My Little Pony LXXXIX: Ponythread Perfect! Yaks no Smash!

[One Tin Soldier]

Also "how long is it going to take her get apple and blackcurrent squash out of her hair?"

Because soaking your hair in apple and blackcurrent squash sounds like a recipe for nasty, sticky hair. And Rarity having an apoplexy.

To be fair, you could say the same thing if it was actual blood. In fact, I'd imagine that it would be even worse.

[DigoDragon]

One peachy apple.

Gal likes her peachy apples. ...there's a shipfic in this somewhere.

To be fair, you could say the same thing if it was actual blood. In fact, I'd imagine that it would be even worse.

Ick, like when the blood congeals? Yeah, that gets nasty.


Evil Enchantress

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[McNum]

This thread needs a little revamp.

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Huh, Pinkie is a Jiangshi. Of course she is. I mean, who else would be the hopping vampire than her?

[Forum Explorer]

Also "how long is it going to take her get apple and blackcurrent squash out of her hair?"

Because soaking your hair in apple and blackcurrent squash sounds like a recipe for nasty, sticky hair. And Rarity having an apoplexy.

Honestly, it sounds a lot easier to get out of your hair then batter or paint. Actually thinking about things that can get stuck in your hair, it seems to be pretty low down on the scale.

[RCgothic]

Yeah, sugary stuff's not that difficult. It just dissolves right out. The worst stuff's water and soap insoluble, dried-in glue or such.

[Desert Sun]

And now, for some punishment! You will never see Sonata in the same way again.....

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/2861...y-a-pun-get-it

[HalfTangible]

It took me months, but i finally posted a second story

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/2858...dbye-crusaders

[DigoDragon]

The worst stuff's water and soap insoluble, dried-in glue or such.

Bubblegum is pretty bad if you don't have anything oil-based on hand to loosen it.

Worst I've had in my hair was dried concrete. Getting it out of my hair was... an experience. With gasoline.

And now, for some punishment! You will never see Sonata in the same way again.....
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/2861...y-a-pun-get-it

I get it! :D

[Manga Shoggoth]

And Rarity having an apoplexy.

Surely an applelexy...


(Yes, I know. Long day at work...)

[Rater202]

Yeah, I was thinking something like that too.

Now I'm picturing a follow-up comic with them at a costume party, in varying levels of embarrassment or non-embarrassment about their costumes. I'd see Twi being the most embarrassed, despite hers being relatively tame. Rarity is a little self-conscious, but has no one to blame but herself, since she made most of the costumes. Fluttershy is actually enjoying herself with scaring people with her flutterbat growls, but then feels bad as soon as she gets away from them. Rainbow thinks hers is cool, but complains a lot about the practicality. AJ keeps insisting that her character is a half-vampire who fights other vampires. Pinkie is just enjoying the party and speaking in a terrible Transylvanian accent. And Sunset is, of course, completely rocking it.

If only I could draw...
I can write, though... Maybe I should do something with this...

Pinkie isn't even the right kind of Vampire. She's clearly a Jiang-Shi, which is only a vampire because translators say they are.

[DigoDragon]

Is it true that England doesn't really use the word "pulp"?

Pinkie isn't even the right kind of Vampire. She's clearly a Jiang-Shi, which is only a vampire because translators say they are.

Jiang-Shi were originally a kind of zombie, right?


Sometimes it's good to be Shy.

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[Aotrs Commander]

Is it true that England doesn't really use the word "pulp"?

No.

Unless there is some new meaning of "pulp" I am not previously aware of that does not pertain to the context of "beaten to a", its use as an adjective for generas or That Film Everybody Except Me Has Apparenty Seen.

[Rater202]

Fruit pulp?

Wood Pulp?

[DigoDragon]

Unless there is some new meaning of "pulp" I am not previously aware of that does not pertain to the context of "beaten to a", its use as an adjective for generas or That Film Everybody Except Me Has Apparenty Seen.

Well the context I heard it in, was that of containers of orange juice. Like in "Pulp free" or "with pulp".

[HalfTangible]

No.

Unless there is some new meaning of "pulp" I am not previously aware of that does not pertain to the context of "beaten to a", its use as an adjective for generas or That Film Everybody Except Me Has Apparenty Seen.

I haven't seen it either.

