(Featured on 10/11/2019, thanks!)
Sniff
Drink
Run
Flinch
Bright-
Suddenly it’s colder and damper, and the smells are all different. And suddenly she can wonder ‘Why?’
This is inspired by Lauren Faust’s recounting of her private story for Zecora’s origin at the Stories and Experiences Panel at Bronycon 2019, August 3rd. It was commissioned and edited by Dragon Turtle.
Over-thinking mundane objects ensue. This isn’t meant to suggest that there are no zebras native to Equestria’s world, but in this fic, Zecora isn’t one of them.
This commission is on hiatus unless the commissioner is able to continue it. If you want to commission extra chapters published as an alternate story, that might be possible though when I'm open for commissions.
Chapters (1)
This reminds me of a story idea I had some time ago of a tiger finding itself in Equestria, transformed into a pony and suddenly capable of sentient thought, all the while still craving a meat-based diet.
9876029
Shame. Meat is not the food of friendship.
Cool :3
9876062
i mean all depends on the type of 'friendship'
9876062
9876137
My childhood just came rushing back to my brain. I couldn't have been more than five when I saw that movie.
9876066
No comment
9876145
Blasphemy I know, but I've never seen it.
9876256
In hindsight, you're not really missing much. I think the only Land Before Time sequels worth watching are the second one and maybe number five.
Interesting. Zecora being displaced and aquiring sentience is not an idea that I would have occurred to me. Looking forward to where this goes.
Since I was not at Bronycon, I have no idea what Ms. Faust said. Can you enlighten me? I am an absolute world-building maven and try to slurp up any information I can get.
I was hoping to see someone pick this up, very interesting so far. Let's see where this goes, yes?
9876283
At Bronycon, the panel was at 4 o’clock on Saturday, and it was called “Lauren Faust: Stories and Experiences.” I don’t know what the timestamp was for when she mentioned it. I don’t think you’ll get more details on what I’ve given you, it was just an idea that she said that she had but didn’t ever get implemented, or even hinted at. If you want to watch the panel to make sure you hear it all for yourself though, it was certainly interesting.
She told us that she once had an idea for Zecora’s origin: she was a regular zebra from Earth in the Sahara. She walked through a portal to Equestria. She was suddenly sentient, and eventually gained her name and Cutie Mark.
9876347
Did you see her panel too?
9876448
Very cool. Thank you for taking the time to summarize. It’s an odd and fascinating little tidbit!
9876145
You're not the only one. I'm on my phone and didn't even have to read what song it was to hear the chorus in my head.
9876266
Sometimes things seem amazing when we watch them as children, then we go back and watch them as adults and we're like "Why did I like this again?"
9876601
This comment accurately depicts my own personal reaction to Courage the Cowardly Dog and the confusion I still have on why I kept watching it.
9876733
But that show was amazing. Now you made me paranoid that it might not have been as good as I remember it
9876805
Oh don't get me wrong it was good. I just was disturbed by it as a kid. Didn't get it when i was watching, and certain episodes terrified kid me, not horribly just found it weird. Good show all and all but not one my fam would have allowed me to watch lol, still did
9876448
Would it be an EG world zebra, or our world?
9877181
She's an our-Earth zebra in this.
9877190
Oh.
Well...there is a bit of a plot hole with such a canon.
Apparently, in the episode where Zecora appears, Twilight is aware of the existence of Zebras and isn't confused by Zecora's appearance.
So, would Zecora be the ONLY Earth zebra to appear in Equestria?
9877202
Correct. She's quite the anomaly.
9877202
Depends on how you think about it.
Twilight is aware of zebras, but despite having read about them, Zecora's mannerisms appear to surprise her, as if Zecora doesn't necessarily share culture with zebras from Equestria's world. Also, while Zecora states that some of her things are 'treasures from the native lands where I am from', she never states that those lands are the zebra lands. It could just as easily be the culture of whoever took her in when she arrived, since a similar culture, masks and all, is seen in Meadowbrook's homeland later in the show.
9877202 That is correct. Twilight knew about zebras and said they came from 'a faraway land'. The Ponyville citizens simply didn't know much about the world outside their immediate region.
I mean, it's kinda easy to search for that exact scene 2:24 here:
Faust's initial headcanon was clearly later changed to keep Zecora as a natural resident of Equestria's planet.
9877575
As stated in the description, this is not stating that there are no zebras in the same world as Equestria, only that Zecora isn't one of them. Considering we never saw a single other zebra in the show, and Twilight was surprised to even see a zebra in Equestria, it must be exceptionally rare for them to come there, if it has ever even happened. It's not impossible given that yaks only first came to Equestria during the show's time, and they weren't all that far away.
Considering this, it seems highly unlikely that Meadowbrook's homeland in Equestria would have such a similar culture to the zebras of that faraway land, even down to having traditional masks, and more likely that Zecora arrived in Meadowbrook's homeland and her peculiar culture actually came from them when they took her in, not zebras from Equestria's world.
Obviously not canon, but it's what we're going with for this story.
9877609 I was only mentioning the episode because people were noting an idea Faust had once upon a time for Zecora which didn't make it into the show when it was actually produced.
Very good stuff! I really like the premise and it's being executed well so far. I look forward to her first encounter with ponies and first attempts at communication!
I'm a sucker for First Contact in general, but this specific premise has me hooked already. Xenofiction is a wonderful thing.
Wow, this looks very promising!
Good work!
I can't wait to see what happens next!
9922615
I do too! Though it's a commission so I have to wait for them to give me a good idea of where to go.
This is super promising stuff. I love seeing people's take on extended canon and refining staff what-ifs and the like. I'm glad I stumbled across this. Hopefully, there's not too long between chapters (though I understand if there are) because adventure lore is hard to come by now. It also looks like there's a lot of gaps between updates with your stuff. You have pretty polished stuff for those time-lapses, though.
10206511
This is a commission, so I will only be doing another chapter if/when they tell me where they want to go with it. Sorry.
Okay, so is the zebra now irl zebra proportions, or mlp zebra proportions?
Maybe something like this will happen:
We might turn on a sapient AGI (artificial general intelligence) and it will suddenly go from nothingless to sapience with no intermediate state.