Lyra regarded the bat pony mare a moment, tapping her chin. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I've heard different rumors about this, and I'd rather get it straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. What term do you prefer I use for your tribe?" She pointed at herself. "I'm a unicorn, but everyone basically agrees on that. I've heard no less than four different things."
She tilted her head, "Oh wait, I'm being rude. I'm Lyra Heartstrings, and you were referred to me because you need a friend to help out in a difficult situation. What seems to be the problem, in your own words. Tell me all about you. I'm not here to judge and point fingers, because I don't have those." She smirked at her lame joke, and looked at her with ready quill and hopefully welcoming demeanor.
“Your joke is bad and you should feel bad...” the mare said with small, tired smile. “My name is Floyd, and yeah, that's not a woman’s name,” she paused letting out a yawn. “As for what I am... I dunno, I’m half tempted to say Dracula pony but you wouldn’t get the reference.”
Lyra shook her head a little, then brightened. "That sounded like one of those bad horror movies. Do you prefer vampony?" She tapped at her chin softly in thought. "Let's put that aside, hello Floyd. Were you male before then?"
“Yup,” Floyd said with a nod, rubbing at her eyes, “Not too big a loss really. I wasn’t using it for anything anyway.” She yawned again, giving Lyra an annoyed glare, “You really couldn’t have put this at a later time? I mean, I wasn’t a morning person before but now I’m freaking nocturnal!”
Lyra smiled a little. "I'm not nocturnal, I admit, but I'll try to schedule you later, say, in the evening?" She pulled over her notepad and made a quick scribble. "While we're getting to know one another though, tell me what's bothering you most, besides it being early?"
“Besides me jonesing hard for a cigarette?” Floyd asked, giving her head a shake, blinking a few times. “I uh... have anger issues... uh... I may have... overreacted to, I dunno, a racial slur?”
Lyra's ears twitched softly. "A slur against you being a, uh, vampony, or something else?" she asked curiously, looking Floyd over. "I do hope you'll tell me if I say something you don't like. There's no reason for violence in this office."
“I highly doubt you, a mint green unicorn, could insult me and yeah, guy called me ‘nightmare spawn’,” Floyd said, trying to gesture with her hooves, glaring at them. “Now that's not much of an insult to me but just the look of disgust in his eyes,” she shuddered a little, her lips curling back into a fanged sneer before she let it go with a sigh, “I gave him a nice shiner for his trouble.”
Lyra frowned and clucked her tongue. "That was uncalled for, on both your parts. Please don't resort to violence to settle things with other ponies." She sat up a bit more straight. "Was this here in Ponyville? It doesn't sound like the usual resident."
“Nah it was up in Canterlot,” Floyd said, shrugging, “Bluey sent me down here for therapy. Nice guy but I think he’s afraid I’ll end up punching a noble or something. Not that I would, I don't normally get violent. Must be the withdraw.”
"From cigarettes you mean?" Lyra tilted her head. "We do have those, though never tried one myself… Are cigars alright? I think a pony sells those in town." She suddenly had a thought. "Uh, no smoking in here please."
“Oh no,” Floyd said, waving her hooves, “I’m not getting sucked back in. My lungs are untainted right now, I’m not going to ruin them again. I’ll just find something else for the stress. I dunno, sunflower seeds maybe?”
Lyra pulled a wrapped candy out of a pouch at her beltline and floated it over to Floyd. "I can't promise it's not habit forming, but you'll never be sad you had one."
“It smells good,” she said, unwrapping it and taking a bite. “Oh sweet Jesus is that good!” She smiled brightly, seeming to be more awake. “Almost as good as the jerky!”
Lyra grinned triumphantly. "My marefriend Sweetie Drops made it. Chocolates are her thing, and she's the best I ever met." She leaned in, waggling her brows. "Maybe that's why I didn't let her go."
“I wouldn’t know,” Floyd said shrugging, “I don’t feel that way about anyone. Never have. Hell, I couldn’t even tell ya how to flirt.”
Lyra tilted her head. "Does that bother you? Did you want to find a special somepony to be with?"
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m asexual; I don’t find either gender attractive. Doesn’t stop others from hitting on me though. Most aren’t sure how to react when I let them know and things get awkward real quick like. When my parents found out... well... things went downhill with us quickly.”
