It's hard to tell whether the spire of the Microspell HQ in Manehatten is so tall that it reaches the clouds, or the clouds in Manehatten are so low that they are touching the spire. Both statements are equally true, even if they drag your mood in two opposite directions. In a way, it fits your current situation, so you allow your mood to be in an odd superposition of optimistic contentment and looming depression. The former is based on the fact that it looks like you are about to get a job. The latter is mostly due to the circumstance that everything in this situation is some sort of a horrible mistake. You take one more look at the clouds outside of the huge wall-sized window of the office you are currently sitting in and focus on whatever misunderstanding is happening inside.
You wouldn't call yourself a mathematical genius, but surely your skills should be sufficient to count the number of zeros in the contract that you are holding in your hands. You've counted five zeros, and the digit before them definitely looks like a two, no matter how you look at it. You are quite confident that together with the zeros this means "200 000", but you are even more confident that this can't possibly be true, so you re-count the zeros a few more times.
The HR mare who is sitting across the table in front of you looks nervous—unless her hooves kneading the large office chair mean something else. You would guess that she needs a toilet break if she didn't also look excited for some reason. Perhaps she is just new here, and you are her first assignment, and she is eager to do her job properly. That would make sense, although her badge says that she is the "Director of Pony Resource Department," which doesn't sound like an entry-level position. You find yourself wondering if this title makes her a PR instead of an HR, and how do ponies call their other PRs instead to avoid the confusion.
As much as you want to sign the paper that is already signed by her and the CEO of the company, your sense of integrity can't allow this horrible clerical error to damage their business. You like free stuff as much as the next guy, but you don't want to be that asshole who signs something like this, and then sues the company when it inevitably tries to fix the contract. Most likely, some intern just wrote an extra zero in the contract form, and no one had noticed. You let a friendly chuckle to escape your lips to make it clear that you are by no means offended by this silly mistake. Even twenty thousand bits per year is a lot more than you had hoped for, considering how your interview went.
"I would be delighted to accept your generous offer, but I'm afraid that there is a typo in the contract. It currently states that you will be paying me two hundred thousand bits per year."
You smile, trying not to show too many teeth, and return the contract to the yellow-ish mare who is steadily turning pale white in front of your eyes. You saw ponies blushing through their fur before, now you see one losing her colors. Ponies. There is something fishy going on with their coats, but you had quit freaking out about minor things like this a long time ago. Heh, you probably just saved her from some serious problems.
"O-oh yes, of course! On behalf of the company, I apologize for the mistake! One moment, please," her horn flashes a few times, and then a few times more after a short pause. The mare nods to some invisible remote interlocutor, blinks with her horn once again and returns her attention to you, "we meant to offer you three hundred thousand bits per year."
You are not sure what's going on here, and why is this mare sweating. As much as you would like to flatter yourself, so far the only two reasons for mares to sweat in your presence were how dumb you can be sometimes, and how deeply embarrassing it can be to answer your stupid questions, such as "how exactly does the plumbing system work in Cloudsdale?"
The mare can't be mistaking you for some senior specialist for at least two reasons. First, she just spent ten minutes talking about your future job before giving you the contract, and the description was so vague and non-binding that by now you are pretty sure that any janitor in the building would outrank you by a few levels. And second, you are a human. You don't know anything about spellcrafting, enchanting, or even the most basic card tricks, and you made it pretty clear during your interview.
Now that you think about it, you are not even sure what had that interview achieved, apart from making it obvious to everyone that you are a living avatar of "uselessness as a concept." You were trying to advertise yourself as a handyman (a term you had to explain to the interviewers) and/or janitor, with a desire to learn more and acquire new skills beneficial for the job. After just a few minutes, it became very clear that not only you have absolutely no idea how to replace a light bulb, you are also unsure what basic principles it works on around here, and how useful your intuition about electricity is going to be when you apply it to the magical and semi-magical equipment in Equestria.
Being a huge alien monster, towering over all ponies including their royalty, you could also, in theory, work as a security guard. Even if it will be hard to find a pony who you can win against (all tribes are stupidly overpowered in their own ways), you do look intimidating, and your mere presence would probably be enough to keep young vandals from painting graffiti all over the company's buildings. Too bad that vandalism is so rare around here that you had to explain what you mean again. Twice.
