My Little Pony LXXXVII: Horses Riding Horses!

[Deadly]

Birthday gift!

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Chillin' with my bro, Spike. That thing in his hands is a cupcake.

Envy. I wish I got a pony plushy too

Happy birthday!

[otakuryoga]

We interupt ponythread to bring you this special announcement:

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!

29 today!

and will there be crying?

wait..just registered the "29"
so how many times around on the 29? 8p

[Beacon of Chaos]

Envy. I wish I got a pony plushy too

Happy birthday!

Thanks! ^^

and will there be crying?

wait..just registered the "29"
so how many times around on the 29? 8p

First of many, I can assure you.

[DigoDragon]

Birthday gift!

Envy. I wish I got a pony plushy too

I wish I had nice straight hair like that.

[SiuiS]

Aww, don't be like that. Going on dates can be fun.
(I'm sure you meant the Pink One summoning, but silly is as silly does)

No, I mea— !!!

Oh, you.

Birthday gift!

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Chillin' with my bro, Spike. That thing in his hands is a cupcake.

Haha, thank you all. ^^

OoH, haircut! Nice. I'll miss your Fabio-esque timing locks though~

I wish I had nice straight hair like that.

*brushes chitinous bug-hair away from your compound eyes* oh, hush, you're beautiful just how you are.

Right, Hyper Tread Woogie?

[Trixie]

To be fair, Equestria monarchy did have elements of democratic government (Mayors and town councils) and Germanic tribal system* (presiding as a mediator in flea market episode).

Uh, that is not democracy. Mayor-like officials for hundreds of years were just officers of local lord. And the fact that TS was acting as a judge pretty much proves Equestria didn't even heard of John Locke and separation of powers. We saw princesses stand for all three branches of government, making the Principality at best enlightened absolutism, IMO.

More proof - Magic Duel and S4 ending. Princesses seem to be the only ponies capable of greeting foreign dignitaries or doing anything of note. Thus indicating there is not even a chancellor, prime minister, chargé d'affaires, representative plenipotentiary, referendarius or literally anything that monarchies had as a proto-separation of powers as it would be literally their job to receive low-mid ranking visits*

*I still have no idea why you need 4 princesses to receive one random duke (wait, what? Didn't Lauren claimed that word was forbidden? tsk, tsk...). Either everyone besides Celestia is just titular princess with meaningless honours (as making Twilight mere flag waver would indicate) or the duke pony is extremely powerful (like dukes of say Burgundy, Austria, or Bavaria) making him difficult to placate >_<

[Rater202]

*brushes chitinous bug-hair away from your compound eyes* oh, hush, you're beautiful just how you are.

Those aren't compound eyes.

They're opaque eye lenses that fit a few millimeters over the eyes-to protect the squishy organ or something something something.

They'll disappear once he metamorphosizes into a changeling elite.

Now lets see if anypony is following us...

[TheAmishPirate]

We interupt ponythread to bring you this special announcement:

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!

29 today!

Happy Birthday! May it be filled with cake, good times, and ponies. Though it looks like most of those have already happened.

[DigoDragon]

Oh, you.

Heehee ^.^

*brushes chitinous bug-hair away from your compound eyes* oh, hush, you're beautiful just how you are.
Right, Hyper Tread Woogie?

I showed this response to my daughter. About a minute after she picked up her jaw off the floor (seriously, the fact you had her stunned unmoving for a solid minute is a miracle), she mentioned that Tread and Woogie should be flipped. But otherwise she said yes, she agrees.

Those aren't compound eyes.
They're opaque eye lenses that fit a few millimeters over the eyes-to protect the squishy organ or something something something.

Not in my changeling headcanon.

[MCerberus]

Oh. Joy. <___<

Somebody doesn't seem to keen on summoning the end-times in the form of a forever-polka. For some reason

Related only due to Old One madness (ep)

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It cane-not be contained to one season

[Aotrs Commander]

Before I retire for night ponythread, I find myself once again having to ask for some suggestions... I am running out of time for prepparing my Dark Lord's Black Ops quest - it is time cfor me to go "frack it, my reasons as they stand are good enough" and move on: the next job is to work out what the prospective marrying/business merging couple will be doing with their time (about three days) before the wedding (the main point being that they won't be seeing each other (where it would be possible for the PCs to get at them) until the wedding day, but otherwise where the PCs can carryong out their grizzly task. Basically, I want to crib up an itinerary for the two characters, and then just let the PCs go information gather and then have at it.

