James had been single and unemployed before he became an Earth Pony, and he was single and unemployed after he became an Earth pony.
He'd actually bought into both PER and HLF's propaganda, but not for the reasons you'd think. He didn't believe ponies were 'morally superior' to humans. 'Morally superior' was just another word for 'better at killing stuff' after all. And he didn't think Ponies were out to commit genocide. If you have a couple winged unicorns, one who can control the tides and enter the dreams of whoever she chose, they wouldn't have needed to go through this song and dance if they actually wanted to wipe out the human race.
Nope. He believed the stories that humans who took the pony potion became completely different people who happened to have the memories of the humans who'd been ponified. And he believed that being a pony was a free ticket to a higher standard of living!
James did not like himself, and he definitely didn't love himself, and he didn't mind the idea of ceasing to exist. And his rent had been overdue, and he'd been mooching to feed himself.
So you can imagine that James was disappointed and confused when he realized he didn't feel different after he'd lost his fingers. He was dust brown with white spots with a golden mane.
He'd chosen Earth Pony not because he particularly liked the idea of being one for the rest of his life, but because it was the simplest and most direct one he could think of. But a person could only survive one use of the Potion once in their life time.
Many humans were holding out hoping for a trip to the mythical moon base The Government(!) had supposedly set up for themselves. (With Princess Twilight Sparkle explaining the spread of the M-radiation didn't work that way).
Or that they could develop a potion that could mutate humans just enough to make them able to survive the ambient magic flooding Earth without changing their species... that the ponies had a magic mirror that lead to an alternate Earth full of human versions of Equestria's ponies did give them some hope, while it was being hotly debated on how much time they would take to fine tune the potion that Earth's population just didn't have. One pony had apparently suggested figuring out how, and sending the revised potion back in time... but this was likely to rip a hole in time and space and possibly erase Earth and Equus from existence from the resulting paradox.
What was worse, James found out that Equus' kingdoms were NOT annexing territory from Earth's nations after all, that had been just internet talk. And getting into another country was twice as troublesome when that country existed on another planet that was now fused to the hip of your own, and Equus was openly worried about a flood of immigrants several times larger than Equus' native population (in particular when they learned how much of a welfare state Equestria was!)
Also, James was a blank flank. Most adult transformed humans got their cutie mark in seconds. Those that didn't ... well, when everyone else around you had tattoos on their butt but you, you began to feel a bit isolated.
So James was still single and out of work. Once he'd had aspiring dreams of being an actor. Now, those dreams were gone. But it was still the only real credentials he could get.
He'd been able to find PER members who were willing to feed him, he was after all 'one of the superior race', and he clearly had been 'oppressed by the savage apes', but they began to get a little too creepy even for James.
James didn't go around naked now because he liked it -he felt completely humiliated and ashamed!-, he just needed to save the money on laundry bills!
So he'd gotten himself an acting job at last. It wasn't a big role, practically scenery, but at least he was being paid.
"So as Wild Dingo leaps over the trenches, you zombies chant 'hail Solestia' with mindless smiles on your faces pointing your potion guns. And fall over with barely a grunt as he 'shoots' you, make sure you have your blood packs hidden underneath the Solar Empire uniforms," said the natural born unicorn holding the clipboard. The unicorn mare was silver haired, with a dark blue coat. Her cutie mark was a clipboard with a film reel in front of it. "Did you understand all that? Or do I need to say it slowly?"
James and his fellow 'enemy soldiers' all nodded then shook their heads.
"Good to see the potion hasn't made you totally mindless," She rolled her eyes, and she turned her back and ignoring them like they were props. All in all, James didn't find it all that different from the last time he'd gotten a role as a Ninja B in a kung-fu movie. At the time, it'd been his job to recoil in terror after the hero decapitated Ninja A who'd just shouted out the hero's name.
Editing Floor trotted over to a part of the studio set up to look like the inside of a class room. A little pegasus colt playing Mega Man 12 on the newest handheld system. James heard the kid had had cancer and the potion had been his one shot at survival. Next to him was a red pegasus colt reading a comic. He'd apparently wanted to fly like Superman and had begged screamed and shouted for his parents to make him one.
"Alright Billy, Jimmy, do you remember your lines? You say in a mindlessly happy tone while staring dimly in Wild Dingo's face at how Queen Solestia cured you of the disease of being human. And as Wild Dingo points his two guns at you with tears running down his cheeks, you have no perception that he's about to kill you. Do you understand?"
"Yeah."
"Uh-Uh."
"Poor things," Editing Floor said under her breath. Billy and Jimmy ignored her. At least they could mark the acting experience on their résumés.
