Snow Bunny, that was probably it. They're like little fuzzy grenades with the pins all pulled. 'Grenade'. I don't use human words anymore, it's strange saying it. Grenade. I'm amazed that popped up in my head. How did I even learn that word?"
Frontpage watched the mare sadly sip her drink in silence. "You said you were..." he peeked at his notes "...twelve, when you moved to Equestria? You lived in Antarctica... mostly... and that you were very lonely. I know you don't recall much about that time, but you did mention a show you were fascinated by?"
Crimson's gaze shifted from the window to focus on the reporter. "Yes. Oh, I was quite the little fanatic. I don't remember the name, or much about it specifically, but it was a dramatization of a human woman going through a Bureau. Or maybe it was a live report. I can't quite recall. Hmm. It was very, very long ago. It made me want to Convert so badly. But that was quite impossible for me at the time. Oh, I used to watch that show over and over. I once met a mare... a human... woman... that liked it too. I remember that. I was not allowed to meet people very often, I was always under guard, but in she came, and walked right up and talked to me! Just like that!"
Crimson held her glass in her pasterns and lapped at her melonade with her tongue. It was fun to drink things that way, at least until the level of the liquid got too low in the glass. Then the edge of the glass would hurt the underside of her tongue, as it strained to reach down to lap at the liquid. Such silly fun. "I so hope nothing bad happened to her, whoever she was. She seemed nice. Genuinely nice. That was a rare thing, back then. That moment... I think about it sometimes. She left very suddenly when I pointed out my guards. I wonder if we could have been friends somehow. I always wanted friends, so much. I was very lonely, then. And then Celestia came!" The smile was so large that it pulled at her cheeks.
Noting that the change of subject had effectively raised Crimson's spirits, Frontpage flipped his notebook back to the page he had started with. "Is your sister here? Can I talk to her, too?"
Crimson shook her head. "No... she's at her institute, on the south side of Canterlot Mountain. She's always there, now."
"Institute?" Frontpage scribbled furiously.
"The Royal Equestrian Institute For The Integration Of Discordant Creatures. Ever so grand a title, but I guess that's to be expected, considering." Crimson noticed, out the window, Clover chasing Jinx near the front well. They seemed to be having fun.
"Expected? In what way?"
"The entire thing is funded and supported by princess Luna. I suspect she had a hoof in naming it, too. It was desperately nice of her to provide for my sister, and I am grateful, of course... but it does keep us apart... and, well..." Crimson sighed "Frankly, mister Frontpage, sometimes I feel that the institute, the funding, all of it, all it does is just make a fool of my sister. It certainly puts her in constant danger. I know it's her life, and her passion, but... maybe... maybe you shouldn't try to save every scary, dangerous creature, you know?"
Frontpage carefully set his notebook down on the couch, and raised his hoof to scratch the bridge of his nose. "Considering the upcoming newfoal festival, I find that sentiment a little surprising, Ms. Acres. I helped with a few articles about you and your friends back then, when I was just starting out at the Querier - a big move up for me at the time - and as terrifying as that bunny of yours was, well, I remember Earth pretty well. I have to say I'm dumpling grateful that the princesses didn't give up on our old world... and species."
Crimson's eyes narrowed, and then relaxed. Her ears raised up again. "You... you are right, of course. I was just a foal at the time, I didn't... know very much. Since then, I've learned a great deal about my parents, about what happened on the earth, About how things... worked... back then. I know I was just a child and could do nothing, but... you have a point, mister Frontpage. It's just been so long, and I never actually saw any of the... bad... things that went on."
When he had finished scribbling, Frontpage set his pencil down in the spine of his notebook. "Maybe it's better to forget. Earth is long gone. Long, long gone. I can't say I've missed it." The melonade was sweet, but room-temperature now; the ice had all melted. "You never married, right?"
Crimson laughed and shook her head. "No. I've never found the right one. Oh, I have a lovely stable of really nice stallions who have given me some wonderful foals over the last century, but... I wouldn't really want to live with any of them, and they... well, they aren't the summer type. Perpetual, never-ending summer. A blessing and a curse both. I finally see what mother meant." Outside the window, the sun beat down, as it always did. Always. Always.
Frontpage looked over his messy, scribbled notes, and wiped perspiration from his muzzle, and from his poll. One of his eyes stung, where salty, dusty sweat had dripped into it. "I have to say It's a little hard to concentrate in this heat." He blinked his irritated eye several times. "It's really like this all the time?"
"There is a special arrangement with the local weather team. The entire area is summer all the year around. It doesn't even cool down when it rains." Crimson went to her kitchen and brought back a bowl of ice. She dispensed ice in the drinks, and offered Frontpage a cube to suck on. "We normally have some really powerful air conditioning in here. Our Bevelmeiter is broken. One of my fillies was playing in the basement, and somehow something got knocked into it. Even they aren't sure how it happened. We've got a replacement on order, but things take time and..."
The day felt endless, and in the perpetual heat, both Crimson and Frontpage found themselves simply sitting and sucking ice cubes for some indeterminate time.
Frontpage woke, as from a dream. "Your sister!"
"Mnnn? Yes?"
Frontpage shook his head and sipped some melonade. "She's being funded by the princess. Princess Luna, correct?"
