This story is a sequel to The Man With Two Names
For the past year, Jeremiah Walker has wandered Equestria in the company of Trixie Lulamoon, seeking atonement and passage back to his own world, unsure if he will ever find it.
For the past year, Loose Leaf has investigated the events surrounding the human’s disappearance. He releases a full report of that night’s riot, a story Ponyville isn’t quite ready to hear.
For the past year, Spike has built a fledgling movement in Ponyville, fighting for non-ponies’ rights to citizenship. The tales of prejudice in Loose Leaf’s report invigorates the campaign, but draws opposition to the growing cause.
Now that the report is circulating across Equestria and their cover blown, Walker and Trixie march onward to the newly emerged Crystal Empire, following the only lead he has back home. There he runs into the frantic Twilight Sparkle, the pony who urged along his departure from Ponyville, and now needs his help to save this kingdom. Alongside her is Spike, who recognizes the human is just the figure his movement needs.
It's nearing 4 am, so insta-fave but I'll have to read it tomorrow.
Words cannot express the utter glee I felt when I saw this.
Totally didn't expect this fic to be posted today. Now that it's here, I can't wait to see how this goes.
walker... help twilight? pft! F THAT!
The behavior of Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack are churning my stomach horrible. No real sense of guilt. Nothing but the excuses of cowards not learning their lessons or any hint of any possibility of redemption on their part. I can't read this.
7312912 Which is why she's taking Spike with her, to remind him of the good people/ponies he would be helping.
7313037 so, essentially using him as a means to an end?
Social change is messy. I doubt it will be easy.
7313061 Pretty much. Twilight doesn't have the best record of thinking things through when she's frazzled.
ahh the tale begins anew.
can't wait to see more my friend
7313103 this is true. Very much true.
oh joy more AA and 'political correctness'.
7312990 They're in denial at this point. They don't want to accept what they did was wrong, even if they say they are. The whole town is. Would you want to feel guilt about treating someone like they did when you've always considered that person an animal? It will take time for it to sink in. The true guilt will come, and with it, their desire for redemption.
7313168 Well, the opening paragraphs say that Rainbow got the story from her friends long before the report came out.
Anyway, nice to see this starting, I enjoyed the original story.
Replace with "yeah"
Definitely curious to see how this goes.
A sequel! Thank you
Seeing this sequel finally pop up made my
dayweekmonth. Great to have you back, trump card.It's gonna be a long, rough road for Ponyville and Equestria, but one well worth walking. Also, I have to give kudos on nailing Applejack's 'voice'. "Huffing and puffing like a bull in a tomato patch" is a spot on southerism for her.
I really liked the emotion and frustration in RD this chapter. I kinda agree that she wasn't being the most loyal pony here, but I feel that it makes a lot of sense and actually fits one of the themes here. None of the Elements are paragons. They all have had flaws that are exposed through this unfortunate circumstance and if there's anything that deserves frustration from the element of loyalty, it's betrayal. And RD was betrayed on multiple fronts. Her expectations of her friends were betrayed, she feels like they lied to her and she feels guilty that, in a way, she betrayed them by not being there to make them see what they were doing. I wonder, though, if RD has some deeper connection to nonponies than the others that has her this defensive, or if she just feels like her friends should have done better.
Ultimately, I feel like this was a good and powerful chapter to start on. It really sets the tone and I would love to read more like it. Thank you!
It is very interesting concept that non-ponies are considered as a ''pet'' that sort of action would normally devastate a country.
It would prevent any foreign trade and trader, any kind of technological and scientific circulation and that sort of behaviour is a Casus Belli for a war when one claims an ambassador a ''pet''. I am honestly surprised why they are not invaded yet.
I'm just eager to see more of this. Nothing is better than a brand new story being published with at least 2 chapters pre-written.
.eah should be yeah
Applejack still seems determined to toss what she did aside and move along. She hurt Walker almost worse than the larger bulk of Ponyville's citizens, assuring every pony she could that he was going to eat them, etc...
Quite frankly, Rarity is the only one who deserves any compassion, and even then it isn't much.
I hope Spike makes good progress on his front.
7313699 Ambassadors likely enjoy a protected status of some kind. That, and Celestia controls the sun. Anybody that insanely powerful isn't just attacked at the drop of a hat.
I made a very weird noise at seeing this. Cannot wait to see what happened to this guy.
7313663
... *picks up and huggles an RD and a Rares* ... *sweeps in a Gilda as well, because*
Best ponies in story.
... And now we play the agonizing waiting game.
It's here! *Off to read*
What about Applejack? She blatantly LIED about him.
Up IN arms.