And yet here you are, with a job offer that is too good to be true.
"Let me clarify something. For some non-specified minor assistance to the staff you are offering me, a human with no experience in your area and no relevant skills, three hundred thousand bits per year, flexible schedule, premium medical insurance, annual performance bonuses in shares, and a possibility to choose between a large sector in the open-space area and a personal office as my primary assigned workplace?"
"Y-yes! Of course, if you can't decide, you can take both, we have too much free space anyway!" ok, this is just ridiculous, but she doesn't stop, "And don't feel too stressed about the bonuses, they are pretty much guaranteed anyway, regardless of your performance. The updated version of the contract should arrive in a few seconds. A-and here it is," she says as a new stack of papers materializes in the air next to her. Even assuming that she was communicating with a secretary a few moments ago, surely making a new copy of the contract would take more time than this, right?
The mare immediately signs the new contract without reading it; you also notice that the signature of the CEO is already in place. This can't be real. Nothing in this situation can possibly be real. But what are you supposed to do now? Argue with the HR (PR?) about the absolutely unimaginably good offer? You know that there is no television, and therefore no reality shows in Equestria, so this is unlikely to be a prank. Maybe an experiment of some sort then? "Emotional reaction of extra-dimensional lifeforms in impossibly beneficial circumstances, by Horse M.D." Eh, probably. Oh well, may as well sign this, why not. Ponies are not exactly known for their sinister plans, and according to the few neighbors you've asked, Microspell is a big and well-respected company, so there is probably no fine print in the new version that is talking about stealing your kidney or something like that. Whatever this joke is, you are rolling with it. Even if they will fire you after a week, that would be the best week for you in many months, you are too tired of wasting days and doing nothing.
Just in case, you quickly re-read the contract (for some reason, the idea of unicorns stealing your kidney doesn't want to leave your mind), which looks almost identical to the previous one, except that now the new amount of money is spelled out right after the numbers. After double-checking everything, you take a very expensive looking phoenix quill in front of you and sign both copies. The mare across the desk looks like someone had just removed a huge boulder from her shoulders.
"Splendid! Even if the contract says that you can start tomorrow, feel free to take a few days off and start whenever you like! Here in Microspell we always value the work-life balance of our employees, so if you feel stressed, just take your time. I can't thank you enough for accepting our offer, I promise you that you won't regret it! Minty Breeze will help you to find the exit. I'm looking forward to working with you!"
That was... weird. Ponies are weird. Equestria is weird. Everything is weird. But especially ponies and their society.
Almost everything in Equestria is run by mares. Almost all jobs, from farmers to researchers, from construction workers to magicians, and from security guards to military generals are taken by mares. Stallions, who are quite rare, and pampered from their birth to their last days, are not really enslaving the mares or making them work for them, they are just... useless, mostly, with a few notable exceptions who almost automatically become celebrities of some kind. There are a few famous stallion actors, dancers, and singers. In Equestrian history, several stallions became famous poets, novelists, and painters, even though you don't really get what's so special about their works, and you know that there is an ongoing scandal about some stallion's novels "secretly being written by a mare." The majority of stallions, however, are just fussy and whimsical weaklings with vague ambitions and hedonistic lifestyles.
It's rare for a stallion to get a "real job", usually they just do whatever their cutiemark tells them to, and while sometimes it generates some amount of income, more often it's just hobbies that stallions entertain themselves with, mostly because they rarely take their jobs seriously. For example, a stallion with a cutie mark of a baker is likely to be a decent baker, but will probably work no more than one or two days per week. Nevertheless, mares treasure them unconditionally, fight for the place in the herd of the best ones, and, to be honest, don't have any actual respect for their skills most of the times. Not in a "stallions are worthless" way, but in a very condescending and annoying way, which is arguably worse. You've lost the count of how many times you heard random praising phrases about stallions and young colts such as "strong as a mare" or "smart as a filly." Most stallions don't find these remarks offensive, they are actually flattered by these compliments, which makes you sick a little bit. You don't find mares superior to yourself (not counting their bullshit magical superpowers), but you have to admit that stallions feel quite underwhelming. Whether it's something genetic or a consequence of the lifestyle, stallions sort of suck.