Crimson stretched on the couch, and moved her hindquarters to make them more comfortable. She hadn't even noticed her hindleg was falling asleep until just this moment. Her flank tingled and felt prickly. "Yes. Quite well, in fact. The princess has poured a lot of bits into my sister's institute."
"Why?"
Crimson blinked. "I don't understand."
Frontpage made a few notes in his little book. "Why? Why would one of the diarchs of Equestria personally fund - lavishly, apparently - an institute on the border of the Everfree to help a few hazardous rabbits? What's her motivation? From my research, your sister isn't related to anypony in the court, she isn't known except for her performances with the Happy Pony Show, and that one event long, long ago... and I can't find any connection between her and the princess at all. Ever. Why help your sister? Why bother?"
"Well, because..." Crimson looked around the room. The plantation was large, roomy, but not overly fancy. The princesses did love bananas... no, actually, only Celestia did. It was said that Luna didn't actually care for bananas. Back during the time when they had been revivified, from petrification, Luna hadn't even been there. No... wait. She helped with Peony and Tulip, she was definitely there for that. It was so hard to remember, it had been so long ago. "Oh! Maybe..."
Frontpage knew from long experience that when an interview suddenly went 'Oh!' or 'Wait!' or even 'Perhaps..." with a long, drawn-out drift off into thought, it meant something. Usually something big, or profound, or juicy. It was a tell even a rookie could catch. Maybe not Puffpiece, but most any rookie. "Oh, maybe, what?"
Crimson noticed the almost predatory gleam in the reporter's eye. Newfoal. Native ponies... there were ways, looks, movements, ways of saying things that native ponies just never did. It was something only another newfoal would notice. Even after all these years, even with being converted at such a young age, Crimson could still tell. She wished she couldn't, because it meant that in some subtle way, she had still not completely assimilated into her proper life. "Well... Plantain did tell me a story once. About meeting princess Luna. Late at night, in her tower. Sort of meeting her, anyway. After a fashion."
Frontpage's ears stood tall. His eyes locked onto the tan mare as if she were his favorite food. "After... a fashion? Sort of? The princess is a little... unmistakable. How does a pony 'sort of' meet the princess of the night?"
"She had... an experience." Crimson felt uncomfortable now, her sister had told her of the event in hushed tones, reverently, and somehow talking about it to a reporter felt strange. "She did not so much meet the princess face to face as... being granted an audience with what the princess... represents."
"You have completely lost me with mysterious words, and I am loving it." Frontpage tried to wipe the drips of sweat away from his notebook as he scribbled down everything Crimson had just said. "Details! A reporter lives or dies by details. What happened? We know when. And who. And where. Not why, not how, not yet. So what? What did your sister... experience?"
Now Crimson felt quite in a pickle. "I... it isn't that this is something I shouldn't be telling you - it wasn't a confidence - but it is something that... well, it's a little hard to say."
Frontpage paused from scribbling. "I've heard everything. From everypony. You'd be hard-pressed to surprise me. Go on."
"My sister was granted a glimpse of what happens after we die."
Frontpage dropped his pencil. It hit the sweat-sodden notebook and bounced off it and onto the floor. In the quiet, still, oven-like room it sounded like a log crashing down a cliff. "O...kay. You have surprised me. A lot, actually. That has to be the very last thing I thought I would hear today, and if this wasn't Equestria, I would be already discounting it as looly-talk. But... this is Equestria, where ponies fly and my breakfast was cooked by a unicorn who doesn't bother using a pan. He calls it 'float-a-frying'. I, myself, can make flowers bloom by wishing really hard. So...." Frontpage swallowed, hard. "What happens when we and daisies are in the same place, and we aren't doing the eating?"
Crimson stared at the reporter. "Are all reporters quite so morbid?"
"Oh, muffins, no!" Frontpage grinned. "You're fortunate you got me. I'm the sensitive type."
Crimson laughed. "Oh! Well, then, lucky me!"
"So, the question is on the table - what happens after we run off with the Pale Mare?"
"I think, mister Frontpage, that the mare we run off with isn't pale." Crimson smiled, faintly. "I suspect that the mare is actually a very deep midnight blue and favors cats, spiders and bats. And candy."
"Tell me everything. EVERYTHING." Frontpage was already off his seat and nibbling after his pencil, where it had rolled under the couch.
Crimson tried to decide whether to pack the long woolen scarf into her traveling saddlebags. The institute was on the mountain, and it was cold there, but it was located below the snow line. It wouldn't likely be that cold. Unless it was winter, of course. Crimson suddenly realized she had no idea what season it was for everypony else. After a moment, she stuffed the scarf in.
"MOOOMM! I don't wan you to GOOOO!" Clover was pouting. It took everything Crimson had to stand firm and not nuzzle and hold her daughter. Sometimes it was difficult being a good mother.
"I will only be gone for a few days, maybe a week. That's my four legs and two of yours long." Crimson watched her youngest carefully try to count legs. She couldn't help but smile.
"Mother, who will take care of us while you are away?" Jinx spoke in measured tones, but Crimson knew from long experience what the filly must be feeling inside.
Crimson considered the toque with the fuzzy ball on top. Was that going too far? "Aunt Peony and Uncle Tumble will. They have business in Airs, and they've missed you two. They love you a lot, you know."