Suggestions - espcially from any of the married ponies! - as to what they could be doing with their time and where they might go to do it would be really useful! (I'm assuming at least some of their time will be with their respective business, of course.)

[DigoDragon]

Suggestions - espcially from any of the married ponies!

So basically things a couple do in the final days before a wedding?

Final fittings, last payments for the venue and catering, bachelor/batchelorette party, visiting wedding party to ensure they're ready...

[Thanqol]

So I've been listening to My Past Is Not Today on loop for the past 4 hours and it's just getting better and better. It's such a happy song. It's so incredibly up, which is kind of where Sunset Shimmer is right now. She's just so happy to be there in the first place.

Which leads me to think about horse music in relation to pop music. Horse music has this kind of weird advantage in that it can talk about topics no one else can talk about. Pop music is kind of caught in this self-reinforcing loop where they have to talk about themselves, money, guns, sex or breakups and nothing else. No one can write a pop song about what a good friend someone is, it's just not done. And that's so weird!

I think one of the only times in recent memory I can think of which was about two people who were just awesome friends was in Saints Row 4 when they start singing along to the radio in the car. It was such a great moment I'm stumped as to why that's the only moment like it I can think of.

Money and guns, money and guns,
I got the money, she got the guns,
The sex was sweet and I was rad
But we broke up and now I'm sad

[DigoDragon]

If I Were A Pony...

Spoiler: Chryssi Art

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Pop music is kind of caught in this self-reinforcing loop where they have to talk about themselves, money, guns, sex or breakups and nothing else. No one can write a pop song about what a good friend someone is, it's just not done.

Oh I'm positive it can be done, but I theorize that money, guns, sex and breakups sell more albums. :x

[Topaz]

TRPG Update, an even newer edition of Courage is Magic.

[Dexam]

So I've been listening to My Past Is Not Today on loop for the past 4 hours and it's just getting better and better. It's such a happy song. It's so incredibly up, which is kind of where Sunset Shimmer is right now. She's just so happy to be there in the first place.

Which leads me to think about horse music in relation to pop music. Horse music has this kind of weird advantage in that it can talk about topics no one else can talk about. Pop music is kind of caught in this self-reinforcing loop where they have to talk about themselves, money, guns, sex or breakups and nothing else. No one can write a pop song about what a good friend someone is, it's just not done. And that's so weird!

Such music is out there, you just have to search a bit to find it. Rather than listening to more mainstream (i.e. charting) music, for the good stuff you need to check the Indie or Alternative Pop scene.

I can't think of any songs right now are specifically about friends or friendship, but if you want some upbeat and sometimes quirky pop, here's a few quick recommendations from the top of my head:

On Top of the World - Imagine Dragons
Geronimo - Sheppard
Ways To Go - Grouplove
Steal My Sunshine - Len
It'5 - Architecture in Helsinki
Heart It Races - Architecture in Helsinki
Pompeii - Bastille
Sweet Shop Avengerz - Bis
Here It Goes Again - OK Go

[Thanqol]

Such music is out there, you just have to search a bit to find it. Rather than listening to more mainstream (i.e. charting) music, for the good stuff you need to check the Indie or Alternative Pop scene.

Dude, there is literally one mainstream song from the past year on my phone (Uptown Funk)

I am not looking for counterexamples, I am wondering at the curious social values that have excised so many topics from the mainstream. Horse music, comparitively, has a vast variety of topics not seen elsewhere - like 'my friends are jerks', 'spring is awesome', or 'the evil moon horse is angry now'.

[Forum Explorer]

Dude, there is literally one mainstream song from the past year on my phone (Uptown Funk)

I am not looking for counterexamples, I am wondering at the curious social values that have excised so many topics from the mainstream. Horse music, comparitively, has a vast variety of topics not seen elsewhere - like 'my friends are jerks', 'spring is awesome', or 'the evil moon horse is angry now'.

It's the times. There are some good 'friendship' songs in the past. But right now society has got this weird idea that sex, money, drugs, and guns are more valuable and interesting.

How that came about? I think it's because somewhere a long the line, people starting viewing the rich as heroes to be looked up to, for no other reason then because they are rich and started emulating their perceived desires.


Or perhaps I'm just cynical.

EDIT, wait which song is 'the evil moon horse is angry now'? I must listen to it, and I can't remember which one it was.

[Thanqol]

EDIT, wait which song is 'the evil moon horse is angry now'? I must listen to it, and I can't remember which one it was.

Nightmare Moon by TarbyRocks.