[Dexam]

I don't have a problem with anything caught in my hair.

Is it true that England doesn't really use the word "pulp"?

Certainly not.

[DigoDragon]

Certainly not.

It's obvious that my source is a lying diamond dog, and I should respond to him with a left hook.


Normal ponies doing normal things.

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[cavalieredraghi]

Normal ponies doing normal things.

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I what? I don't know how to feel about this.

[Derjuin]

Normal ponies doing normal things.

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[IMG]snop[/IMG]

My only response.

No, it's not supposed to be a good response, but it's the only one I have.

[Rater202]

I what? I don't know how to feel about this.

What I want toknow is where the hell are the other Lyra and Bonbon?

[DigoDragon]

I what? I don't know how to feel about this.

I think Bon Bon's expression says it all. XD

My only response.

I... huh. Well played.

What I want to know is where the hell are the other Lyra and Bonbon?

Pony Lyra is probably holding human Bon Bon's hands hostage.

[Balmas]

Pony Lyra is probably holding human Bon Bon's hands hostage.

Spoiler: You called?

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EDIT:

Spoiler: I don't know what I just watched, and strangely I'm okay with that.

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[DigoDragon]

Pinkie's Rogue Gallery of Disguises

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Spoiler: You called?

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I... can't tell who's the luckier one here. o.o

EDIT: I don't know what I just watched, and strangely I'm okay with that.

The song was pretty catchy, but are Canadians that hard up on rivers that they gotta sail their pirate ships on land? Though how are they doing that? Guess that cleans the barnacles off the bottom though.

[Derjuin]

Pinkie's Rogue Gallery of Disguises

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They forgot one!

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[DigoDragon]

They forgot one!

That's a hilarious one. I believe it even makes a call back later in the series.


Well, my wife is pissed that Derpy is online only. She started a club and they started a writing campaign to BAB. O.o

[b_jonas]

So, there's something I was thinking about.

You know how in S4 E5, Scootaloo says that Ponyville is special because three kinds of ponies live together as friends there. And I wonder how common is that kind of mixing of the three big pony races around Equestria. I won't quite take Scootaloo on her word that it's special about Ponyville, because she said that only because she's secretly a changeling, and changeling fillies aren't welcome in most places.

On the surface, most places we've seen in the show seemed to have a healthy mix of earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasuses among the background ponies. Not only ponyville, but also Canterlot, Manehattan, Rainbow Falls, the Crystal Empire, and Our Town. On the other hand, many of the places we've seen because the mane six had traveled there, often during some sort of sports event or conference. So the selection we've seen is probably highly biased. Maybe there are entire regions in Equestria where only unicorns live, and they are hostile to visiting earth ponies and pegasuses. Maybe we just haven't seen them because four of the Mane Six dare not visit it, or at least not before S4. In S5, the Mane Six is already famous, Twilight is an Alicorn princess who takes initiative to re-establish relations with the alien land of Yakyakistan with the others' help, and the map sends Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie to meet the griffon-only town.

But there's some disturbing examples where only one race is present. Now consider Twilight's entire life before S1. She went to a magic kindergarten which seemed to have only unicorns (according to the flashback in S2 E3), made friends in a magic school which seemed to have only unicorns (according to the flashback in S5 E12), then to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns (according to the voiceover flashback in S1 E23). So all his life before the start of S1, Twilight could socialize with unicorns only, unlike the Ponyville fillies who go to the mixed race class of Cheerilee. Okay, maybe you say that Twilight is a nerd who cared only about unicorn magic, which is why she didn't make friends with pegasuses and earth ponies.

How about Cloudsdale then? There's a whole town with a weather factory, one that apparently controls the weather of much of Equestria, and it's inhabited by only pegasuses. Sure, they say that only pegasus ponies can walk on the clouds, and that's why, but I think that's only an excuse. Twilight can cast a cloud walking spell from a book on multiple other ponies at the same time, and I think there are at least some other unicorns who could do that too. Even without unicorns, I think pegasuses can make solid enough clouds that anypony can walk on them, and build a city on them, but they just don't do that in Cloudsdale. So in the end, all the weather factory workers are pegasuses, even the ones that don't have to do any flying. Surely some unicorns could learn to craft beautiful hoof-made snowflakes, no two of them identical, and some earth ponies could learn to cook rainbows in vast vats.