"Unca Tumble smells funny." Clover wrinkled her nose until her muzzle formed a mask of distaste.
"That's because he's a diamond dog, sweetie. That's just how it is." Crimson shrugged with her ears and stuffed the soft hat into her saddlebags, next to the scarf.
"Why did aunt Peony marry a diamond dog?" Jinx looked around the room as if trying to memorize it. As if the room were leaving with her mother.
"Because she loves Uncle Tumble very, very much." Crimson searched through her closet for a raincoat. It might rain a lot, if it was spring and not winter out there.
"Do I hafta marry a diamond dog?" Clover's ears were low.
"Only if you want to. Do you have a dog in mind?" Crimson chose her blue raincoat. It was thin, and would pack easily. She liked it because it was long, and completely covered her hindquarters and tail.
"EWWWWWW!!!!" Clover began stomping around the room.
Crimson turned from her packing and sat down on her flanks. She raised her forelegs, and pulled her fillies to her. "No, not 'Eww', not ever! Aunt Peony and Uncle Tumble love each other, and that is the most important thing in all the world. It's the only important thing. I want you two to remember that always." Crimson kissed her children on their polls, and raised herself to her hooves.
"Do you think aunt Peony likes the way that Uncle Tumble smells?" Jinx, ever the analytical one.
"Yes, I expect she does. Love is magic that way. Like friendship is magic. Love is magic too." Crimson smiled. "Love has a way of making everything wonderful." Candies! Crimson ruffled through her drawers, sniffing out her tin of rose petal candies. Perfect for traveling.
"Unca Tumble still stinks." Clover giggled. "Stinky!"
Crimson bent her head down, closer to her fillies. "I don't want you saying that in front of aunt and uncle. Especially in front of Uncle Tumble. It's not nice. Understand?"
"I sorry." Clover's expression demonstrated she truly felt so.
"I know better, mother." Jinx was almost indignant. She took her position as older sister very seriously. She took everything very seriously.
"You are my good and precious fillies, and I love you. And so does Uncle Tumble and Aunt Peony, so be good around them and try to show them you love them too."
"I will be love to unca Tumble an' Peony, and I will be good!" Clover set her jaw as if she were preparing to adventure forth against impossible odds.
Crimson stared at her saddlebags. The raincoat had to go. What season was it out there? How could a pony possibly prepare for everything? She reconsidered the old, barely used scarf. The candies stay. The candies definitely stay.
The Royal Equestrian Institute For The Integration Of Discordant Creatures had been constructed so as to overlook the Everfree from a position above the gap between the chaotic forest and the southern tip of the Canterlot Mountains. A narrow road passed through the gap. That road had once been the path that Crimson Beauty and those with her had thought to take, on their journey to escape the human masada.
Crimson, then Petra Alice Bettencourt, and five other human children, had fled the special enclave that had been given to the elite of earth. They had done so in order to become ponies. Their parents were members of the Good Families, the three-hundred wealthiest and most powerful names that had ruled the entire earth for centuries, behind the scenes. To these families, nations were mere false fronts, screens behind which to hide. Sometime during the Renaissance, the merchant class had secretly conquered the world, and had never let go. Money, truly, could buy anyone. In time, it had bought the entire earth.
With the coming of the Great Collapse, and the many attendant catastrophes that followed, the earth had become a planet doomed to die. With the oceans dead, the forests replaced with deserts, and the world blanketed in a global smog layer, there were but three generations left to Man. After that, the planet was fated to become another Venus - a world broiling in acidic poison and the silence of the grave.
Then Equestria arrived, expanding out of the north Pacific, a great hypersphere passing through the universe. Because of an ancient promise, Celestia had come to offer rescue and a new life to any who would take it. There was only one requirement - that any who emigrated must become Equestrian themselves, transformed into the pony-like beings that lived under her rule.
The Good Families, ancient and proud, had refused this not only for themselves, but for the billions of serfs they considered their property - the population of earth. In the end, Celestia had convinced them to allow the billions the choice to Convert and emigrate - but at a price. An agreement had been struck, the Covenant. It was a complicated contract that permitted the survival of humanity only if the ruling elite were allowed to remain human in shape, and provided with a fortress secluded from the common rabble.
There was one out - any elite, upon reaching the human legal age of maturity and consent, could choose transformation to pony form, and join Equestria as a full and true citizen. While their parents plotted violent conquest, little Petra, only thirteen, escaped the human masada with five of her friends - and many sapient chickens and pigs which the humans had been using for meat. They fled in order to seek the princesses, and personally beg them for immediate ponification, despite the rules of the Covenant.
Their journey was perilous, and the southern Canterlot Mountain road was guarded by agents of their parents. The children, in desperation, had chosen to cross the Everfree, regardless of the terrible risk. Things had gone very wrong indeed, and most of the party had been gravely injured.
"And you chose to be turned to stone, just chose that, even though you were fine?" Frontpage was aghast. Crimson's tale of her childhood adventure was terrifying enough, but after all of that, petrification too?
Crimson chuckled. She and Frontpage were riding in a earthpony-drawn carriage, the Southern Pass Express, that ran between the small town of Courbette near Airs Above the Ground and Canterlot City, by way of Ponyville. Along the route, the carriage could be asked to stop at Plantain's Institute. That was their destination. Frontpage very much wanted to interview Crimson's sister, and Crimson, for her part, was eager to see her sister again.
