What's this?
A tape recorder?
It’s one of those hand held note recording types. You pick it up and examine it to find it is still in good condition. You press the rewind button with hopes that it works.
A small burst of static reaches your ears as it begins to rewind.
Yes! Now to unravel the mystery behind this recorder, whose was it and why did they leave it here?
The beginning is a little fuzzy at first but clears up as the recording goes on.
“My name *static* and I need help! The *static* everywhere! Oh my god I hope they don’t find me. Well if who*static*listening to this then I am probably no longer human. Several years ago another planet started to merge with ours. For some reason once it got half way it stopped. But that didn’t stop them. Those pony bastards just couldn’t stop!”
You began to see where this was going, you knew all about the Conversion Bureau’s and the Ponification serum.
“After a couple of years when everyone who wanted to do it had finished they started to do it forcefully. Everyone who was turned was brainwashed or something because they wanted to turn everyone else. Now it has been about three years since that started and I haven’t seen another human in months. Supplies are running low and I don’t have many options.”
You knew that feeling, you were going through it right now. You hadn't seen anyone and also needed more supplies.
“I think I might be the last, I hope not, I really do. After war nearly destroyed our side of the planet humans have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Wait... Oh no! Not now! Not after all this! Oh bugger! Listen, whoever is hearing this run! For godsake! RUN! I am going to hide what I have in a storage box in the corner. I won’t leave any ammunition though, I’m gonna use it to take out as many pony fags as I can!”
You hear some rustling and assume that was the supplies being hidden. Then you hear the recorder being set down.
“Okay, they are almost here. If you find this then do yourself a favour and get underground! It’s harder for them to find you. *Glass shattering* Shit! This is all the time I got. Goodbye and good luck to ya! *Click*”
The recording ends and you stand there. You feel a pang of remorse for whoever it was that made this recording. A quick glance around the small hut you found this in solves another mystery. How far he really got. A small pile of ripped clothing on the floor tells you they must have been hit by the potion shortly after they stopped the recording.
As soon as you look for the chest mentioned in the recording you hear a faint beat. Is that... yes it is. Those are wing beats!
You look around for a place to hide and quickly spot the chest you were looking for. You dash over and find that is might just be big enough for you to fit in. You open it just as you hear a set of hooves touch down outside.
You know it’s over but open the chest anyway finding a rifle on top of some supplies. You pick it up and remember what type of gun it is. An AK-47, one of the best guns you know of. You unclip the magazine and find it full of bullets. A brief smirk crosses your face before a creak reminds you of the danger you are in. Slamming the chest shut you spin around to face the door to find a Pegasus standing there.
You look down the sights and wait for him to make a move, to give yourself an excuse to shoot him. Normally you didn’t use guns, you just ran as fast as you could staying ahead of them. But now with your back against the wall you had no other choice.
“Did you listen to my recording?”
You lower the rifle and your expression softens from your hard scowl to a light one. It was the person from the recording. What were they doing here as a pony?
“I am sorry but you are the last human in existence. You know that I thought that at one stage. I know you don’t trust ponies or want to become one but hear me out.”
You continue to remain silent but move your finger off the trigger and flip the safety off. You mentally berate yourself for forgetting that in the first place.
“You are surrounded. Plain and simple. All around this hut are unicorns and earth ponies and pegasi waiting to rush in and ponify you. I told them to wait and see if I could talk to you because this is where I was turned.”
Your finger twitches to the trigger briefly but you make no other move.
“It tickles really. Nothing more than that. You have a nice dream and wake up as a pony. Quite honestly I was happy. Ever since I was a boy I had wanted to fly and now I can do it every day. But looking back I do not regret my actions. I killed many a pony and half transformed humans. It pains me what I did but I have no regrets. I fought for humanity and you should too.”
Now you were really surprised. Was he giving you a chance to get away?
“I can’t give you a chance to get away, but I can give you a choice.”
Damn it! Oh well, you wonder what the choice is.
“You can give yourself up. Become a pony and live a happy life in Equestria. Once you do the entire Earth will be consumed by Equestria. You are the only human that stands in its way. Now on the other hoof or hand in your case, you can run. Equestria no longer has a shield and Earth has been exposed to low levels long enough for humans to adapt. Granted you are the only one left.”
