The woman on the left and the mare on the right don't get along very well.
All-American Girl by Shinzakura is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic.Daisy Jo Martinez is married to a US Navy officer, has two kids, is Catholic, Republican and proud to be American.She's also a pony.This is, at least initially, her story, but things become much more complicated fast.See also the Sidestories, which fill in several tangential gaps, as well as the prequel. Also check out the Spacebattles thread for pages of discussion and previews you won't find anywhere else.
The main fanfic and the sidestories contain examples of:
“No thanks. Ashleigh Ball can’t sing her way out of a paper bag so I stay away from Hey Ocean like the plague."
“No, I was watching the Claude & Monet anime movie the other day – why does Gainax bother with licensing weird foreign comics?”
All There in the Manual: The genetic structure of most of the species and the members of major Equestraini noble houses are covered in the author's FiMFic blog.
Alternate History: The underlying world is different even before First Contact:
9/11 never happened.
Bin Laden is not a terrorist.
Eriteria, Ethiopia and Somalia were failed states that got merged into one, which didn't do much better.
Andorra has been an independent kingdom since Charlemagne gave it to a local general in 998.
Automobile manufacturer Studebaker still exists as of the start of the series.
Russia and China fought a war in the 1970s.
British singer Nick Drake did not commit suicide in his 20s but lived into old age.
Considering it was he who mistakenly sued Lyra's brother Harper for sampling Drake's singing voice on of Harper's albums (ironically a tribute album to Drake) *
(and an even bigger irony in that Harper's singing voice is a near-perfect match for Drake's and so no sampling was involved)
and not his estate, depending on when the album was released Drake could have lived into his 90s - or even be alive as of the side story The Busker, making him 96 years old.
Los Angeles radio station KMET was not shut down in 1987 and continues on as of the mid-2030s (as detailed in Redemption Song)
Might also be in Never Was This Universe territory. Equestriani scientists have concluded that magic still exists on human Earth, but has lost most of its power, meaning only those with innate magical abilites can use it. It's speculated that it was once very common and that myths and legends might have some truth to them.
In this universe, Romney was never elected, but one conversation reveals that in the story, he won twice.
However, that was written before the 2012 election, so that part wasn't entirely within the Author's control.
Ascended Extra: Originally just stated to be the sisters of Hazy Jane, both Flutterwonder and Orange Box rise to side character status in Polarity.
Also true for Blue Velvet, who before the rewrite had almost no character presence whatsoever (much less not even being named) but now has full blown characterization as a side character.
Twilight is also heavily asexual, though most consider her Married to the Job as opposed to anything else.
Arc Words: COMBS, which is the initials of the five mares suspected of being the host of Nightmare Moon: Champagne Dreams, Orange Box, Minty, Bon-Bon and Star Swirl.
Band of Sisters: the mane six, princesses and their immediate family over the years have been through so much that by the time of the beginning of the stories they openly think of each other as sisters (or brothers, for the males.)
In fact, the whole group is referred to by the In-Universe media as "The Royal Family."
her body goes through a rather...unique transformation. And not in a good way.
Boomerang Bigot: DJ has fallen awfully close to this at times.
Break the Cutie: The Foalnapping Incident and misinterpreted "attempted rape" gave DJ PTSD; the subsequent custody trial a few months later shattered her psyche, pushing her over the Despair Event Horizon, giving her further grief and permanently changing her personality from cheerful and outgoing to jaded and sullen.
Though she's apparently regained some of her old personality over the years.
Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: DJ punches Nightmare Moon, and a second later her irritated foe then proceeds to break DJ's arm in three places.
Also, Masamune Shirow's works (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is frequently mentioned) are fictional, but Shirow's fictional weapons company, Seburo, is real.
The ambassador to Equestria in 2047 is Megan Williams, the protagonist of the G1 cartoon. The G1 cartoon still existed in this universe. This means that the only difference between the American ambassador to Equestria and a sixty year old cartoon character is that the ambassador didn't get to travel to a land of magical talking ponies till she was an older woman.