Courbette was the closest town to the Acres Plantation. To the east and very high up was the pegasus village of Airs Above the Ground. That sky-village was the home of the pegasai that tended the weather for the Acres, and the entire region on the back side of Canterlot Mountain.
"If I hadn't, I would have been taken back to my parents, and I would have grown up while all of my friends remained young. Have you forgotten that human childhood only lasts a short while? That was not changed when Celestia and Luna personally converted the Good Families into Equestrian matter. We still had the same short lifespans, and the same short childhoods as terrestrial humans did. The Covenant was very harsh - those who wrote it did not want any deviation from human nature whatsoever."
Frontpage hung his head out the carriage window, and watched the vast plain of perfect grass and flowers pass by. The breeze was sweet, and smelled of nectar and deliciousness. He pulled his head back inside. "But still... to be turned to stone! What... what was it like?"
"It was like nothing. One moment, I was standing, waiting for it to happen, the next I was aware of my face. I was brought back to life from the top of my head on down. For a long time I couldn't breathe, but I didn't need to, so it wasn't scary - well, maybe a little - but gradually my chest became flesh and then I could." Crimson shifted on the carriage seat. It was the most lovely dark green, made of polished kelp leather, padded and made soft and a little bouncy.
"Couldn't breathe... and it was okay. Wow." Frontpage scribbled erratically in his notebook. The suspension of the carriage was old, and the ride was not exactly smooth. "So... you woke up as a pony and then what?"
"Actually, I didn't." Crimson sniffed briefly at the wood of the carriage. It spoke to her pony nose of decades of carrying passengers, ponies of every kind... and diamond dogs, and the occasional pig, goat, and sheep. Finally, she found it, her superhuman senses focusing in on a familiar scent. Her sister, Plantain. They had both ridden the carriage many times, back and forth between Courbette and the Institute.
"Didn't wake up? I don't understand."
Crimson smiled. "I wasn't a pony when I woke up. I was still human, still a little girl. Princess Celestia transformed me shortly after. She needed my consent, Covenant rules and all. By being petrified in stone, I had sailed through the years, still physically thirteen, but by the calender an adult. I experienced my transformation. I felt it happen, I watched my body change. I may be the only newfoal to have ever had that happen."
"This assignment just keeps getting better and better!" Frontpage lost his pencil in his excitement, it slipped from his teeth and skittered about the carriage floor. Both ponies worked to corral it as it rolled to and fro with the rumbling carriage. Finally, Frontpage was able to take it in his mouth. "What... what was that like?"
"It was glorious. Just glorious. It didn't hurt - I wasn't converted with potion, I was transformed by Celestia's direct will. I glowed, Frontpage, all over, like I was made of golden light. It felt like... like stretching, like a really good stretch that makes your muscles feel good and sets all the bones in your spine to rights. I'll never forget that moment. I had wanted to be a pony so much, you can't imagine... it was my greatest dream coming true. When I was stuck in Antarctica, constantly managed by indifferent guards, lonely beyond lonely, watching my pony show... oh, how much I wanted to go to a Bureau! I tried to run away even on earth, but Celestia stopped me."
Frontpage's ears stood up. "Celestia... was in Antarctica?" The pencil was too short now, so he had to reach into his saddlebag for one of his many pre-sharpened spares. A reporter could never have enough pre-sharpened spare pencils.
Crimson Beauty giggled. "After a fashion. She was a ghost. Everypony in the Good Families had a personal Celestia ghost. Every foal, filly, mare and stallion. Hundreds of Celestias, and we could only see the one that belonged to us. All day and all night she was there, she never left, not even in the bath. Not even on the toilet." Crimson sighed. "It was the first time in my life that I wasn't lonely. It was the first time I ever felt truly loved. It was a very special time."
"How long? How long did this... amazing... thing go on?" Frontpage thought he had covered the story of Equestria and the Bureaus from the inside. He thought he had gotten the full scoop.
"About a year. No... less. Six... eight months, maybe?" Crimson dug around in her own saddlebags for some hard candy to suck on. She offered a rosepetal-flavored confection to Frontpage, then took one herself. "Mmmmnn... I love these. So good. Mnn... anyway, that was how she convinced the Good Families. 'Let the humans choose!', 'Open up the Bureaus!' - or she would keep every single one of them company until the day they died. For us foals, it was the happiest time of our lives. But I think it was pure Tartarus for my parents. They let the Bureaus open. But they also made that swirling contract."
"You still resent it, after almost a century?" Frontpage smiled around his flower-sweet candy. It really was good.
"Even in Equestria, even as a pony, I guess there are some things, human things, I still haven't gotten past. Yes, I have some resentment towards my foalhood, and my parents, and what we all had to go through because of them." Crimson offered another candy, and took one for herself. "There are some sorrows that never quite leave, no matter how many candies one eats."
Frontpage nodded, because it was true, and because he could think of no better response.
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Please do, Coda. I have tried to do my best, but I know there are always flaws. I would appreciate any help you wish to provide.
