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Roseluck Shrugged, and other facetious drivel
The Original Work, of about seven hundred something words.
Scene 1: In which a strapping young libertarian-anarcho-capitalist attends Capital Con, and makes a mysterious purchase.
Our AnCap Protagonist steps out of the blinding midday sun and into the cool indoors of the Canadian Exposition Center. It is the first day of Capital Con (Canada's only capitalist convention), and he intends to enjoy as much of it as possible, before he must return home to his irredeemably socialist family come the end of the weekend.
The day is far from uneventful, but the author simply does not wish to give a play-by-play of a capitalist convention, as she maintains that the concept is stupid. Furthermore, the author desires that the reader be made aware that anarcho-capitalism is a stupid philosophy, and that this is strawmanning, self-gratifying trash, even by her standards.
Regardless of the author's cooperation, our hero enjoys a long and wonderful day of conspiracy theories, cryptocurrency seminars, and Elon Musk fanboying, and eventually feels that he had best go and rest up for tomorrow.
On his way out, our capitalist hero spies a lone vendor, selling pony memorabilia. He is presented with a dilemma. He does not particularly care for ponies or their ilk, but he does enjoy spending money. After a few moments of contemplation, decades of corporate brainwashing win out, and he purchases a pin in the shape of a small horse with a flower on its rear. The vendor tells him the horse is named Roseluck, but our strapping protagonist simply has no time for the petty whims of the working class.
The anarcho-capitalist calls an Uber to take him the three blocks to his apartment, and heads up to his room. He lies upon his hotel bead, not even bothering to remove his shoes, and tosses the funny horse pin on the nightstand. He picks up the phone, and orders the most expensive item room service can provide, a decadent feast of chicken and steak. He doesn't particularly like either, but the flow of capital must be maintained, and besides, this is on his mother's credit card.
As this spoiled capitalist awaits his food, he flips on the television, purchasing a few films, each of which he watches a few seconds of, before changing his mind and buying a different one. Eventually, he settles on Michael Bay's Transformers, a film the author has not seen but has been told is awful, and not in the ironically bad fashion of The Room. A few minutes pass, and his food arrives. He idly munches on a leg of chicken, half-watching the film as he slowly falls asleep to the sound of explosions.
On his nightstand, our hero's pin begins to glow, a faint, pale light.
Scene 2: In which our bourgeoisie protagonist awakens in a different place, and finds himself possessed of a different form.
The author wishes to once again make it clear to the reader that she is definitively not an Anarcho Capitalist, and the views expressed by our protagonist are not necessarily representative of the views of the author, nor are they necessarily correct. Furthermore, she wishes it know that this story is sarcastic, and is not actually meant to be particularly good.
Our capitalist hero opens his eyes to a room unlike the place he fell asleep. Indeed, this is a different place, for it lacks even a television. Perhaps he has been kidnapped? Likely by communist terrorists, he notes, gazing around at the rooms decoration. Upon the wall hangs a striking poster of a worker surrounded by stars, breaking the blackened chains of capitalist oppression with a hammer, his apron bearing naught but the number 1917. Perhaps the number is a reference to…
Those dirty soviets! Our protagonist is shocked and appalled, and so leaps into action! By rolling off the bed and onto the floor. How odd, his muscles aren't responding the way they normally do! The communist bastards must have drugged him! He scrambles to his feet, and bursts out the door of this room, and into a hallway. An odd breeze around his legs allows him to notice he is wearing a nightgown. Damn emasculating feminist communists! Damn them! Our hero dashes down the hall, and down a flight of stairs.
Author's Note
There were some notes I left for myself at the bottom of the document. Needless to say, I have not heeded them whatsoever, and shall now post them verbatim!
-- I'mma take a break and read about ancaps.
Save this bit for something else ~> [No, Roseluck realizes. Now is not the time to fantasize of revolution. She has to restrict her thoughts to the present and figure out who kidnapped her. A second sweep of the room reveals to her that it is not the lair of some bourgeoisie-commie villain, but merely her own bedroom. Of course, it does appear someone has vandalised her room.]
(Yo, me! Remember to have Roseluck drop out of CHS, on account of it being taxpayer funded.)
This is the end of the notes I had posted in the document. By redemption, I meant that my original plan involved having Roseluck see the light and shed the foolish views of capitalism. I still kind of want to do that, but is it ironic enough?
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Roseluck Shrugged, and other facetious drivel
An intermission of possibly middling importance to the plot, that the author nonetheless wanted to write.
Meanwhile, in a world not dissimilar to the one our protagonist has found herself in, barring the lack of humans and odd presence of horses, a being with an identical mental state opens his eyes.