The only thing any of the guilty Ponies are doing is making excuses for their racism. Applejack owned up to it, but she twisted the story and left out a few very key specifics. Lying AGAIN. It is obvious that not a single one of them have learned their lessons. They are all EXACTLY the same as they were before and Twilight was so much of a coward that she couldn't even stay and face what she fucking did?
Fluttershy said what happened then made excuses for her actions, or lack thereof.
Twilight ran off because she was too chicken-shit to own up to her bullying and racism.
Rarity made excuses for the rest of the Mane 6, which brings her right down to their level.
Granted, our Human protagonist is far from a perfect person, but if fucking TRIXIE is the nicest Pony he meets... he must be in the depths of hell itself.
7313037
spikes not a pony thou, hes a pet ;p
I may wait a few chapters before starting on this. Judging from experience with your previous story, it's going to drive me insane unless I have as many chapters to read as I can get my grubby little paws on.
Okay, the previous story was awesome, and this one starts in the right track.
7313699
Well, it's easy to be jerks when your leaders literally control the sun and moon, making any attack on you pretty much slow suicide for anyone else.
Some sort of
Applejack will never apologize, she's already destroyed her name, her reputation and the future trust of many Equestrians. The instant she confessed her wrongs to Loose Leaf, she's got nothing to left to lose so now she's honest with herself, Applejack, Element of Honesty and speciest (The fact she was unamused with AB's involvement with Spike's movement says plenty).
Oh man youre expanding upon a wonderful world. Cant wait to read more.
7313940 All the more reason for Walker to be empathetic with their plight.
7313663 Well her old best friend was gilda who was a griffion, a non-pony. I think it's safe to say that she knew more non-pony species then just gilda.
*Manly Squee*
So happy to see this again. Can't wait to see where you take this.
7312990 I disagree. That's more akin to looking at them threw rose-colored lenses.
We all want to judge them for reacting in a way that western society would condemn. But it's only been in these past few decades that we've reached that point. Plenty of judging went on prior for that (and still does sadly).
On the subject of eating, the crew of the Essex (the whaling ship which was rammed by a sperm whale and whose story would inspire Moby Dick) avoided taking their life-boats to the closest islands, because they were thought to contain cannibals. Instead they rowed over twice the distance to the next closest land, and had to resort to cannibalism themselves.
So I don't view the ponies' fear as out of place. It isn't far off for what Equestrian society could be.
What I have complained about is that the Mane Six were mostly acting out of character for the story. We've seen them in the show be very open-minded to other cultures and ways of life. Fluttershy had even dealt with carnivorous animals happily.
But she shouldn't be viewed as bad for being upset seeing a pet (which she could even talk to as a normal person) be slain right before her eyes.
The Man With Two Names left me with the impression that he earned redemption, but they could not. Plus he was sent there to be punished, and now they are to be punished for punishing him, which makes no sense to me.
I'll track this one to see if any sense will be made out of everyone's actions.
7314221
Good point! Nice catch.
Damn, this author, just so many emotions.
Racist ponies make for good interesting stories, but bad for your emotions. Def
7313663
I commented on this issue in the previous story, heck I think I might have commented twice after I forgot my first comment, but I saw this idea brought up several times back then and I have to say it lost most of its weight with me when we got to Twilights' chapter. I said it before, if i squint real hard I could see where donald trump card was coming from with most of the mane six. But when Twilight had a conversation with Walker about books, education systems, and his desire for a library card and her thought process was basicaly 'huh that's weird why would wild animal know about any of that?' and then continued with her plan to kick him out into the wild, that goes well beyond a 'flaw'. Honestly the thing I am most curious about with this sequel is how the author can even begin to address that.
Supressing what?
Spelling, grammar?
I like how this sequel pretty much points out the out of characterness of the original. Something a lot of people who pretty much copied your story didn't seem to realize was that it was already a bit far fetched given the characterizations on the show, and thus the derivative fan fics ended up dialing up the OOC without acknowledging it at all. This was actually something that bothered me in the original story. I just could not see characters like Twilight or Applejack acting like they did in the fic. Good to see Rainbow Dash effectively deconstructing that element of the story in the sequel.
7314651
Derivative fanfics? I'm so flattered! I didn't realize that there were other fanfiction inspired by mine. Would you be able to point me to some?
One challenging part of writing a sequel so much later is that I'm seeing the inconsistencies and weaknesses in my previous story (particularly the ooc), and trying to find a way to address them and use them to my advantage. So far, so good I hope.
7313761
Ostensibly insanely powerful. They better get cracking on the reform before Celestia does something crazy like lose to her sister, Discord, Chrysalis, Tirek and a bunch of vines, otherwise foreign rulers might start getting some reasonable ideas. Embargo.