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In this cosmos - in this magical cosmos - ponies are not evolved creatures, but created, designed beings. They are not prey animals. They are the dominant life form in this universe (the dragons, griffons and diamond dogs would like to take exception!).
More again so soon!?
I really like this Frontpage guy—He knows what's important.
It's neat to catch up with Petra/Crimson, and see a callback to both the documentary show and
Pastern'sCaprice's visit in Antarctica. The mechanisms of interconnectedness are a big part of what keeps me coming back to your stories, and how it doesn't feel like pandering, but just an inevitable result of the narrative logic of this setting, and the things about the real world these characters are (presumably) meant to represent.I enjoyed seeing some "design compromise" in your Equestria—One of the things I've always wished for more of was little infelicities and inconveniences brought about by the complexity of the world and places where its gears don't quite mesh, so it was fun to see all the sacrifices of comfort made to the bananas, and how things really do just plain old break down in daily life and don't always go according to plan. I think it adds a lot of realism—More and more subtle conflicts would appear the longer you lived in that world, even something as esoteric as the amount of rain a region gets being a political statement toward earth ponies about how important agriculture should be to it in its development and emerging identity (and other things you think of after a twelve-pack of cheap beer). Not that they aren't above solving these kinds of problems.
Dig the chapter illustrations—I think that's a very nice touch and I like the technical cleanliness of them. The mare pulling the cart has a great sense of clippy-cloppy motion.
Looking forward to seeing the Institute. ...I don't mean you have to draw it, I meant, like...you know what I mean.
I had forgotten Crimson was the girl Caprice met in "Going Pony". I really love those little links between the stories, they make the world seem more alive.
Oh and I really like that title.
Ah, some old faces return! I like where this is going, and seems like this'll be the one that ties up all the other stories!
On a side note, eternal summer in that area? Ouch! I think I'd melt into a pony popsicle puddle in that enviroment! Then again I'm used to the relatively chillier Great Lakes weather...stupid global warming...*grumbles off about summer humidity*
Oh, and the little pics are a nice touch too!
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Great Lakes? RED POP!
Good so far!
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They do realize that the cartoon series this entire site is based on is, of necessity, older? That any argument that a particular concept is played out could easily be applied equally to the source material?
I wonder how far that line of logic would fly in any other fandom, one with even older source material?
4693007
As an active member in several significantly older fandoms, I can assure you the "played out" angle is used only by people who are so lacking in creativity that they, themselves, cannot see new directions to go it, no because those directions do not exist.
I'm thinking of this from the perspective of a Trekkie, or even of a Potterhead given that the series is approaching the 20 year mark, but in all honesty that's only the merest surface scratching of the longevity of fandoms and fandom-like groupings. For that individual, I have but two words:
King Arthur.
But, of course, people who explore the Arthurian mythologies in new avenues today are respectable, "real" writers and thus not subject to the same criticism as fan authors. Clearly. Even though both forms require taking someone else's source and extrapolating out, and demand exceptional technical skill to achieve effectively due to the perceived lack of originality.
Technical skill which, I might add, Chatoyance provides in spades. When these trolls have written over a million words of technically astute, emotionally driving (be the emotions positive or negative), self-consistent fiction, then they might have earned the privilege of having some weight behind their use of cliched phrases designed to ineffectually undercut the work of others because of jealousy for attention they are not receiving.
Until then, I hope they fall into a large and varied assortment of stagnant and algae covered puddles, creeks, ditches, and ponds.
General negativity out of the way!
I have never been so fortunate as to have my presence on fimfic coincide with the live release of a new Chatoyance fic, and I am delighted to report that it is exactly as fantastic as I have always imagined it would be! There is something glorious about waiting for installments, rather than reading the whole thing at once, and I look forward to keeping track of comment conversations as they occur too! Maybe I'll even contribute, from time to time (though the quality of dialogue not related to trolls is rather intimidating and I am a social recluse at best, so perhaps not).
Also, I am an absolute sucker for references to Caprice, who is easily one of my favorite characters in any media, so that was awesome. I hope we'll see more of Chief Chua as well! I really appreciated his no nonsense attitude in City in Blue, and would love to see more from him. But if not, then what I did get was perfectly lovely too!
I am intrigued by Plantain's institute. Though Crimson seems to believe it is almost exclusively a vanity project of some sort between Luna and Plantain, the name catches attention. What other discordant creatures are they studying and trying to integrate, I wonder?
4693199 well said!
Oh, Goddess! I'm so happy now! Return home from the awesome Brazilian national brony meeting to find an even more awesome new Chatoyance story? Did I die and go to pony heaven? Triple yay!
4686182
LOL! Love the style! Here's how I see the (as of this moment) 64 upvotes and 54 downvotes: 118 people pay attention to you. Yes, 54 of them hatefully so, but hey, 54 hates is better than 54 indifferences! And besides, they're people so incredibly drawn to you that they do so instantly. If that isn't a form of homage, unwilling as they are to ever consider they're actually paying you homage, I don't know what is.
4686259
To put it very succinctly, in Chatoyance's universe she takes the absolute best psychological traits of humanity, describes those in the shape of ponies, and lets things play out. People tend to dislike that.