Little does he realize, the author has done even less planning than usual, and thus his life will be even more of mess than our alpha hero. This beta protagonist's political beliefs are still pure evil, and his devotion to the ideals of capitalism and false anarchism is unshaken. Indeed, this may be a darker timeline, despite the brighter world and kinder denizens. Said denizens being adorable and generally benevolent diminutive horses, or "ponies", as they have repeatedly asked the beta protagonist to refer to them.
Additionally, the beta protagonist is himself a diminutive horse. A physically female one, with an odd rose insignia branded upon his rear. Unlike the alpha hero, however, he refuses to allow any outside sources to alter his mind, for better or worse. This character is truly a bastion of resolve and grit, and his determination to stay true to what he believes is admirable, even if his views on economics are morally bankrupt.
To further solidify the differences between our two focal points, the beta character is, despite being the same age as his alpha counterpart, not enrolled in any sort of education, as is the norm for the diminutive equines who are not small children. This beta character has considered attending a school, if only to irritate the social norms of the horse creatures, who he despises, on some primal level. He suspects, however, that they'd just accept it, and thus he does nothing.
Anyways, the author decides to simply refer to this character as Beta, for the sake of not having to think up even more titles for the characters. Beta has just opened his eyes, and politely waited for the author to finish with the exposition dump, before getting out of his bed. That, or he is attempting to sleep in and is thoroughly annoyed by the narration. Of course, that depends on whether or not Beta is aware of the narrative. The author cannot decide, so she may make his awareness inconsistent with itself.
Beta rolls onto his side, and groans, partially from fatigue, and partially to embellish the fatigue for the sake of the reader. After a few minutes of mindless gazing at the opposite wall, he rolls over again, and lands on all four hooves beside his bed. Beta then picks up his glasses, and balances them carefully upon his muzzle. He doesn't actually need glasses, this form has excellent visual acuity. However, he wanted to wear glasses, and so he does.
The narrative skips over Beta's morning routine, as the writer feels it would be terribly boring to write out, barring a single scene, which is transcribed after she stops rambling about how she plans to write the scene.
Beta steps briefly onto the front doorstep of his house to grab a newspaper, grimacing briefly as a neighbour greets him with the name "Roseluck". He has suspicions that that is the name of this body, but he doesn't dwell on it, taking the newspaper in his mouth and returning to the comfort and safety of his dimly-lit house.
The newspaper rambles on about a multitude of topics that serve no real purpose for exposition, nor do they much interest the author to write about. Towards the end, however, mentions a growing interest in magical universe travel. Though Beta doesn't realize this yet, the concept of magical universe travel will never really be expanded beyond a macguffin to allow him to travel to the human world and encounter his other half, Roseluck.
The author tires of writing this intermission, and stops.
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Roseluck Shrugged, and other facetious drivel
Another brief chapter that doesn't seem to build upon the narrative causality of the story
Roseluck, the human one, wakes up again. It is morning, as would be expected for a species that sleeps during the night. Which humans are.
She goes through her intentionally nondescript morning routine, acquires food, then leaves for school. Suddenly, a wave of whimsy overcomes the author, and they have a devious scheme. Roseluck is nonetheless unaware of the author's plans, and continues on her way to school, along a nondescript route, though something itches in the back of our hero's mind, that reality shouldn't be entirely without defining features.
She shakes it off as she arrives of school, with only the slightest of mental nudges from the author. Our alpha protagonist enters the foyer of the building, and gazes around at the students, whose only descriptive trait appears to be their presence. Once again, the feeling of false reality comes to the front of her mind, but is just as swiftly banished by the vigilant fingers of the author on the keyboard.
After a brief moment to reply to a stupid comment on a previous chapter of the story, as well as to discuss some stuff with others, the author returns to her writing. The morning passes by as a literal blur, time flashing forward before our main character's eyes to leave her in the cafeteria, thoroughly bewildered. The author swiftly deletes the intruding thoughts in her construct's mind, and directs the puppet to go and order some food and take a seat.
Each day passes like this, a series of forced and awkwardly strung together narrative events, with the author repeatedly wiping the minds and memories of her constructs, so as to prevent them from disrupting her hastily thrown-together plans and schemes, ad infinitum.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
After a few moments of the author scheming, and an ugly linebreak thing, the narrative shifts to focus on the other protagonist, the beta villain. He's been busy.
Without the author's direct attention, he's been able to exploit the holes and vague points in the implied narrative, and gradually risen to power in a far darker timeline, as predicted.
Over the centuries, he has led a revolution against the Equestrian Diarchy, reformed the government with himself at its head, fought a long war of attrition with the changelings, eventually losing the southern provinces in a poorly-worded peace deal, and commissioned a nice cloak. It's a light cream, with a crown and rose, to match the insignia of his royal house.