Your place in this picture is weird. On one hand, as far as you know, you are the only human in Equestria, and ponies don't really have a lot to compare you with (even minotaurs are quite different), so they shouldn't have any prejudgements regarding your abilities. On the other hand, they seem to have no difficulties with identifying you as a male at first glance and treating you accordingly. "You just look very coltish," your neighbor told you when you asked her about it, and you really hope that she didn't mean it as "you look like you totally suck." As a result of this, even if mares are not actively looking for your company, they are always willing to help you, just because that's what their instincts and their mares' honor are telling them.
Want to move that furniture you bought with your Universal Basic Stallion Income (UBSI) into the apartment provided by the government? Sure, not a problem. A few strong mares will carry it to the third floor and install it for you. Want to borrow a hammer to fix the shelves? Don't worry, a mare next door will do all the work for you, for free. Pfft, of course she understands that you are not a pony stallion, and of course she agrees that "you can do it by yourself" (the way mares say this phrase makes you uncomfortable), but come on, you are not suggesting that a male, of any kind, will have to do the work when there is a mare nearby? Stallion or not, a male is a male. Same is true for the griffons. Same is true for the minotaurs. Seaponies, dragons and even changelings have roughly the same gender structure, so no mare is going to allow you to suffer through the frustrating experience of aligning the shelves and then the horrors of hammering a few nails into the wall just because you are some kind of an extra-dimensional monkey.
Generally, you like Equestria, but you don't like this status of a weird bio-trophy of some sort. You are pretty sure that even the most unfair patriarchal societies back on Earth never treated their women how Equestria treats their stallions, but then, neither gender on Earth was scarce. If you ended up here as a mare, you would enjoy your every moment in Equestria. Endless possibilities in a beautiful magical world, what not to like about it? How can anyone be anything but awestruck by a world where "an adventurer" is an officially recognized profession, perfectly compatible with insurance and pension plans? As long as you are a mare, of course.
When you started to ask around about your employment options, mares were quite confused by your questions. "What do you mean you just want to work normally?" they asked. "You mean, not just do what you want, but do what others tell you to? You mean, like a mare?" If you had a cutiemark that demands to be expressed in some artistic way, mares would happily assist you and point you in the right direction, but since you don't have one and also don't have any skills relevant to the Equestrian society, mares didn't really know what to do with you and just suggested you to try finding a new hobby, like knitting or cooking.
Eventually, you just went to the central public employment office, the place where mares with useless cutiemarks are becoming janitors, delivery mares and minor office clerks, and registered yourself there, after explaining a few times to different employees there that you understand that you don't need to work to receive the UBSI and that you just want to be useful. It was hard to convey the message, so in the end, you had to make up an explanation about how it's "like an invisible cutiemark for humans, and yours demands you to work."
To your surprise, a week later you've got an interview appointment from the Mircospell Corporation, of all places, the largest Equestrian spellcrafting company. The interview was a total disaster, not only because you had to admit that you don't have any skills for the job you were applying for (even as a janitor) but also because you apparently couldn't understand the kindergarten-level terminology the interviewers were using. How are you supposed to know what a flux capacitor is? Ah, because it's an essential part of almost all modern household equipment, and most fillies generally know about it by the age of five? Of course...
The mares there were friendly and caring, but it was pretty obvious that they have chosen your CV by mistake. Probably the same mistake made it so that you got the second letter from them the next day, and after contemplating whether you should just ignore it or go there and resolve the clerical error (just in case somepony else was supposed to receive the invitation instead of you), you put on your best black suit with a red tie and went to the main office. This is what makes you different from stallions! Unlike them, you do stuff!
And here you are, leaving the main building with a contract with an unimaginably huge number written in it, and an offer that can't possibly be real. Passing by a newsagent, you notice a tabloid with the word "Microspell" on its front page. You buy the newspaper and read the article as you go home.
"Microspell is facing multi-million charges for discrimination against minorities.