Now, if she kept the stories exactly the same but inverted the shape assignations so that monkey-shaped characters got those very best traits and pony-shaped ones were pictured as your average human -- in other words, if she wrote "Star Trek: The Next Generation" fanfic --, everyone would be "oooh!" and "aaah!" with the whole thing. But since in TCB it's the other way around, rubberheaded aliens being the enlightened ones while humanity is the one in need of receiving some enlightenment from outside, they get offended.
4688181
I win! I upvoted, favorited and followed by e-mail before reading it!
Wasn't going to read HUMAN in Equestria, but the introductory picture for this story convinced me to give it a shot.
"WHO PUT THAT DECAL THERE?"
4693199
Thank you. I needed... I needed to read your post. Just... thank you.
4693372
I think if people actually got that a lot of this drama would disappear. What seems to me to be going on is that some people feel both personally and racially indicted by the logic of these stories.
A very superficial, very literal reading of the politics of Chatoyance's stories can come off as a kind of Blood Libel against any Darwinian creature, which would naturally seem petty because that's the only kind we know about. Something along the lines of "You, personally, by dint of being human, are inherently broken and soiled by the Mark of Cain to the point that dreaming of progress or a future is self-destructive folly, and you're all simultaneously so powerless against it and yet so inherently corrupt that what you all need is condescendingly benevolent outsiders to come and excise the inborn taint against which you struggle in vain, and to place you into a padded world in which your powers to survive and prevail are disgracefully useless, and all dreams for the future will be forever circumscribed by the wingspan of a goddess whose snow-white purity you should have known to live up to." I think that's the impression that people react so vehemently against.
But I think it's the wrong impression, and that the politics of the Chatoverse basically boils down to "Humanity's future is imperiled by the very ruthlessness that made it so successful, and so what's needed is a transformation in consciousness and a rethinking of how we view ourselves and our relationships and obligations to one another, and an abjuration of the pursuit of glory and dominance, because the current state of affairs is unjust and unsustainable, and we can—and must—do better," and as I've mentioned before I think they've made me a more conscientiously compassionate person, but in all fairness I have to admit that understanding these stories this way requires effort on the part of the reader, more effort than it takes to just pitch a fit about misanthropy. But I like stories that require effort.
And if you don't buy any of that, I just really like the science-y feel of it and the ontological games played with two different kinds of worlds, and some of the moral implications of each. Of course in reality this is all taking place in Mundis—The TCB ponies are allegorical and FiM itself is a product of a deterministic machine cosmos, one that evolved capacities for empathy and altruism as surely as for blind rapaciousness. Now, I think it's a wondrous place, a psychedelic fractal kaleidoscope of esoteric symmetries within symmetries that already verges on the mystical, but part of the grandeur of it is that it holds a place for, and generates with all fecundity, equally valid viewpoints that don't think so (one more symmetry, as it were).
I'm going to raft down the stream of consciousness for this one:
I have to envy someone who determined his life's purpose with such certainty that he got cutie mark confirmation the moment it was possible to do so.
Well, clearly tact isn't part of his special talent.
I know, I know, his job's on the line, but still. "Wow, that must have been terrible. Tell me more."
I do love how this is part of a much bigger universe and timeline. The way the stories interconnect, through both consequence and the haze of memory, make your Equestria feel much more real.
I find myself wondering if Fluttershy might be involved with the REIIDC. "Save every creature" definitely seems like her kind of mission statement. Probably not, though. She probably has important "living avatar of kindness" business to attend to. Like feeding bunnies.
...
Luna as a psychopomp is one of those ideas that comes out of nowhere but makes perfect sense. Though it begs the question of what happened during her millennium-long exile...
Well, she was certainly the only one who enjoyed the process.
In all, a good way to get the story moving. Frontpage is on the trail of the story of the century (literally!) However, I get the feeling that it's never going to see print. There are some things pony was not meant to know...
Looking forward to more.
4694558
Well, I think of myself as both a critic of hers as well as one of her fans. She wants the best of our humanity without all the bad stuff that accompanies it. Which is both understandable and objectionable. In all frankness, you can't have it both ways. I tend to believe that our best and worst qualities spring from the same places. I believe that the things that make us amazing and the things that make us horrific monsters are irrevocably intertwined. I think that's the root of a lot of the criticism leveled against her.
Go ahead and wail about sin and folly and all the shit that's impeding our process of bettering ourselves as a species. Because you're not wrong. We have these horrifying and self-destructive tenancies. We're the worst possible candidates to be where we are now, except for all the other ones. We could be better, and I think we're constantly striving to be. For some of us, that desire comes from a bad place. A place of jealousy and hate. But it still serves to make us better people.
Perhaps all of humanity is indeed jeopardized as you suggest. But your solution throws the baby out with the bathwater. I, too, want us to strive to be better. I just don't find this sort of escapist appeal to divinity to be helpful. I put my faith in humanity, even knowing how fucked up we can be at times. So I hope that the rambling comment I just wrote helps you understand why people object to her stuff.
4695099
For the first time, I think I get where you are coming from. That was helpful, just that paragraph.
I yearn for humanity to 'grow up', essentially, to choose to take its own highest Ideals and aspirations, it's better angels, and make them manifest. My vision of a future is one where, like Star Trek, humanity outgrows its evolutionary ties to hunter-gatherer greed and strife, and changes to become like its prettiest dreams.