It has been six hundred and twelve years since his arrival here. The villain's old life is but a distant memory. Equestria has grown into a heavily industrialized state, seemingly in a constant state of war with this state or that power. Revolutions seem to spring up every month or so, only to be brutally crushed by the guards of the empire. Centuries of social conditioning have forged Equestrian culture into a vicious system of ruthlessness and determination. The engine of war has been running nonstop for a very long time now.
Beta suspects it is time to reclaim the southern provinces, in a war that shall last a great deal more than five hundred words, though they may not be recorded. The author stops writing.
Roseluck Shrugged, and other facetious drivel
Many years pass.
The secondary character, the capitalist, Roseluck, the dark emperor, what have you, rules the land that was once Equestria for centuries, undisputed.
Eventually, new heroes arise, and overthrow him, banishing him to an endless abyss, that he may never return.
As for the original, Alpha Roseluck? She stays in the illusory time loop forever more.
The End.
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Roseluck Shrugged, and other facetious drivel
An additional ramble of text and story, such that this story is acceptable to the FIMFiction moderators (Mods: I will change this chapter title if it is unacceptable I name it like this. I thought it was funny, see.)
Alright. So, looking over the original work, the author finds where precisely she stopped writing, and sees her own reasoning. However, she is filled with the resolve to continue, as this story is too ironic and dumb to drop. Steeling her focus, (and reminding the reader that she, the author, is not a terrible person) she continues...
In the few months between when the last chapter was originally completed, and the time of writing for this, a great deal of things have changed for our hero. Firstly, she now goes by Roseluck, and has largely dropped her foolish ideas of anarcho-capitalism, now seeing the absurd lies of the "philosophy" for what they are. However, she has not truly improved, and now straddles the political center, sitting upon a throne of half-truths and blind support for the status quo. (The author acknowledges her own lazy writing in the form of this time skip, and promises to make a sarcastic effort to do better.)
A new semester of school has started, and our newly centrist main character is just now arriving at school, around noon. Due to her habit of staying up absurdly late (or perhaps early), arguing the minutiae of fictional characters, she often finds herself sleeping through her alarm clock and arriving late. Thus, she finds herself, late once again, as she steps through the doors of her school, the strangely-named Canterlot High. Who named this place? Are they are a horse of some kind? What is with the plainly obvious nepotism occurring in the school's administration? These were all thoughts that ran through Rose's head, months ago, when she (from her perspective) first began attending this school.
Seeing as it has now been months since she arrived in this strange place, in the form of a young woman, Roseluck has fully adapted to the setting of a High School, and absorbed the edgy, holier-than-thou politics of its denizens, further entrenching her irritatingly stubborn centrism. Our politically inert protagonist reflects on these irrefutably true facts of her own life, and wonders when exactly these events occurred, that would so dramatically change her worldview and gender identity.
She shrugs, and does not for a moment consider that she is a fictional character, and the author simply got lazy and didn't want to invest the time or energy into proper worldbuilding, characterization, or narrative arcs! By this point, Rose has arrived at the door to Mr. Loaded Gun's history class. Many students suspect he is some sort of secret agent, but he asserts that he is not, and therefore all concerns are entirely dispelled, despite his name being more suitable for a spy than a teacher.
Roseluck has devoted very little time to the peculiar fact that the names of many individuals seem to match up with their interests or professions, nor has she wondered how exactly that came to be, or if it entails some sort of prescience on the part of the parent. Instead, she has been a good little human being, and conformed to the unquestioning masses, despite the clear presence of a sarcastic intelligence shaping her life.
As this exposition rambles on, Roseluck has been chastised by Mr. Gun for her usual lateness, before being directed to her seat. As always, the class is studying the minutiae of trench warfare, as is the entirety of every history class. Never is it explained which countries utilized it, or which war is being discussed, only that they are studying trench warfare. Unfortunately for Roseluck, they are particularly focused on the subject of trench foot, complete with photographs. Our hero manages to hold down her light breakfast of toast and orange juice for the remainder of class, before being released from this horrible prison of the study of the past. She is absolutely convinced that knowledge of history will never in any way be applicable to anyone, ever.
Next, our ignorant focal character must attend mathematics class. The less that is said of this, the better. As the school system is roughly analogous to that of the Canadian school system, at least, the one the author has experience with, this is the fourth class of the day, and Roseluck is thus freed. She begins to make her way to the exit, when it hits her.
"Shit, this isn't real."
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Roseluck Shrugged, and other facetious drivel
The Chapter added to add more horses to the story
HORSE.
horse