Then there's Appleoosa, which seems to consist of earth ponies only. The buffalos don't mingle with ponies, and there don't seem to be any unicorn or pegasus there. They don't even have an excuse like the cloudwalking. Even if earth ponies are better at farming and growing apples, surely a town like that needs other types of people too.

But the most interesting part is the teams in S1 E11 Winter Wrap Up. Ranibow Dash tells Twilight that she can't be part of the weather team because she has no wings, and Applejack told him very politely that she doesn't think a unicorn can be up to the farming jobs.

I'm not sure how many towns there are in Equestria where earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasuses live together as friends. But one thing seems certain. A significant part of the adult jobs ponies do are available for only one species or another. The ancestry and species of a pony seems to limit them significantly about what career they can take. So basically, Equestria is pretty much like real life.

[DigoDragon]

The ancestry and species of a pony seems to limit them significantly about what career they can take. So basically, Equestria is pretty much like real life.

Except that in real life our species isn't split into winged humans, magic humans, and humans that can one-kick all the apples out of a tree (Chuck Norris doesn't count). Career limitations in Equestria are due to physical differences that do not seem to have been easily overcome yet. There is a spell that let's non-pegasi walk on clouds, but it doesn't grant them the mobility to get up to them. A different spell allows flight, but that is very difficult to cast, has a limited duration, and the wings are fragile. So yes, certain specific jobs are probably limited to one pony type (like Weather Patrol and Hedge Wizardry), but these are few and very specific careers.

Career limitations in real life are more... social than physical I think.

Anyway, so on the topic of single-race towns, Cloudsdale is one of those examples of the physical limitation problem. You need at minimum to be able to walk on clouds. A cloud-walking spell gets around not being a pegasus for this, but then you have to learn the spell and keep on top of that spell's duration or it will end badly for you (I played with this idea on a fanfic). Double-hard if you can't cast the spell yourself and rely on an outside source. So unless you're committed to living in a cloud city, it's probably just too much hassle.

On the other hoof, if dense-enough clouds allow any pony type to walk on them, then why didn't this already get done? Well two theories could be that 1) It isn't easy to make dense clouds, and/or 2) Dense clouds don't stay dense to be practical. There was a scene in Too Many Pinkie Pies where Dash explains that a cloud that has gotten too heavy became fog. So a third theory could be that dense clouds are also heavy and will sink. Thus your cloud city is going to be sitting on the ground, which is a useless position to launch weather patterns from.

Magic Kindergarden and Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns are those kind of places that you need to be a Unicorn to attend because of the very nature of the school. If Pegasi and Earth Ponies could cast spells like a unicorn I'm sure they'd let them join. But they don't and it's not like the schools are deliberately shunning these pony types, it's just that the nature of the school is to teach Unicorns how to use their horn magic effectively. Pegasi have Flight Camp, which is probably their version of such a school. I wouldn't be surprised if Earth Ponies have a Agricultural & Mechanical College of San Anponio that trains their earth magic to be sharper. So overall, pockets where you only see one pony type probably is due to these physical limitations more than anything else. Outside the physical differences it appears cities have a healthy integration of all three types and the majority of jobs available could be done by anypony. Apple Bloom proves that potion making is not a Zebra/Unicorn only profession, so that is a job open to anyone with the skills.

As for Appleoosa, I don't know why we only see Earth Ponies there. Could be that no pegasi and unicorns volunteered for the initial colonization project because it's out in the middle of Bum-Buck-Nowhere. Or maybe the original settler ponies are all related to specific Earth Pony families that got together to settle that desert. Sort of like early colonist families in the 1600s?

[b_jonas]

Except that in real life our species isn't split into winged humans, magic humans, and humans that can one-kick all the apples out of a tree (Chuck Norris doesn't count). Career limitations in Equestria are due to physical differences that do not seem to have been easily overcome yet. There is a spell that let's non-pegasi walk on clouds, but it doesn't grant them the mobility to get up to them. […] So yes, certain specific jobs are probably limited to one pony type (like Weather Patrol and Hedge Wizardry), but these are few and very specific careers.

Career limitations in real life are more... social than physical I think.