I see Man as a very clever and dangerous ape who has the most wonderful fantasies which it can never hope to live up to - as it currently is. But, I hope for a rewrite of fundamental components of humanity that need to be left behind - dominance, heedless ambition, greed, sexism, bigotry, fear and violence.
I picture them left behind on the genetic cutting floor, or perhaps in dead meat after uploading to a digital existence - but I see that brutality gone, and life the better for it.
I don't think you see the same future. I hear from your comment that perhaps you value the things I despise: kings and empire builders, soldiers and warlords, captains of capitalism burning their way through the universe for profit. The gods of human history, bedecked in uniforms and glory, perhaps? Opposing armies generating rapid progress through conflict either physical or financial? Compassion made stark and visible and extra special thanks to the presence of atrocity and cruelty?
I am not a person who thinks of light needing dark to exist.
I am a person who thinks that pizza still tastes wonderful even at the neverending banquet of eternal plenty.
I know the arguments - that Man is somehow defined as much by his evil as his good, that strength comes from that dark component... I just disagree.
I have found that, for me, my greatest strength - and I do consider myself very strong - comes from whatever is kind, and loving, and gentle within me. It is my experience that human darkness can be used to prop up flagging strength, but in the end, only leads to grief.
But... at least I perhaps understand your view a little better now?
4695196
Well, I'm happy to finally be on the same page. Through all our disagreements I've never wanted anything else. I think highly of humanity. I also believe we'd be better off as a race of Captain Picards rather than one of Jack Bauers.
We are indeed very clever and very dangerous apes. That is both our best and our worst quality. Let me quote your comment:
Dominance over what? Disease? Our own limitations? Because I'm entirely down with dominating those things, and hope we don't stop trying to overcome them.
Heedless ambition? Well, heedless is a tad pejorative. but I tend to think of myself as ambitious. I want the world to be a better place when I leave it than it was when I got here. I don't think that's wrong.
Sexism and bigotry can and should go die in a fire. No disagreement there, I think.
Greed is just wanting something more than you have. I'll freely admit I'm a greedy person by that definition. I put to you that complacency is hardly any better.
As I said before, you want the best of us and to discard all the awfulness. You don't get to have that. You don't get your Ghandis without suffering your Hitlers in the process. We are a brutal species. We want things, and we take them. For better or worse. You want to throw out our darkness with our light? Our Luna with our Celestia?
We aren't defined by our darkness. It's just a thing that happens as we do what we do best: progress. We sometimes plumb the darkest depths, but we also reach the highest highs. I get that you want our best without our worst, but I don't believe that's possible. Like I said, hoping for such an outcome is an appeal to Deus Ex Machina rather than engaging with reality. You can't divorce the bad from the good, I guess is my point. So, yes, we ultimately disagree.
4695335
I had to look up 'Jack Bauer'. What a creepy character, show, and premise!
I am a fan of captain Picard. On that, we absolutely agree! Possibly Best Captain Ever. I do like Janeway, though. Captain Mom was awesome... and, following your statements, she was awesome, I admit, even when she went half-insane and all mother-lion and tore the borg a new hole in hyperspace.
4695392
Yeah, everything about 24 is a bit messed up. It panders to and embodies the worst of us.
Janeway deserved a better show. At least I suspect as much, since I generally see good things about her. Never did watch much of Voyager, and most of what I hear suggests it's worth skipping.
4695435
For what it is worth - I thought that Voyager was the most even, consistently good Trek series of all. It had four or five terrible 'Spock's Brain' episodes, still less than Next Generation had, and the writing was generally solid, and sometimes (year of hell) exceptional.
In long retrospect, I actually consider Voyager the best Star Trek television series. I cannot explain why it is maligned, I think it should be celebrated. Perhaps the fact it had a woman captain, and focused on emotional issues was a problem for male viewers.
That is my judgement on Voyager. For what it is worth.
4696284
I really shouldn't do this.
Really? Really? It lasted seven seasons. That's not a flash in the pan by any means. It's longer than Enterprise lasted, and longer than the original series did as well.
Look, I get that sci-fi could use a major infusion of strong female characters. However, claiming that the series' failure was due to males being uncomfortable is disingenuous. I could rant about that being your pattern of behavior until I was blue in the face, but it's not worth the energy. I'm just saying that there was no need to drag sexual politics into this.Yet you did exactly that anyway. I'm forced to ask why. Like I said, the only thing that would lead to is many angry rants.
It's something that would be well worth discussing tomorrow. I really need a chance to chill before I make an idiot of myself. I also think maybe I've targeted you more than enough over the last 24 hours.
As much as Chat's stories entertain me, I must admit that I have so missed the discussions they create as well.
I can honestly say I have been around the proverbial block many times with many fandoms, being an older pony and all, and even I am hard pressed to recall an instance of "fan fiction" bringing together such a wonderful collection of readers.
Interestingly, I recall many a sci-fi reader's group session ages ago where we debated similar philosophical implications of 'what it meant to be Human' - only these discussions were brought about by authors such as John Varley or Philip Jose Farmer... Who, oddly enough, got a lot of the same sort of down-play from critics and readers for appearances of being 'anti-humanity'. Because they, too, would often highlight our collective rough edges by way of an external, alien viewpoint.