Tell me can you hear my heartbeat roar inside my chest
Though I try to hide it, I'm still stuck at second best
And in the end, I know it's true
I fight away, but there's little I can do
Something like a virus replicating in my soul
Tearing me to shreds, my heart is dead
My blood is boiling, leaving me one goal
And in the end, it brought me down
But something new has come around

[SiuiS]

I showed this response to my daughter. About a minute after she picked up her jaw off the floor (seriously, the fact you had her stunned unmoving for a solid minute is a miracle), she mentioned that Tread and Woogie should be flipped. But otherwise she said yes, she agrees.

Hyper Woogie tread, huh? Sounds familiar. Can do!

And not used to folks takin' her serious enough to remember?

Not in my changeling headcanon.

Yeah, eyeballs are eyeballs. Lenses don't shift with the changeling, so that's out.

If I Were A Pony...

Spoiler: Chryssi Art

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Life-relevant changeling feels :(

Oh I'm positive it can be done, but I theorize that money, guns, sex and breakups sell more albums. :x

Such music is out there, you just have to search a bit to find it. Rather than listening to more mainstream (i.e. charting) music, for the good stuff you need to check the Indie or Alternative Pop scene.

The existence of outliers doesn't disprove the rule. There's a popular, commercial, recorded album of a homeless man jamming keys On a keyboard that's playing a programmed tune and talking about how he kicked batman's ass because batman owed him money. Doesn't mean it's a relevant genre.

Top of my head? By the sword, by Ophelia(?), which is not about guns(/swords) at all despite the title, and the ever-famous Whodini song, friends;

Friends
How many of us have them
Friends
Ones we can depend on
Friends
How many of us have them
Friends
Before we go any further, let's be
Friends

Is a word we use every day
Most times we use it in the wrong way
Now you can look the word up again and again
But the dictionary doesnt know the meaning of friends

And if you ask me, you know, I couldn't be much help
Because A friend is somebody you judge for yourself
Some are ok, and they treat you real cool
But some mistake kindness for bein a fool

We like to be with some, because they're funny
Others come around when they need some money
Some you grew up with, around the way
And you're still real close too this very day

Homeboys through the Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall
And then there's some we wish we never knew at all
And this list goes on, again and again
But these are the people that we call friends

Dude, there is literally one mainstream song from the past year on my phone (Uptown Funk)

I am not looking for counterexamples, I am wondering at the curious social values that have excised so many topics from the mainstream. Horse music, comparitively, has a vast variety of topics not seen elsewhere - like 'my friends are jerks', 'spring is awesome', or 'the evil moon horse is angry now'.

Welcome! You're about a decade and a half late but this conversation could use some new blood. What do you think is wrong with kids these days/people/society in general?

[SiuiS]

It's the times. There are some good 'friendship' songs in the past. But right now society has got this weird idea that sex, money, drugs, and guns are more valuable and interesting.

How that came about? I think it's because somewhere a long the line, people starting viewing the rich as heroes to be looked up to, for no other reason then because they are rich and started emulating their perceived desires.


Or perhaps I'm just cynical.

EDIT, wait which song is 'the evil moon horse is angry now'? I must listen to it, and I can't remember which one it was.

That's actually what happened. In most of our history, money was valued as a means to power. Other means to power were equally valued Or more so. Now, it's reversed; money is the goal and power is simply one way to get money. Look at all the stupidity of powerful people jeopardizing their power to get money.

It's why I've started cultivating side arm skill again. People are now confident their actions don't have consequences if those actions are words. I'm being the change I want to see. :)

[Thanqol]

Welcome! You're about a decade and a half late but this conversation could use some new blood. What do you think is wrong with kids these days/people/society in general?

I think that kids these days aren't growing up watching the same episodes of the Simpsons I did, which means they're going to have a totally different sense of humour than me - probably a broken and malformed one, begging for death like the grotesque toad-prince Bart creates in the classic Treehouse of Horror episode.

[Rater202]

...Does a ponified version of the robotic Richard Simmons exist?

[Dexam]

I am not looking for counterexamples,

Ah, my apologies - I misunderstood.

I am wondering at the curious social values that have excised so many topics from the mainstream. Horse music, comparitively, has a vast variety of topics not seen elsewhere - like 'my friends are jerks', 'spring is awesome', or 'the evil moon horse is angry now'.

