In the near future, the Earth's population levels have become dangerously high. Meanwhile, Equestria is having a dramatic population drop due to the ponies' skewed gender ratios. Humans are unable to move to Equestria because the land's magic is toxic humans. A solution is found: ponification, a process that can turn humans into ponies. This naturally proves controversial.
This is an anthology of stories set in the same universe. I found all the Conversion Bureau fan fictions I have read were either pro-human or pro-pony with no shades of gray. This fan fiction is meant to explore the issue and its impact on both societies from a variety of different perspectives.
Chapters (2)
Interesting seeing it portrayed as purely immigration based, without the death of the world as a background motivator. Mars needs women, Venus needs men.
The only drawback being once you go pony, no going back, even if you could visit, it'd be as a pony. Still, immigration stories are almost always one way in the real life anyway.
Just got to offer incentives for immigration, assuming over population isn't enough. It might be.
One observation: you'd never guess there was a gender disparity torward mares based on all the stallions shown.
Huh.
Okay, so, I skimmed through this, so don't place too much faith in what I'm about to say.
First, I upvoted your story because it's a Conversion Bureau story that isn't stupid, which is relatively rare, and is actually somewhat competently written as far as the baseline technical stuff goes (i.e., you're sort of familiar the basic mechanics of writing prose fiction).
That being said, your character development is going nowhere. Caramel is basically a cardboard cut-out so far. I'm guessing that you probably have a good idea of what kind of character he is. The problem is that it's not translating onto the paper. The only thing I get from this so far is that he's nervous and stutters a lot.
That actually applies to a lot of this story. You need to take some time, slow it down, and let the story breathe. Use details. I'm not going to pull out the "Show, don't tell" line, because telling is fine when done right, but you do need to actually describe rather than report.
This is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. There are better ways to establish that Caramel's feeling down than just saying that he's dejected. Have him hang his head, walk back home without saying a word to anyone else, sit on his couch and stare blankly at the fireplace—have him do something.
Well, okay. Here's my only problem with this: it sounds oddly stilted. It's really not a problem to write your fiction using more or less the same language you'd use to talk to a friend. That is, "Caramel understood why Bon Bon fired him, he really did. But that didn't make him feel any better", or something along those lines.
Don't be afraid to use your own voice. Oh, and contractions are fine in narrative writing. Use "didn't" instead of "did not" unless there's a good reason not to.
Okay, way too much summary here. You actually need to give me some details about how, exactly, Ponyville seems empty. Boarded-up houses, flickering streetlights, closed shops, etc. Don't just tell me; make me believe you.
This is an example of something called "direct exposition", which is where the narrator just up and gives the reader a piece of information. Direct exposition almost always sucks, unless the author has an extraordinarily interesting narrative voice. You don't (at least yet—again, don't be afraid to use your own voice).
Exposition is sort of like a nice cup of tea. You need something to hold it in, or otherwise it's just a rapidly cooling puddle on the table. There are two ways I prefer to "hold" exposition; other authors can probably add more:
1. Have the characters bring it up in conversation
As far as I'm concerned, this is the absolute gold standard... if done correctly. The problem is that you can't just have a couple of characters do an impromptu Q and A for the benefit of the reader. If someone brings something up, it should be plausible in the context of the situation—i.e., don't have characters just saying "things have been terrible ever since there weren't enough stallions", apropos of nothing.
2. Play it off as a character's impression
You seem to be writing your story a from Caramel's perspective, although it's not "I, Caramel"—you're in his head, but you're not him. His perceptions, thoughts, feelings, should be coloring your narration. "Ponyville seemed even emptier than usual, although it had been a quiet town for as long as Caramel could remember," etc.
I hope this helped. Best of luck going forward with this story, I'll be watching.
I really want to like this, but I can't because of the reasons 5870790 pointed out. :(
Also, you spelled "bureau" wrong in your story title.
wait, why are so many stallions working in the conversion bureaus?
Oh, I get it. It's the stallions who are desperate.