"The NBI investigation had concluded that despite the previous claims made by the ex-CEO Flashy Sales, who was forced to resign last week and is currently under trial, it is virtually impossible for a zebra, a yak or a stallion to be hired, regardless of their skills, cutiemarks or glyphs, for any position in the company. Highly qualified NBI agents, under military-grade illusions disguising them as various representatives of minorities, committed several attempts to get a job in Microspell's offices all over the country. None of them got the offer, in nineteen out of twenty-six attempts there was no technical interview, and the results of the remaining seven were obviously misinterpreted.
"This proves that the Diversity and Inclusion score, that was always too low in Microspell Corporation, cannot be explained by the lack of fitting candidates alone, and likely represents the company's bias towards unicorn mares with pure bloodlines. The bias is especially obvious with 73% of the company's maintenance positions being filled by unicorns, even in the areas mostly populated by earth ponies and pegasi. Among the researchers and management, this number is close to 100%.
"But don't be too fast to judge the ponies working for the company. According to multiple sources, the bias is being imposed by the top management, has no support among the workers and originates mainly from Flashy Sales herself, who, quoting one of our sources, "thinks that filthy z***ers should go back where they came from." The new CEO, Double Effort, had promised to the investors to raise the D&I score to the national average level before the end of the financial year, but is it possible? Unless they are willing to fire half of the researchers and replace them with pegasi and earth ponies, they will have to find a bunch of zebras and yaks interested in spellcrafting. Maybe even a few stallions?
"If you know a smart colt with a cloud mana capacitor on his cutiemark, tell him that it could be his chance."
You sigh...
Oh well, that explains a few things. You wonder how much an extra-dimensional non-ungulate male adds to that D&I score. Probably a lot. Considering how many different races are represented in Equestria, you wouldn't be surprised if the metric somehow tries to take into account the distance to your place of origin. In that case, you alone could probably make this score to skyrocket. Of course they want you to work for them no matter how useless you are, so long it pleases the investors and protects the company from the legal charges. The world of Equestria may be filled with harmony and magic, but the world of business is apparently always filled with bullshit like this.
So what, you'll be bringing coffee to the mares who do the actual work, knowing that you are making more money than any of them? And that without you many of them may eventually lose their jobs because of the bigotry of their top management? Fine! If they are hiring the world's most expensive useless intern, they will get the world's best useless intern! Or a maintenance guy! Or even a janitor! You'll find a way to be useful there! You'll show them what a human male can do! You'll even find something to work overtime if they won't be impressed by your effort! You will be the...
You trip on your shoelace and tumble. Some random young earth pony mare is hurrying to check if you are ok and to help you stand up. She offers to carry you to your home if your leg is hurt. You know she will do it in a heartbeat.
Ok, this doesn't count. Technically, you are not working for Microspell yet. Tomorrow everything will change.
Now there is RGRE, and then there is RGRE.
Tone it back a peg eh?
Less of an 11, more of a 9 maybe?
Will you continue this? Because you should!
Dang. I dig the industry buzzwords.
I like this story so far, continue it please, or else... I will taze you!!
9515353
PFFFFFFFF 9? try bringing it up to 12 why dont you! XD
Story is good, looks to me like a really good read. more
Oh and try to not write in the HUGE long paragraphs like in this first chapter, having long paragraph after long paragraph makes a reader feel like reading it is a boring task. you don't want that. but story is still good
you know the novelty RGRE in a story is lost when the Male MC is just as if not more worthless then the males in the story. The author has made it very, very, very, very, very, very clear how worthless this pathetic little human is compared to the ubermensch that is the ponies.
When I read "handyman" I had to go back and check to see if this story was T rated and with no sex tag to make sure that that mare wasn't hiring him for those purposes lol
9515519
> ubermensch ponies
Well, it's not inaccurate. Fine manipulation in a sterile environment is pretty much a unicorn monopoly. Anon can't manipulate weather formations, and earth ponies are generally stronger. Add to that the fact that Anon is still acclimatizing to essentially alien technology, and he pretty much has to be pushing a broom and fetching coffee to have something to do.