“But you said I was surrounded. How do get out?” You ask the Pegasus. Surly this was a trap of some sort.
“If I remember correctly there is a trap door under the chest. All you have to do is fire a shot in the air after you have moved the chest. Then go down and find a way into Equestria. Once you are in there Earth should then be consumed. I am sorry but that is your only other option. I promise that I won’t tell anypony you are alive.”
You felt for sure this was a trap. There was no way it could just be this easy. You raise an eyebrow to show your doubt.
“I know you doubt me but this is your only option for the human race to survive just a little longer. A chance for the memory of humans to stay in the minds of those converted. A chance for someone to write it all down.”
You sigh. You weren’t the best writer and didn’t have the best memory but decide that a life in Equestria as a human is better than becoming a pony here and now. Letting them win.
You chose not to reply but instead place your rifle on the floor and move the chest. As the Pegasus told you there was in fact a trap door. You open it and look down the long decent. You take a glance back at the Pegasus still standing in the doorway.
“There are some glowsticks and a torch in the chest. I wish you the best of luck.” With that you take your rifle and fire upwards. The sound echoing for a few seconds before he flies off to let them know you are ‘dead’.
Quickly you rummage through the chest to find the torch and glowsticks. As soon as you do, you stuff them into your backpack, leaving one glowstick out. You always wanted to use these big ones. Cracking it and then giving it a shake you allow yourself a satisfied grin as it begins to glow. You proceed to drop it down the tunnel and follow after it. Grabbing your rifle you look down and see it’s not that far down. So you climb down a couple of rungs and shut the door. You then let go and drop down to the floor.
Picking up the glowstick you look around. Seeing only one direction to go you begin walking and walking and walking.
One week, 4 close calls and all your supplies later you are at the Equestrian boundary. You stand but one step away. As you stand on the grey grass you look upon the green expanse of Equestria. Seeing no point in prolonging the inevitable you step into Equestria and turn around to see it begin expanding instantaneously. A sigh escapes your lips as you turn around, not wanting to see your home planet disintegrate before your eyes.
As you set your eyes upon the new sight of the entire Equestrian land space before you hear a faint pop behind you.
“Ready to become a pony?”
Aw shit! It was a trap!
The last thing you heard and felt was the splash of serum against your back.
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Um since no one commented I have a question can you give me a brief summary of these conversation bureau stories or something cause I can't find them in order so of you would tell me it would help u debts ad.
also favoriting this
My bad I meant to say understand at the last bit.
Lastly I love the story
I like it, but a little more info would be nice.
Pretty good, as long as the pontification doesn't spread by biting, its all good, and dont forget the "One, to , tree ,for walls , phew I am safe.. as I sat down, the 4rth wall splintered to bits, as pink blur came through the rubble..."
2116315
Conversion Bureau is just a collection of stories by different users.
The first one was made by some guy called Blaze on DeviantART, no one liked it because it was pro-ponies or something, so other types of authors took the story and changed it into something different. Soon a massive flux of stories popped up everywhere and quite a lot of them are made into their own categories and series.
Just search in Conversion Bureau in Google and see what you can find or ask another author. I don't know much about it either.
The ending was my least favorite part.
Okay, this is just a rough idea of my thoughts at the time of completion.
To start off with, there's barely any plot. Literally if I had no prior knowledge of TCB, I'd have no clue what was going on. So, my suggestion is to develop an actual story to tell.
Next, you give barely any description of the world through which the character moves. I felt like the characters were simply standing and moving through a plain white hallway. You need to show us the world, as opposed to just telling us what's going on.
Lastly, your pacing is jerky, swinging from moment to moment, then skipping abruptly across 4 weeks in a single sentence, then back to moment to moment again.
My honest suggestion is to rework the entire story, walk us through exactly how the character got to where he is and what the situation of the world is like. And most importantly, slow down the pacing. Slow it way the heck down.
Very rushed, and ponies are incredibly OOC, with no explanation. (TCB in of itself is not an excuse for OOC.) Second person's not really such a good idea, but I suppose you were consistent enough in it. You might want to tag your TCB.
2116315 TCB is a sub-genre in which:
A) Equestria and Earth come into contact.
B) A formal institution is set up by which humans may become ponies (or in one parody, ponies into humans).