This also applies to her younger brother Danny, who is Vice President of the US as of 2047.
Chekhov's Gunman: Screwball and Barking Mad/Screw Loose, casually mentioned in an early chapter, later come back and are revealed to be a supernatural being of chaos and a Discord cultist with chaos magic, and subordinates of Faust herself.
Cluster F-Bomb: Several characters, especially the military members or those exposed to same, do this.
DJ, her father, and Mike's father (the latter two being Navy vets), are very adept at this. Ironically, though being the only active-duty member of the four, Mike isn't anywhere near as foul-mouthed as his family members.
Comfort Food: Whenever DJ's stressed, you can bet before the day ends, she's had her favorite food: cheeseburger with fries; bonus points if it's a bacon double cheeseburger.
Cosmic Chess Game: Discord and Faust appear to have been running one.
Dysfunction Junction: It seems that anyone connected to the Equestriani royal family has at least two subscriptions, and if they don't have those then they're soon picking up issues.
Eagleland: Parodied when DJ uses American Temper to hold her own against the Royal Canterlot Voice.
Ethical Slut: Derpy's twin sister Ditzy is shameless in just about every other way...but she refuses to show any of it in front of foals.
Fanfilly: Lyra and soccer. She's okay with other sports, but when it comes to soccer, she's as bad as any human sports nut.
For that matter, Trixie has become a huge otaku to the point that she uses anime references to mark her path during a particularly strange Roofhopping battle.
Fantastic Racism: The ponies haven't had it easy, but then again neither have the humans.
There have been several high-profile murders enacted by humans on ponies for speciest reasons, and the Equestrians have a disturbingly popular pony supremacist movement called the Purehooves.
During and after the attack on Cloudsdale ponies start rioting and attacking any non-pony they find. The ponies in Ponyville get close to killing Spines, but she and the rest of the non-pony residents are saved by the timely intervention of Spike wearing green flaming magical wings.
Fantastic Slurs: The ponies have been rather tame in their epithets of humanity: "monkeys" are the worst that's been said. The humans, on the other hand, have been a bit more colorful:
Lyra: “Let me see if I can recall some of the speciest slurs made about ponies: Kickstands. Tugs. Geldos. Roadshitters. Cathyfuckers – I don’t even know what that means.”
Ponies have been a bit more colorful as of late, referring to humans as "skinners" and humanized ponies like Dusty Groove, Lyra and others as "skingrafts". DJ, of course, is simply referred to as a traitor or brainwashed.
Field Promotion: For just about everything that has been going on, Mike gets promoted from Lieutenant Commander (O-4) to full Commander (O-5). Considering the implications of his career in the sidestories, he's either well ahead of the game or possibly a potential case of Closest Thing We Got.
Fun with Acronyms: Twilight's reality-hopping device is called the Panoramic Operational Remote Temporadimensional Access Link, or "Portal", for short.
Another, more hidden one comes when a character states an authorization code; "Hotel-Four-Siera-Bravo-Romeo-Zero". Abbreviating the code and putting in the actual numbers spells out 'H4SBR0' (Hasbro).
Future Slang: By implication. Early 21st century slang is considered out of date.
Generation Xerox: Cinnamon Star, Fluttershy's adopted daughter, is painfully like how her mother used to be.
Worse: Pinkie's twin children, Bubble Berry and Surprise - they're like Pinkie, but in STEREO.
Genre Savvy: Lyra seems to note that things in her homeland always seem to be solved "in thirty minutes."
It's Derpy Hooves who takes the cake for most Genre Savvy character in the series though, as she is able to deduce exactly what other ponies are doing and the conventions they're working under in a matter of moments. The series is a soap opera, and Derpy knows her soap operas.
Genre Shift: The first chapter involves DJ retelling her life story. The second chapter, however, moves clearly into the technothriller domain.
The sidestory "Bakemono" shifts heavily into stereotypical anime cliche territory.
Goddess-Princess: Partially averted, as the alicorns insist that they are not deities...despite the fact that none of their followers/subjects seem to comprehend or believe this.