I argued that they're both cultural (social) and physical in the pony world. (It might not be very relevant, but let me mention [url=http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-biology-is-mutable/]a blog entry of Scott Alexander on problems caused by society and biologicy. [url])

As for getting up the clouds, I don't think that would be a too serious problem, but maybe. After S5 E5, I was thinking how the Mane Six got up to Rainbow Dash's floating house, and determined it was pretty easy. Twilight and Fluttershy would fly up, attach a long rope ladder to the cloud and throw it down. Applejack climbs up: we know she can climb rigid ladders quite well from S4 E20, so I think it's not much of a stretch to imagine she can climb a rope ladder as well. Then they attach a large basket, like the one on the Balloon, to a long rope, and throw it down. Rarity boards the basket, and then Appljack together with the other two are strong enough to pull her up easily. Finally, Pinkie Pie off-screen teleports up at a convenient cut of the scene, which she's allowed to do because she could get up anyway with any of the three methods shown in S1 E5.

Cloudsdale is one of those examples of the physical limitation problem. […] On the other hoof, if dense-enough clouds allow any pony type to walk on them, then why didn't this already get done?

I brought it up because it was done, at least that's how I interpret S3 E7. The Wonderbolts Academy was in a flying island that had trees growing on it. I think that ground is also solid enough for earth ponies to walk on it. Then, when the ponies fall off the hot air balloon, Rainbow Dash quickly whirls around a cloud to turn it to dense enough so that she can catch all five ponies with it. I don't think that Applejack and Rarity had cloud-walking spells still active on them during that, unless it's such an easy low level spell that Twilight could make it permanent, in which case it the spell is probably also easy enough to learn for other unicorns.

On the other hand, I'm reminded to Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End. This describes a human who visits a planet of flying alien creatures. (I think the planet also has much lower gravity than Earth, which helps the large creatures fly with their wings. This is a science fiction novel afterall, they don't just get to fly with pegasus magic.) The city on that planet has no streets, the buildings are simply built next to each other, and the creatures simply fly from one building to another. This makes it difficult for the visiting human to get around, because he can't fly up to the doors on the top of the building.

Outside the physical differences it appears cities have a healthy integration of all three types and the majority of jobs available could be done by anypony.

Yes, let's hope this is true then, until the show gives new evidence. We'll probably see more remote parts of Equestria in S5. Hopefully they'll be like Our Town, with all three kinds of ponies.

[zimmerwald1915]

As for getting up the clouds, I don't think that would be a too serious problem, but maybe. After S5 E5, I was thinking how the Mane Six got up to Rainbow Dash's floating house, and determined it was pretty easy. Twilight and Fluttershy would fly up, attach a long rope ladder to the cloud and throw it down. Applejack climbs up: we know she can climb rigid ladders quite well from S4 E20, so I think it's not much of a stretch to imagine she can climb a rope ladder as well. Then they attach a large basket, like the one on the Balloon, to a long rope, and throw it down. Rarity boards the basket, and then Appljack together with the other two are strong enough to pull her up easily. Finally, Pinkie Pie off-screen teleports up at a convenient cut of the scene, which she's allowed to do because she could get up anyway with any of the three methods shown in S1 E5.

Or, for a much easier alternative, they could simply rent or borrow the Twinkling Balloon from Cherry Berry.

[DigoDragon]

How do you like your Pony?

Stacked up top?

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Or well-rounded in the back?

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Large an in charge?

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Or pretty and petite?

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As for getting up the clouds, I don't think that would be a too serious problem, but maybe. After S5 E5, I was thinking how the Mane Six got up to Rainbow Dash's floating house, and determined it was pretty easy. Twilight and Fluttershy would fly up, attach a long rope ladder to the cloud and throw it down. Applejack climbs up: we know she can climb rigid ladders quite well from S4 E20, so I think it's not much of a stretch to imagine she can climb a rope ladder as well. Then they attach a large basket, like the one on the Balloon, to a long rope, and throw it down. Rarity boards the basket, and then Appljack together with the other two are strong enough to pull her up easily. Finally, Pinkie Pie off-screen teleports up at a convenient cut of the scene, which she's allowed to do because she could get up anyway with any of the three methods shown in S1 E5.

Fine for the Mane6, but what about everyone else? Does this mean you have to have a pegasus friend on tap?