Within those criterion, there is a wide variety. Some have it so that the contact between Equestria and Earth results in the destruction of earth, others not. Some TCB stories have conversion change people mentally as well as physically, while others may not. There may be organizations actively opposing conversion of any kind, or attempting to force conversion. The important thing to know about TCB is that within those two criteria, there is a wide degree of stories. Just like X is a changeling, shipping, or other genres, there are some that are not as good as others.
And now for my suggestions to the author on improving their writing both in general and in TCB.
1. Use either the first or third person, second person serves no function, as first person already exists to allow the reader to insert themselves into the story.
2. Add descriptions of the environment.
3. Slow down the pacing, expand on the world and explain it.
4. If ponies are widely and systematically forcing ponification, give them a darn good reason. If you're using the Alternate Universe tag, it doesn't give you an automatic reason to stray completely from the show without explaining such a detail.
5. You either have a new paragraph, or you don't. There is no such thing as a "Soft paragraph". So either double space all new paragraphs, or indent them.
2116315 Thanks!
2118542 Why? I did kind of rush it and wanted to finish as quickly as possible so that was a cheap way of doing it. Any idea's on how I could change it?
2118624 Yes it was rushed. I tend to do that when I am just getting the idea out of my head. Also,
I have no idea what this means sorry! Could you explain?
2118936 Thanks for your input! Some of those points didn't even occur to me. I just wanted to get a story out of my head. So your advice will really help! And I am a little unsure of you mean in point 5. Could you explain it a little more?
2118616 Yeah, everyone was telling me to slow down. I can clearly see why now that I reread it.
Thank you for telling me exactly what I needed to know. I will take you up on your suggestion to do a total re-write. Although I may still keep it in second person. Still no sure how that will work out.
It could use some work and if it was a larger story i think it would have been better but i do prefer the 2 person story to any thing. I do think that you should try and make a larger plot to this story and keep going with your idea
2119081 A "soft paragraph" is when someone hits enter on their keyboard once in order to start a new line, but they do nothing else to separate the paragraphs, this is a bad writing convention. Here's an example of "soft paragraphs".
Now, the proper way to paragraph is ALWAYS either like this....
Or like this
Notice how the latter two have it so it is much easier to differentiate between the different paragraphs? Yeah, that's formatting, and it is something that should be given utmost attention to for consistency.
Now, OOC is an acronym that stands for Out Of Character. Part of writing fanfiction means portraying your characters as they are in the show. That means ponies that while potentially fearful of the exotic, are largely accepting and promoting of free will.
Lastly, the only thing you should rush in a story are unimportant things. Walking down a hallway and nothing happens? Go right ahead and stuff that into one sentence. That said, there are limits. Condensing 4 weeks of in-story time into one sentence after you just spent one thousand words on listening to a recording and a conversation is too much of a shift in pace.
2119285 Again, Thanks! This really helps and I have started to rewrite it already. I really didn't know that much about formatting and I never thought they might be out of character. Hopefully in the rewrite I will fix this.
2119320 Some American spelled a word the American way on an Australian author's comment page!
So scarves:
1) I agree with everyone else that it is rushed.
2) There is very little character development so I don't really feel for 'me'
3) Maybe add some comments from the tape that trigger monolougraphic flashbacks in 'my' mind to better tell the story and build other characters that 'I' have lost.
4) I don't remember what the pegasus looked like, so either you didn't describe him or it was so terrible I couldn't remember it. So drag it out with extensive thought processes of descriptions of places, objects characters.
If your rewriting then send it to me and I'll have a look through it for ya.
Take a like n fave.
2120316 Okay, thanks!
lol
4145937 what are you lol-ing at?
*Raises eyebrow in suspicion*
Aw damn it! Why did he have to be ponified?! ;c
I was really hoping for a one last final stand. Ah well, at least it ended realistically. Good job, considering I was a bit worried at the word count, but it surprised me by it's content.
5421231 I do prefer ones in which they make a final stand, and I was thinking of rewriting this one. But it is really old and I would rather move on to new stuff. TCB has kind of died as a popular writing theme on Fim fiction. Anyway, thanks so much for reading and commenting on this! And Merry Christmas!
5423029 Merry Christmas to you as well, keep on writing son. Or girl, whatever.
5424684 You had it right the first time. Guy or girl or whatever you are. No one knows your a pony on the internet. Actually, they really would. Hooves cannot type.