Equality for all citizens also seems like something that Celestia would support, foreign pressures would only give her dissenters a reason for pause.
7314627 Imagine finding out a friend of yours was being a major c*** to someone who didn't deserve such treatment, but when you confront them about it, they practically gave a shrug with a "Yeah, and?"
Suppressing would be the generalist term of not allowing anything of everything in you from releasing a can of sh*tstorm with a lovely garnish of @sswhooping upon them.
7314710 I imagine she does support it, but she likely doesn't know how unbalanced the scales are, and wants to let her little ponies decide for themselves as much as possible.
Hands/hooves-off can be good much of the time, but here? Perhaps not.
Glad to have you back! This was an unexpected treat! The sequel seems off to a very good start so far. I like how you've made Dash both the voice of reason and the voice of the readers. I'm very much looking forward to reading the next chapter. I hope we get a scene from either Celestial or Luna's point of view.
I just realized I haven't feel this level of immersion in a long while. I'm not gonna say "since The Man with Two Names ended" but I do acknowledge this chapter was a read I took very seriously. So, thank you for writing it.
Like it's predecesor, this is character-centric. I really like where Rainbow's characterization is going, as well with Apple Bloom's. It was a nice touch to use Rainbow's POV as a way to re-introduce the whole situation to the readers.
Keep up the good work.
7314689
I don't know how many are explicitly inspired by yours, but I have seen like one or two mention your story in the authors comments. I think most of the "similar" stories are just other authors coming up with the same idea independently, but I see your fic mentioned in comments sections in other fics enough that I'm pretty sure there are quite a few fics on here that have been outright inspired by your's, or at least influenced by it. Here are two stories that are very similar. There are dozens of others, but these are the two I can immediately remember.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/184701/ending here is one of the better ones... Again, it's dialed way over the top. It had it's own recursive fan fic sequels. I'm typically not a fan of what I call "sympathy fics", which are stories where an OC is thrown into a story and forced to endure ridiculous amounts of tragic stuff so you sympathize with them more than the actual canon characters, often to the point where the rest of the cast is massively out of character. But sometimes they are done rather well, even if they come across as a bit cringeworthy to read.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/209181/the-rainbow-savior here's another similar story that in hindsight seems rather funny when you consider your own sequel has Rainbow Dash as the one who sympathizes with the human. This is one of the few stories that didn't seem to be trying to outdo yours in the "dark" category. Probably could use a somewhat deconstructive sequel, but the author doesn't seem to want to write it, and neither do I.
I don't dislike most of the stories that are similar to The Man With Two Names. But your story was already very OOC, very dark, very hard to believe, and just a tad cringeworthy. Most of the stories with the same general plot managed to dial all those things up even further, and thus aren't quite as good.
I think I remember you making a blog post or something where you said you knew you wrote Twilight as massively out of character after re-watching a few episodes. I actually found her to be one of the more believably out of character characters in the fic, since she's still trying to do the right thing, just in a completely idiotic way, which to be fair, is something she actually does in the show itself a few times, especially in more recent episodes. Besides characters act a bit OOC in the show itself sometimes, it's even commented on once in that Rarity episode with Suri Polomare. People act OOC from time to time in real life too. The trick with fan fics is making it believable enough that the reader can go "OK this isn't how they normally act, but I guess I can sorta kind of believe they might act like this in a very rare situation". I had to suspend my disbelief a bit while reading how you wrote Twilight, but not quite as much as for some of the other characters.
It's the way you wrote Applejack that made me cringe a lot while reading. I can't really see a character like Applejack, who nearly gave her life to save Spike in one episode, spreading rumors about Walker liking to eat pegasai and not giving him a chance to explain himself after his little screw up. A more believable reaction from her to the whole cow thing would have honestly been to have her act terrified rather than angry (Remember how she acted like Zecora was some spooky boogyman?). I mean heck, she didn't even act vengeful towards the Flim Flam Brothers and they tried to take her home away, which is more than Walker ever did. You somewhat recouped a bit of her characterization in the end when you had her pay Walker for his work after the fact regardless of how things ended up turning out. Maybe I was projecting a bit when I read that scene, but it almost seemed like Applejack was already feeling guilty at that point. In this fic she outright say's she messed up, which is refreshing, but I still have trouble reading it as the same Applejack from the show.
It's happening!!!!!!!!!
7313761
Her behavior makes total sense though, she's experiencing an extreme moral dissonance between her personal values and the way she utterly violated them with her terrible behavior. Looking back on what she did is so painful to her psyche that her mind is literally trying to pretend it didn't happen or justify it so she can cope with the situation.