All of this doesn't really detract from the uniqueness of his point of view. If anything, a genuinely (if temporarily) useless Anon is more of a novelty than an ultra-capable Anon. This Anon still has a drive to legitimately contribute, and might be able to use and go against stallion stereotypes to get things done. I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
9515578
Absolutely true, doesn't help that all ponies instant know what they are best at and what kind of job the should have when they get a cutie mark. For us it's so hard to tell what we want to do, though if I was in his place I would probably go insane from lack of electronics and probably take up woodcarving and blacksmithing just to replicate things from games/books/shows.
9515578
I would agree with you however the majority of HiEs the Male human MC is it barely functional adult. Normally they are a submissive and cowardly man child that all they did back on Earth was live with their parents and play video games and if they had a job usually it was with computers. Now I'm not saying that's what's happening in this story all I'm saying is that all we know about the MC is his excessive whining about how worthless he is and that just makes him look pathetic and within the framework of a RGRE that's not interesting it's just more of the same.
Interesting start. Quality RGRE is in short supply, and it looks like you're fairly well committed to delivering on the concept rather than going only half-in like most RGRE fics.
Looking forward to seeing how this goes.
Well... I'm surprised! I thought this would be another low quality anon fic. But your writing style is actually very gripping and makes the story shine.
I hope to see more from you.
I keep typing a lot, but I'm keeping it simple:
I like this, and write the story as you feel it should go. Also, I extra like the character introspection at the end of the chapter.
9515519
This is MLP. I'm fine with humans not being as good as ponies, that should be the norm here instead of that weird human-worshiping cult we had here for a couple years who'd only write or read stories about humans killing ponies and the glory of the nuclear bomb used against the Princesses and whatnot.
What I'm not okay with "Reversed Gender Roles" meaning that males are worthless fops and females are sexist, controlling demigods. That's Outdated Reversed Gender-stereotypes Equestria. Or ORG-E for short. I demand this new category be recognized!
Alright, so far so decent. I like the premise, now you just need a proofreader, because a lot of minor mistakes made it through. Other than that, it seems to be coming along neatly.
A bit unsubtle, especially the newspaper excerpt, but this could be fun.
Love how this has started hope you keep it up
Wish I had a job like that, also that pr pony looks like she might be fun to tease.
Hee, i like this a lot so far. Too often reverse gender roles end up being a pity party with cruel storylines and with a lot of spite. This feels like it might have a nice tune to it, might be much more mature take on the genre.
I'm quite curious on how will this proceed. Please, do continue soon!
Ladies and gentlemen, RGRE in a nutshell. Don't think about it too deeply.
I am really liking this MC's motive. And individual that is part of an extremely small minority who wants to be useful to others despite their circumstance. Ill add this to tracking for sure.
A RGRE with an Anon that isn't either A, Worthless or B, Good at everything and anything from the get go? O.o Now you have my interest XD
While the absurdity of the stallions if I'm to make an assumption based on this first chapter is a bit insane... I'm honestly gonna chalk that up to being more in the line of you poking fun at it o.o And I'm really interested in seeing if Anon gets stuck doing intern stuff or if he's got previous skills that he can actually adapt to this new job XD He's just got to learn all this new alien stuff first :3
9515519
Ah, but this pathetic little human you speak of doesn't want to be useless, quite the opposite, really. So he isn't pathetic or little, he is quite up standing. A true friend who will be with you to the end.
I like that Anon is striving to become more than he already is.
As a fellow guy, I am rooting for this guy. I feel that any guy worth his salt as a male would feel uncomfortable at best in this environment. This also means that he has a lot of potential, if he is smart about it.
How entertaining. I shall observe with interest.
quickmeme.com/img/21/21bc4e7302b5f0f578da9c2327976d78051c46b5444d722112bad6195fd17f0a.jpg
Equestrian Microsoft yo
The compulsion to do something, is strong, even choosing to be lazy takes effort.
Any man would be driven mad, perhaps suicidal, if they're told or realize themselves, that anything they could do, is outshined by a mare with a mcguffin stamp on her ass. Even stallions would be better but they'd rather be pampered :T
9515367
[observes an unexpectedly-huge pile of comments]
Welp, looks like now I have to.