Lyra shook her head. "I'm not sure why somepony would be that… oh… Were they looking for grandfoals?" She huffed softly. "Me and Bonnie aren't having foals unless we decide to adopt, and I'm not feeling that particular itch. There's nothing wrong with not looking for ponies for that specifically, but companionship is good?"
“Hey, I had friends!” Floyd said, frowning, “I wasn’t a shut in, I just have no physical attraction to anyone. It kinda made health class pointless but whatever.” She took a breath, looking up at the ceiling. “My folks didn’t exactly like my orientation, or lack thereof but that was the tip of it all. They wanted me to be a lawyer and instead I went to film school. I... haven’t spoken to them in the past two years.”
Lyra held up a hoof placatingly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you didn't have any friends, just saying. I'm glad to hear that wasn't the case." She let out a slow breath. "It's a harsh thing to say, but your parents are far beyond our reach right now. Does that bother you?"
“Yes, yes it bothers me a lot,” Floyd said, staring at the ground. “I’ll never be able to patch things up with them. I’ll just be stuck here, looking like something out of “Spookie's House of Jumpscares.” I mean look at this.” She pointed to her eyes. “It’s like the universe is taunting me. One of these is still the original color and the other is pink! Pink is not a natural color!” She paused before bursting out laughing, tears flowing down her muzzle.
Lyra opened her mouth to refute a point when the laughing and crying begins and she clammed up. She slipped from her chair and quickly approached Floyd, reaching to pat her shoulder. "It's OK. One thing we ponies have a lot of is color variety. Pink isn't so bad, really." She speaks softly and encouragingly. "You don't look horrible, you look, uh, exotic. If I wasn't already, you know, married, and your counselor, and you weren't asexual, and… I'll be quiet now."
“You know... if I was pink... I could totally call myself Pink Floyd,” Floyd said with a grin despite the tears, “Oh man, no one is ever going to get that joke.” She reached up and wiped at her eyes, letting out a loud yawn. “Well at least I know I can attract mythological creatures. That's one hell of a self-esteem boost.”
Lyra snorted softly. "Around here, humans are the myths. I have a book of mythological creatures just over there with humans in it. I'll spare you that particular surprise for today." She pulled out a scrap of paper with instructions. "The house you'll be staying at isn't far, and there's good news. The others are just like you, once-humans. They may even get that joke of yours? If you're… from the same place? We're still trying to figure that out."
“That sounds good to me,” Floyd said, stifling another yawn, “Be nice to talk to people who aren’t high class snobs, even if Blue is cool. Wait... there are others like me? I wasn’t expecting that, but then I’m an adorable ball of fuzz talking to a unicorn.”
Lyra grinned. "You said it, not me." She made an idle scribble. "You're not alone. I have a few patients lined up after you, surprisingly. I think somepony heard that I had some success with other once-humans and decided I was an expert, so here we are." She tapped her chin with the quill she floated. "I suppose that's OK, if it means I can help ponies out."
“Hey, as long as you're helping people right?” Floyd asked, swaying a little, “I think... I should get to bed before I pass out on your couch, and you don't want that. I slept through a fist fight once. Cops came and everything and I just slept on like nothing was happening.”
Lyra opened the door for Floyd, allowing her to depart. "There's a weekly meeting, they'll fill you in at the house. Have a good rest and see if you can't explore the town a little. The ponies around here are mostly nice types and they like making friends, especially the pink one. You'll either love her or hate her."
The only response Lyra got was a snore, as Floyd had indeed passed out on the couch, her limbs sprawled out as she snoozed peacefully. She mumbled a bit, rolling onto her back, a smile gracing her muzzle.
Lyra shook her head before her magic engulfed her guest and she carefully hefted up the sleeping bat pony into the air. She made to carry her off to the house with a smile, hoping everyone would get along.
The best part about collabs. You can blame someone else for all the mistakes.
Floyd has no luck when it comes to crossing dimensional divides.
6028782 So, Mx Not-Nye. Could you tell the court what happened on the night of May Twenty-Seventh, 2015?
6028914 I'm not making the collab guests anything. That's up to the collab author.
Yes! Now we have a thestral/Lunar Pegusus/Bat Pony/Luna's foals of the night.
Most of the typos do seem to come from the guest author this time. But not the first one. Clearly you set a bad precedent. :P
Should be comma after joke.
Comma after smile should be a period, as should the comma after yawn.