So, keep up the good work, Chat. You are in good company - both in literary content and in readership. ;)
I'm coming back for seconds, because I'm just that annoyed at what you wrote. What do you think the takeaway from your comment is? Because it certainly isn't 'create more sci-fi with female leads.' If anything, it's 'stick with the status quo and don't rock the boat' which is exactly the opposite of what network execs need to hear. Sci-fi series with female leads fail? Well then stop making them, obviously! Bet that's not what you meant.
I never watched much of Voyager when it was on the air. I can't attest to its quality. But Threshold is so bad it's become a legend in its own right.
Okay, venting over and done with. Let me just conclude by noting that there should be more representation of women in sci-fi. If nothing else the Alien series proved that it can be done well.
4695392
I did not like voyager because Janeway knew it all.
One episode stuck with me.
Chief engineer b'elanna comes up with a completely new theory to do some scifi physics thing, and she hasn't even finished explaining it and the captain interrupts her by finishing her explanation for her.
I did not like her character. And since she was the main character, I did not like the series as much as other startrek series. (Still watched it tho )
4696470
I think... perhaps... you misunderstood me.
I always want more strong female characters. Most of my stories focus on strong female protagonists. If I had my way, there would be a revolution in thought among all of humankind and true equality and representation would be the norm, rather than the rare - oh so rare - exception.
I simply cannot think of a reason Voyager is somehow thought badly by some people. Not all people. Some people. Since every person I have ever talked to who didn't like Voyager was male, and I have yet to meet even one woman who did not like Voyager, I was trying to make a guess. It had no political intent. It was just a guess. Nothing more.
I am very sorry I seemed to upset you. Are you having a hard time in real life too? You seem very edgy to me. Very angry in general. I'm having a really bad time in real life, and I have sympathy if that is the case with you.
I mean no harm! I'm not trying to say anything profound here! It was just a guess, based on my own experience, nothing more.
And... I don't want to upset you. Or anyone. Ever!
4696470 4696968
For whatever it's worth, although I never managed to like Voyager, I wouldn't be able to pinpoint what, exactly, was wrong with it. It just didn't feel, I don't know, "quite really startrek-y". It was as if it existed in some kind of narrative uncanny valley, almost good but not enough, while simultaneously not bad enough for it to be easy to point to something and say: "see, this here is the problem".
With Enterprise, in contrast, it was easy: they promised us a prequel, so everyone was expecting primitive tech compared to TOS (e.g., no teleporting out of problems), voyages of discovery, world building, and lots upon lots of first contacts leading to stuff that would happen later in TOS, but instead gave us a war in time no one was interested in watching.
4697477
I always liked voyager, it and DS9 are one of my favourite trek series, along with TNG and TOS. Enterprise on the other hand... well, my objections to it grew and grew until The Worst Possible Decision regarding the infamous, much-maligned Prime Directive. I've probably said that before...
4696968 , 4696470 , 4697477, 4697491
My favorite Trek Series was DS-9, but in all fairness to Voyager, the reasons I rank that series lower are as follows – one trivial and the other a fundamental element of the Voyager plot:
- Janeway's voice was annoyingly mechanical sounding to me (the complete opposite of Shatner's Kirk that was somewhat over dramatic! ) It made the character come across as very cold in most instances, making those rare moments when she was voiced more emotionally precious. As Chat mentioned, the Year Of Hell arc stands out. I freely admit that this voice thing is probably a pet peeve.
- Voyager 's activities occurs in a place disconnected from the major events happening in Federation space, making it so much smaller in scale, and sometimes quite claustrophobic. I openly admit to being a Federation fanboy/junkie and just have a voracious appetite for its politics, cultures and history. Voyager had no lack of those, but it was a different neighborhood, not the one I grew up with when watching the original Trek all these years ago!
4698293 my favorite trek series is TNG with voyager being a close second. my least favorite is enterprise.
4696968
I think the main problem with Voyager was the tension between the core idea and the business model. The core idea was "we need to get home, and to do so without becoming monsters in the process" (because Star Trek). The business model says we need to drag this out as long as possible. The result was episodes where either things would go predictably wrong, or major characters would get handed the idiot ball to make things go wrong. As time went on, Janeway's characterization became increasingly erratic because of these demands, where she'd discard a promising way home in one episode because of the Prime Directive, but she'd screw people over in another attempt to get home only to have it blow up in her face. The more blatant disregard for plausibility and actual science than in the other incarnations of Star Trek didn't help either.
At the risk of taking this discussion to places nobody wants to go, it's at least as plausible that, rather than men disliking Voyager because Janeway was a woman, perhaps women thought better of Voyager because Janeway was a woman. As one datum pointing in that general direction, there's the results of this year's Nebula awards, where all the winners were women, and it is arguable that they won in part because they were women, rather than strictly on the merits of their works. (The large number of "yay we locked out all the white males!" posts at least hints in that direction.)
Good stuff. This story is taking its time, and I can appreciate that.
There's another filly I'd like to catch up with. Or two. Or more. I love all the interaction between characters in different stories. It's like seeing a friend while visiting someone else's house.
And strawberries. My favorite. I don't care for bananas either.
Peony!
I would love to see that animated. Maybe with an orchestral arrangement of "This is the Way We Roll Along" in the background.
Truer words were never spoken.