The fact that Faust is much more powerful than Celestia or Luna doesn't help their arguments, unfortunately.
Gone Horribly Wrong: The "Foalnapping Incident" and Equestria's two week silence before making a statement afterward turned First Contact into one of the biggest (if not the biggest) PR disasters in human history.
Lyra is a particular recipient of this trope, having managed to snag a human husband 20 years her junior.
Half-Human Hybrid: DJ and Mike's children. Lyra and Paul's too. So far they appear to be human with unusual hair and eyes due to the amniomorphic spell, though one of DJ's sons might be able to see magic.
In universe the spell that allows for one species to another also allows for interspecies hybrids to be concieved while transformed. This wasn't always the case though. From 2027 to 2047 the spell has advanced from something that just changes appearance, to something that also changes the genetic structure of the user to allow for interspecies conception. There are still limits though; for instance, a griffin can have a baby with a water dragon but not a pony, and a dragon can't have a child with any of them.
Happily Married: DJ and Mike. Lyra and Paul are also big examples of this trope. Other married couples may or may not be this.
Carlos and Sabrina, despite not being major characters, stand out for just how freakish their example is. Not unheard of, but certainly weird and rare.
High School Sweethearts: DJ and Mike were together ever since they first met in high school, and they've been married for nearly ten years by the start of the story. (It would have been longer, but moving around a lot to different locations hampered that.)
Honorary Aunts: The rest of the Mane Six, as well as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, were designated as such for DJ
In fact, all the foals of the Mane Six were brought up this way as well, so much so that they all refer to themselves as cousins.
Ineffectual Death Threats: Blood Armor seems to enjoy doing so to Twilight Sunburn and frequently backs it up by hurting her. However, when it comes to the point where she nearly dies in a gun battle with the Belgian military, he's nowhere to be found.
Inhumanable Alien Rights: Until DJ's tenth birthday, when the Supreme Court declared her legally a person, she did not have full legal rights.
Pony mares have a definite thing for human men, and vice versa.
Explained in universe: pony female to male ratio is 1.7:1, while humans match the Real Life ratio of 1.01:1 Furthermore, pony female pheromones work to devastating effect on human males; an aroused mare will give off enough of the hormone PEA to make the man go into euphoria - yes, aroused pony femalessmell like chocolate.
By contrast, stallions are repulsed by human female hormones. When last we saw the first stallion to fall in love with a woman he was working on a solution to that problem that didn't involve shoving tissues up his nose. Though for women looking to make it with a pony tissues are an effective way to get the stallion of their dreams to get past his nose.
Imago, a flutter, found love in the forelegs of Pip during his separation from Sweetie Belle.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Sweetie Belle calls an end to her thirty-plus year off/on relationship with Pip when she finds out about Imago and their children.
Just Friends: Logan and Lovestruck. While he is attracted to her (something's she's very aware of), she's still too hurt by the loss of her coltfriend and he's too nice to take advantage.
DJ, however, is convinced that their relationship is imminent.
Latin Lover: Alluded to in the sidestory Chemistry.
Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: a retired 80s rock star who no longer dresses like he used to is in Seattle for business. During that time he runs into the newly-monikered Robert "Bob" Smith and offers the gryphon advice on being yourself.
Loads and Loads of Characters / Love Dodecahedron: There have been calls for the author to make a list of all the characters in the series. As of now, there's currently a chart of only the significant characters from the main story. A much larger chart is being worked on that covers every character and is reputed to dwarf the one above.
Mayfly-December Romance: Celestia once had a mortal lover, a unicorn named Argent Lance. However, their relationship didn't last, though not because of his death (they broke up for political reasons.)
Meaningful Name: Imago. her foil/biological mother Chrysalis' name indicates immaturity, while an imagois the term for an adult insect, implying that Imago is much more mature than Chrysalis will ever be.
My Greatest Failure: Roughwind sincerely regrets what he did in the Foalnapping Incident.