Add a comma after "mean".
Comma after "times" should be a period. "I dunno" should be surrounded in commas.
Comma after bite should be a period. Jesus should be capitalized. (I'd forgive not capitalizing His pronouns, but everyone gets to have their name capitalized.)
Ought to be something more than a comma there. Semicolon, colon or period could all work, with only slight permutations in meaning.
Comma after "Hey", period after "frowning".
More commas that should be periods. You are ending the spoken sentence with the comma at the end of the quote, which is exactly right, but then the sentence about what they said should be coming to an end as well. You can just pick up on the next sentence with the newly opened quotation marks.
Also, "she paused" should capitalize "she". "paused" is not a synonym for "said", here. It's something she's doing after she finishes talking, and should be a separate sentence as a result.
Capitalize "she" in "she reached up".
6029007 Shh... don't pay any attention to those typos.
6029007 Typos drained of their blood.
A heterochromic, transgendered, asexual batpony/thestral/vampony/chiropteron/what-have-you? Huh. And apparently, one who knows Prince Blueblood. Or some other "Blue" in Canterlot. I hope it's the prince, though; I like seeing him given redeeming features.
As for Floyd herself, I think she's going to get along nicely with the other residents of the human house. Especially since she doesn't seem to snore.
There's a lot to blame your partner for here:
The.
Don't.
Thereof.
Missing apostrophe. And depending on how the spelling was intended, it might be "Spooky's".
Missing apostrophe.
6029101 Check my blog for info.
6029099 Fixes sent to a much less kind place of mental healing.
Just to clear something up, asexuality is usually used as a short hand for saying asexual , aromantic, and non existent libido but the word does not actually cover all of that.
Asexuality only covers sexual orientation, it does not cover romantic orientation nor any other form of attraction, it also does not determine how much or how little you want to have sex.
Homosexual is usually a short hand for saying homosexual, homoromantic, and high libido. But you can have a low libido homosexual who is biromantic the same way you can have a high libido asexual that is heteroromantic.
(Didn't even get into aesthetic, sensual, emotional, and intellectual attraction but this comment is already too long so I'll just Link to them.
I find it a bit odd that the last two additions are super perfectly okay with their new bodies and roles (or at least give the impression). There's stuff bothering them, yes, but seemingly not the transformation itself and the arrival in a completely alien world? Then again, some people might react that way and be happy or simply need time to actually realize deep down that this is forever and they really have lost every connection to where they came from - then have a complete breakdown. That'd probably be my reaction ;)
6029166
Well, the last two characters being from collab authors might have something to do with it.
6029201 Yes, obviously. I just find this story's concept really interesting and can't help but think about the setting quite a bit. I guess that if you can see yourself being happy about being warped to this world and transmogrified it's easy to give the OC the same outlook. And why not, nothing wrong with it... I didn't mean to imply that.
6029273 My job is to play Lyra, and the world around her, properly. She's admitted surprise to how well they're taking it, and some concern that they may just be internalizing their frustrations and fear. That's why she tried to insist that feeling sad, or angry, or even just confused was not only acceptable, but normal, and they shouldn't feel bad about it.
6029316 Yup, all good!
Eeergh. A bit much going on with the new guy. Vampony (ugh, bad name. I prefer negasus) heterochromic eyes, once a dude and asexual? He shouldn't really stand out so strongly from the rest. It really knocks the scales out of whack. At the very least, I'm hoping there'll be a reason for it later. Perhaps metaphorical?
6029153 And this is the reason why nobody likes gender identity politics or Tumblr.
What's the deal with guest ponies? I have an idea I'd love to work with.
6029386 Check my blog.
6029366
I said nothing about gender identity or politics.
Also I'm guessing you are talking about SJWs not all of Tumblr because saying all of Tumblr is SJW is akin to saying all of Reddit can't source or all bronies are cloppers.
My comment (which admittedly does read a bit pretentiously) was simply saying that how much you want fuck has nothing to do with who you want to fuck, and who you want to fuck may not be who you want to be romantic with.
In short I don't have the foggiest idea what you are saying or what your point is, my best guesses you are saying first-past-the-post voting is great.
A bat pony, how novel.
Nice chapter, but there's a few times you wrote "thats" instead of "that's".