In my opinion, with the advent of downloadable music, the concept of "mainstream" is even less relevant than ever.
As I don't follow the mainstream/music charts (indeed, I oft actively seek to avoid it and have done so for many years), I can't really comment other than music, like anything else, has trends. Maybe the current trend is sex/money/guns/breakups? A couple of the examples I gave were late 1990's songs that occurred as a kind of backlash to the early 1990's Grunge movement, so the trends may change again? Although, to be fair, sex and breakups have been staples of pop music for as long as there has been music that is popular.

Random thoughts: Horse music, as you term it, tends to either tell a story or advance an existing one; it comes with a quite sizeable "invisible book" that you have already read - you understand the references, the topics, the characters and characteristics. While mainstream music might do this, it would be heavily couched in metaphor that you wouldn't necessarily understand unless you're already familiar with the same "invisible book(s)"; or the attempt to pre-load an appealing backstory into a three-and-a-half minute pop song would be such a mess that it would never make it to mainstream.

The existence of outliers doesn't disprove the rule. There's a popular, commercial, recorded album of a homeless man jamming keys On a keyboard that's playing a programmed tune and talking about how he kicked batman's ass because batman owed him money. Doesn't mean it's a relevant genre.

I wasn't trying to disprove a rule, or point to the existence of outliers. Thanqol mentioned an over-arching genre (pop music), and made a very broad assertion without any supporting evidence: " Pop music is kind of caught in this self-reinforcing loop where they have to talk about themselves, money, guns, sex or breakups and nothing else. No one can write a pop song about what a good friend someone is, it's just not done."
As the Wikipedia types say: "Citation needed".

Without any data, I can neither confirm nor deny that this is indeed a rule. For example, I just looked at the US Billboards Top 100 songs and recognized 7 of them, so I'm hardly in a position to disprove anything. All I can do is cite my own experiences in sub-genres (indie pop, alt-pop) with some specific examples off the top of my head; no more, no less.

[Thanqol]

Random thoughts: Horse music, as you term it, tends to either tell a story or advance an existing one; it comes with a quite sizeable "invisible book" that you have already read - you understand the references, the topics, the characters and characteristics. While mainstream music might do this, it would be heavily couched in metaphor that you wouldn't necessarily understand unless you're already familiar with the same "invisible book(s)"; or the attempt to pre-load an appealing backstory into a three-and-a-half minute pop song would be such a mess that it would never make it to mainstream.

Ah, yes! This is interesting. Another way of putting it: Musicians are appealing to the lowest common denominator because the only things they can be reasonably sure their audience knows about is sex, breakups and the musician they are currently listening to. Interestingly friendship does not seem to be a common denominator.

But with the increasing fragmentation of the market due to the internet and the rise of indie bands and cheap studio-quality mastering software, there is an increasing potential to produce horse music. It may become increasingly worthwhile to appeal to, say, Gravity Falls fans where you'll stand out as one in a million rather than dive into the infinite sea of generic universalism.

So if horse music is defined by referring to something specific, the "invisible book", rather than something universal I propose a music experiment with meta-horse music - which combines long boring audiobook exposition with radical musical interludes.

E: I shall call them musicals.

[Madcrafter]

Nightmare Moon by TarbyRocks.

Alternatively,

Imbalance by Silver Note
Lunar Empire by Reuel
Luna's Rebellion by GatoPaint
Neverending Nightmare by eXtatitcus
And the absolute classic The Moon Rises

Slightly more tenuous connection to the theme:

Queen of Nightmares by Time Baby
Shine Down by BronyFX (actually M Pallante)

I'm quite surprised there aren't more though (normalized to sample size), considering the popularity of Luna and her story.

[Thanqol]

I'm quite surprised there aren't more though (normalized to sample size), considering the popularity of Luna and her story.

Also the album Nightfall, though it's arguably more about Celestia.

[zimmerwald1915]

Which leads me to think about horse music in relation to pop music. Horse music has this kind of weird advantage in that it can talk about topics no one else can talk about. Pop music is kind of caught in this self-reinforcing loop where they have to talk about themselves, money, guns, sex or breakups and nothing else. No one can write a pop song about what a good friend someone is, it's just not done. And that's so weird!

Well, I see someone's channeling Michael Gold. What a coincidence.

[Madcrafter]

Also the album Nightfall, though it's arguably more about Celestia.

Ah right, Lucid and Reign are from Luna's perspective. Those are in a different folder, I missed them. Still a small percentage overall though. Though if you include happy, triumphant or sad evil moon horse, the number jumps dramatically I think.

[Thanqol]

Well, I see someone's channeling Michael Gold. What a coincidence.

Which Michael Gold? The Jewish communist, the DJ turned comic book artist or the canadian biowarfare expert?