Averted with Twilight Sparkle and Twilight Sunburn.
As well as the unrelated stallion Twilight Sky, Twilight Sparkle's mother Twilight Velvet, and Faust's one-time court mage Twilight Aurora.
Also averted to a minor degree with Erica's high school boyfriend Paul Cooper and Lyra's husband Paul Phillips, though the high school Paul is a minor character for a flashback story arc.
Averted to a ridiculous degree via Chrysalis' pepsis soldiers. Considering they look like Shining Armor, Twilight Sparkle, Twilight Velvet and Night Light, every one of them has a name based on the family member they take after, e.g. Twilight Sunburn looking very much like Twilight Sparkle.
Opposites Attract: Carlos and his wife Sabrina are a Republican and Democrat respectively working for opposing presidential candidates, and married for many years.
Pinocchio Syndrome: DJ bounces back and forth on this. Sometimes she wants to be human, other times she feels that she'd be dishonoring her family and their struggles by doing so.
There is a spell though that makes it so that one species can change into another for a limited amount of time though, so DJ, Lyra and others have been human for at least a little while.
Spike is shown as an example of this, and he's the reason why Twilight decides to take up DJ's case.
Imago was a changeling raised by ponies, and as a result she metamorphized into a completely new kind of subspecies.
Spines is another dragon raised by ponies, and her backstory is almost exactly the same as Spike's.
Real Place Background: Places such as Winchester, Virginia and Singapore have popped up in detail.
As the author is former Navy and thus well-traveled, this also seems to be a case of Shown Their Work.
Retcon: The first chapter was modified to facilitate several of these.
Hoofspace was originally magic, but was changed to be biological in nature. It still retains the name.
In the original it was revealed that Rainbow Dash ordered DJ "rescued" fairly early on, but now it likely will never be revealed.
It's been revealed again.
The end of The Busker was changed from twenty years after the main events in side-story to fifteen.
Originally, the author made the Babies Make Everything Better mistake of having the marriage of Rainbow Dash and Soarin' saved by the birth of their son, Rainbow Blitz. But since Blitz is the same age as Elusive, this has been removed.
Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: The author will try to give his characters more realistic dialogue, and the commentators will then nail him for improper grammar.
Rule 63: Averted in that the names of the gender-flipped characters are actually separate characters:
Elusive is Rarity's son, not her counterpart.
Spines is a dragoness raised in the same manner as Spike (and, interestingly enough, in the same treehouse library, though Twilight and Spike no longer live there) and no relation.
Rainbow Blitz is the rather mercurial son of Rainbow Dash's and Soarin'.
Dusk Shine is a flutterpony, born from Chrysalis raping a hypnotized Shining Armor and adopted by Cadance on behalf of her deceased husband.
Butterscotch is the first foal of Fluttershy and Macintosh and was stillborn.
Bubble Berry is one of Pinkie's twin foals.
Sweepy Bell is the somewhat lookalike cousin of Sweetie Belle.
Harper Heartstrings is Lyra's older brother.
Sadistic Choice: Nightmare Moon presents one to Luna when she throws both Elusive and Mike off of Cloudsdale, knowing that Luna can't rescue both of them. Nightmare Moon obviously didn't plan on Celestia making an appearance literally at the last second and throwing a big ol' wrench in her plans.
Schedule Slip: The author was writing an exhaustive amount of words at a furious pace (approx. 25,000 words every two weeks), but an injury to his arm put him out of the running for a couple of months and the writing speed hasn't quite gotten back up to what it was just yet.
The Broken Base fighting over at Spacebattles might have had something to do with it as well.
Self-Insert Fic: DJ herself isn't a case, but her parents are, being somewhat comedic expies of the author and his wife.
Serious Business: There's a Muffin Promise that, when broken, means you can't eat muffins ever again.
Shapeshifting Lover: There's a spell (and enchanted item) available that does exactly this.
"Wrote lots of books and spells, head of the mage guild, Princess Celestia’s protor…protoss…personal apprentice!"