6030446 It wasn't me! Fixed.
6029011 Pay no attention to the typos behind the curtain.
6030528 Exactly
6029352
Thestral is my favorite name for them, given that it's a real thing
6030641 But Thestrals are part dragon? I thought?
6030673 So? They're from Harry Potter and can only be seen by those who have seen death there, changing them a bit, giving them more flesh and making them visible is the bigger thing you're changing... and I've never heard anything about them being part dragon.
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090301223521/harrypotter/images/a/ae/Thestrals.gif
I mean they're boney, but not scaley
6029806 I was being partly facetious. Mainly the reason why is because what your post said is the same type of pseudo-scientific "academic" garbage that is spilled over by the "progressive" moralizers known as the Social Justice Warriors and hack professors at liberal arts universities. Better known as Cultural Marxists. It's not a big secret SJW's love to be on social media a lot to push their crap to the point where it's almost a part of what people think the site is all about. Tumblr has become a joke among many people to be a place for people to go to become unique special snowflakes and bitch about first world problems because of that. (I do have an account on Tumblr because some of the best MLP fan comics are posted on there and Deviant Art is crap at following artists.)
The same tenure of using big words with an almost pretentious type of sentence structure is what set off my SJW senses and I replied in what I thought would be a joke. And honestly, I had to deconstruct your post just to understand what you were saying and here's my response.
It's someone that don't like fucking, either by choice or by some hormone screw up, or don't want to be in relationships like most people do.
So being asexual just means no fucking and doesn't include romance. The only option left for someone like that is to have a full platonic relationship and not be with someone that has a libido as well for the sake of their partners sanity.
I think my head case matter broke. I have read that little paragraph over the past couple hours and I still have no clue what it means. I'm glad I dropped out of college instead of having to deal with this type of writing.
And thank you for that.
Going through the link, it's to the University of North Carolina's LGBT Center. Oh joy. I stopped reading that when my eyes got to "Demisexual" and "biromantic". I'm having a hard time saying I don't hate the gays, trans folk, or any of these other sexual minorities, but there comes a time when even I say enough is enough. Taking concepts that was once simple and easy to understand (gay, straight, bi, etc) and turn it into a quagmire of pronouns, made up terms, and long lists of categories, sexes, and genders is just frustrating as hell. Here's a simple answer. Stop it with this bullshit. The only person who should really know all this for your own benefit would be your romantic partner. They should be the only one that should know what you're into and what you're like on a deeply intimate level. None of the rest of us need to know about this.
As far as I can tell, I don't sense any animosity from you and were just trying to educate other people. That's a hell of a lot better than many others I've seen around the net and that list gave me a little insight into some of the terms I've seen being thrown around by SJWs.
Example, being platonic and hiring a prostitute.
First-past-the-post isn't the best system around and I think it has its share of problems. I personally think that the biggest problem is for elections is Gerry Mandering.
As for our bat pony, Floyd, I don't think she'll have any problems fitting, but she'll have to reject a few suitors that might to catch her eye. We need a little more drama from the next ponies though since this seems too convenient for the newest human turned ponies.
a new pony and a thestral now interesting.
Harts Fire
Oooh, a Thestral. Now we have all 5 different types of ponies I know of. (Besides Alicorns, but those obviously don't count.)
6032468
It's easier to list animals we will eat. Cows, pigs, sheep (some of us), fish, chicken, turkey, duck (some of us). Of course, that's only America, other countries have different tastes Japan and China for example. Everything.
6033984
Snakes, gators, roos, guinea pigs, boar, goats, horses, camels, "bushmeat," squirrels, turtles, deer, rabbits... alright, I think that's all that I can remember by taste right now, in addition to your list.
Also, that? Really racist. Hope you're proud of yourself.
6033984 Ehhh... depends who you are... For me, it's a much shorter list of things I wont eat.
seafood (due to an allergy), and humans.
6034144
Pandas?
6034234 considering they're almost extinct, I'd need to get my chow on soon... but the likelyhood of it happening are slim...
So no, I won't eat pandas, but not because I don't want to.
6032468
Which gets really awkward because pigs can solve those puzzles...
6034808 more companions thing. Some people breed pigs into pets, we dont eat those either. We do eat non pet pigs.
Best explanation of asexuality so far. I know about it because i am asexual.
People try to pick me up or set me up for dates so I make myself look homeless and wear unflattering clothes. My thick, oily hair helps but so much.