'Wild Dingo' meanwhile, with a figure of a body builder that wasn't special effects was talking with the human staff. "I'm just sayin', this' kinda dialogue heavy for action sequence, ya know what I'm sayin'? The audience doesn't want to hear me yappin' my trap off, they just wanna see me blow away the bad guys!"
The human producer pointed a thick finger at him. "Look! You signed the contract! That means you follow the script, as written, unless you want to go back to filming Commando Baby Sitter Part III!"
'Wild Dingo' was cowed by that.
"I'm having concerns too," said the writer. "Shouldn't we focus more on the horrors of war that the Equestrian, I mean Horsetrian invaders are going to bring to humanity and the lifeless Dytopia that they're going to bring down upon us all? We don't want to give the impression that we're glorifying them."
The producer gave his fellow human a look that said, 'You're the writer, who cares what you think?' But said out loud, "Look, we're already planning the sequel, you can write all about it there!"
"... I... I supposed it does make more sense to start with the thesis before producing the deconstruction. Wouldn't want another Batman v Superman," the writer sighed.
They'd already filmed two scenes. One with a white unicorn mare with a pair of CGI wings that would be added in post product making her 'new era' 'evils of mankind' speech with James and others standing behind with mindless smiles on their faces. The other was a scene of ponies attacking a group of HLF members volunteering at a hospital, the HLFs dying valiantly to protect the innocent from the new foal zombie soldiers, except for a lone survivor who had been ambivalent about 'all the trouble stirring from Horstria appearing on Earth,' but now, enraged at himself for not taking the threat seriously, vowed revenge and to single handedly defeat the alien invaders.
The 'potion guns', were mock-up crossbows with tranquilizer darts glued on top that a solider from World War One would have laughed at. As was typical in any action movie, James and his co-workers were expected to miss Wild Dingo as nearly point blank range.
"And action!"
"All hail Solestia!"
Wild Dingo leapt onto the set, guns blazing, the squibs going off perfectly in sync to give the impression of bullets hitting as he mowed down the new foals, the blood packs going off as they fell, all with the same mindless smile on their faces.
"You freaks took everything from me! My girl! My brother! My friends! Now ya wanna take my world?! My HANDS?! MY MIND?! MY SOUL?! All you scum know how to do is run and hide! Well, run and hide from me! Beware the killer ape you bastards! Beware humanity! We've been trying to destroy ourselves for centuries! What the hell makes you losers think you'll pull it off?! Even when our kind betrays us, we'll fight back! Even when things are at their darkest! We fight back! No matter how many innocent people you turn into your corpse puppets, we'll fight back! We'll never give up! Humanity will never stop fighting! Humanity rocks, you all suck!!!!"
"And cut!"
Next came the close up scene of James being elbow in the face as he came up behind 'Wild Dingo' from behind. ... However they wanted several angles to choose from... so it mean repeating the two second scene, over, and over, and over. This included Wild Dingo’s other close up kung-fu shots.
"But I know karate, I've got a friggin' brown belt, can't we do some longer shots?"
"Who's singing your paycheck?"
And that shut him up.
The fact James was a blank flank was apparently actually a good thing for once... they could just use CGI to give him a different one and have it be a different new foal in each shot.
The climax of the film had Wild Dingo facing Queen Solestia where her magicians were creating the Potion Bomb, determined to transform countless humans into new foals all at once.
The final battle was Wild Dingo running out of ammo just as he finished off all of Queen Solestia's soldiers, and fighting her in hand to hoof combat, his sheer strength being able to overcome her magic, and breaking her horn, in one punch. She wore a blue sock for the rest of the filming of the fight scene after Wind Dingo broke the sugar cane horn in a close up.
Wild Dingo 'tore off' Solestia's 'wings' (using some pieces of blue cardboard so he had something to hold, with generous amounts of fake blood of course) with his bare hands, and fought her brutally until at last 'breaking her back', and escaped the explosion (because of course the place exploded, it wouldn't be an action movie climax if the final set piece didn't explode). With the setting sun behind his back, Wild Dingo leapt from the exploding building (never mind that the 'fire ball' was just the part of the explosion you could see in real life), and grabbed hold of a rope lowered from a helicopter being piloted by some friendly HLF members.
When the film was complete, James was given his paycheck, which contain the exact amount they studio was legally required to pay him. At least he'd have money to pay off his back rent.
As he left the studio, he heard an angry snarl directed at him, "HEY! Jerk!!!" He turned to see a green unicorn mare wearing a t-shirt of a human and pony hugging each other done in crayon style. "Just because you were born a pony and never found your special talent, that doesn't mean it's alright for you to help these people spread their lies and hatred at those who weren't born a pony and have found their talent! How do scum like you live with yourself!?"
James said nothing, he just turned around and trotted away, and he wondered if it was worth spending the check at the local bar instead, one of the curses of this new body was how much longer it took for him to get drunk.