One of the worlds' most popular movie series is Arddun Lleuad.
"Well, my parents were both military, and my mom has a small armory she keeps around the house for weapons reference for her artwork, so yeah, I know how to shoot. Learned on Dad’s Seburo M5 9mm."
The title of the sidestory anthology — Be Human — is a reference to one of the Scott Matthew songs from SAC, and in universe it's DJ's favorite song, for obvious reasons.
When a young Mike asks his sister for advice in dating DJ — an alien — his sister questions whether or not he'll wake up one day with DJ talking about ‘yellow perpendicular with making blue bisector’.
Funnily enough, years later one of DJ's favorite games is shown to be a future version of Star Wars: The Old Republic.
To continue the Star Wars references, when Cadance asks Lyra on advice for childrearing, Lyra makes light of how things have changed between former foalsitter and foalsat:
Lyra: “Just don’t expect me to do the whole Darth Vader thing.”
Cadance: “Darth…Vader?”
Lyra: “Star Wars reference – hubby’s a big fan of those old movies. ‘When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.’”
During a Halloween party, Erica dresses up as the assassin Ambika from Claude & Monet.
Sudden Name Change: Intentional, as the griffin Gunther Greatheights decides he needs a new name and goes against his culture to take the name Robert Smith.
It is briefly mentioned that a derogatory Equestriani film about humans called The Converters was made, whose makers Twilight and Sweetie threatened to sue for libel.
Sweetie Belle also opines, much to her dismay, that she believes the creators are behind a horror film being shot at the rainbow factory, which temporarily closed for the filming.
Discord doesn't care for a particular baked good:
Discord: "Would you care for a cupcake? Never cared for them myself. Too bloody."
To a lesser degree, Dusk Shine looks like his aunt as well, as does Twilight Sunburn.
The offspring of Chrysalis and Shining Armor are widely hinted that they look like members of the Sparkle family. For example, Black Velvet might be the identical granddaughter of Twilight Velvet.
Though not biologically related to her parents, Cinnamon Star's coloring and manestyle makes her look like the natural daughter of Fluttershy and Big Mac.
Unperson: The fate of those exiled from Equestria.
Unresolved Sexual Tension: A certain mare who hasn't dated for a while ( Celestia) has a thing for a certain married individual ( DJ's husband, Mike.)
Also, Star Swirl feels this way about Sweetie Belle, also making it a case of Unrequited Love Lasts Forever to boot.
Unusual Euphemism: The Equestriani version of the f-bomb is "buck" which means "kick," and their version of "bitch" is "harridelle" which is a French word that means "nag."
Also if a mare is a "tail-lifter", it means she's a slut.
Nag is also used, but generally means "old fart."
Wham Episode: Chapter 7, "At the Twilight's Last Gleaming." Two NATO carrier battlegroups are decimated, Djibouti is conquered by the ROP, Cloudsdale is under an attack it may not survive, and Luna is forced to reenact the climax of Superman without time travel. Hoooolllee frak.
What the Hell, Hero?: Happens at least two times in the first chapter. The first being with the rest of the mane cast and their families calling out Twilight Sparkle for siding with DJ to stay with her adopted family rather than her birth family and going to court about it. The second one happens when Celestia calls out the entire mane cast for falling into the trap of fighting each other legally in court rather than try to find a peaceful solution. But Celestia especially called out Rarity for being ungrateful to DJ's parents and Rainbow Dash for ordering the "rescue" attempt on DJ.
Zombie Advocate: A lawyer observing the hell DJ's parents are going through as they attempt to enroll her in school decides to sue the US Government to declare her a person.
Also, Celestia recommending a changeling be raised by ponies to see if it would learn love. The changeling Imago as a result metamorphized into a completely new kind of subspecies and thinks of herself as a pony instead of a changeling.
by Shinzakura is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic.Daisy Jo Martinez is married to a US Navy officer, has two kids, is Catholic, Republican and proud to be American.She's also a pony.This is, at least initially, her story, but things become much more complicated fast.See also the Sidestories
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