By the way, I deeply apologize to everyone for various mistakes. Believe it or not, I care about them a lot more than it looks like, my English just sort of... sucks (working on it). If anyone feels generous and doesn't mind spending a moment to send me a PM about the most unforgivable atrocities against the language, I would greatly appreciate that.
I feel like the problems of some of these rgre stories could be solved with him saying "back in my dimension, the mare equivalents for my species are the males" or some similar lie.
9516752
Currently, the most glaring atrocity here is that there aren't enough words on the screen. Fix this immediately!
Feels like a delicious literary appetizer that promises good things to come in the main course.
9516302
I think you missed the sarcasm I was pushing in that statement.
9515879
Soooooo your mindset is
Ponies being shity to humans: I'm okay with this 👍
Ponies being shity to each other: whoa now pump the brakes thats not right
I don't know if I should consider that thought process disturbing or you just have a fetish.
9516970
"Sooooooo" my mindset is, "There's nothing wrong with ponies being better than humans in pony fiction." Full stop.
Ponies being crap to ANYONE else, other ponies or not, should only be plot mechanics. Why is this person such a jerk? Are they an antagonist? Are they a problem that needs to be solved? How is it going to be solved?
YOU need to stop putting words in other peoples' mouths, apparently.
I imagine they're called HR, for Herd Relations.
9516982
I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth, but reading your last post I still revert back to my last post.
I'll assume that you see the irony in saying "There's nothing wrong with ponies being better than humans" and "Ponies being crap to ANYONE else, other ponies or not" in the same statement thus proving my point.
9517027
Being higher-placed, better-equipped, more competent, or physically/mentally superior to someone else does not entail that one is treating that person poorly. I'm hoping you've just been making some kind of extremely far left field mistake in understanding and not trying to put piecemeal my opinion into some narrative that feeds back into justifying your outrage.
9517027
It seem rather obvious that you are just deliberately flame-baiting at this point, i see no way you could honestly interpenetrate his answer that way unless you are really bad at English or delibiratly picking a fight just for the sake of it.
9517046
9517080
I think what's got me wrapped around the axle is the words were using specifically the word "better", for example specifically I might be better than you at fixing a car but when we zoom out that does not make me better than you. Thinking you're better than someone inherently I think as a moral wrong. So in the statement "There's nothing wrong with ponies being better than humans" I look at as a moral wrong, because it's looking at sentient species as better because species.
9517125
Okay, so it was a far left field misunderstanding. That's fine. But no, I'm specifically against the 'because species, I am an arrogant prick'. I even pointed out I was against that when I mentioned the violent human-worshiping cult we had here for a time. No, that is just straight up garbage and I'm against that kind of mess.
My lighthearted point was that I'm okay with ponies being the folks with the upper hand in stories we have here in our pony fandom specifically because this is our pony fandom, and not the fandom where it's only acceptable to have humans bombing ponies and dozens of users attack you for not being okay with that becoming a common theme.
But this whole 'Fuck this human slave monster' kind of deal that people seem to be praising, I'm against.
oh I love this intro, I'm even more excited if the blurb describing the story is accurate. If you don't mind me asking, how often do you think you'll update? I'll read it no matter but I'd like to know just how patient I should be.
9517278
I aim to publish a new chapter every 3-4 days, but I'm too inexperienced to be confident about this estimate. If some IRL nonsense forces me to delay a new chapter, there is nothing I'll be able to do about that.
Not planning to abandon the fanfic for weeks, though, if that's what you are worrying about. I'm having a huge amount of fun writing this stuff, and I'm pleasantly shocked to receive such a positive feedback already. I hope I won't let you down.
9517125
It takes a bit more context, which you hinted at. There's nothing whatsoever wrong with saying X population is better at action Y than Z population. It's quite a different statement to say that X population is thus better than Z population because of action Y.
It's a false equivalence in that the first argument is mainly predicated on the relative competence of selected populations' actions, whereas the latter is an outright profession of values as they express through divergent moral/ideological epistemologies. One falsely ascribes the more effective population as one similarly efficacious in being the most moral.
Looks interesting... think I will stick around for a bit more. 🔖
9517321
excellent! I hope you enjoy writing this at least as much as I am enjoying reading it.