Lyra arrived in Canterlot and trotted towards the castle. She always felt under-dressed in the city of unicorns, though her tophat and monocle did much to alleviate the sensation. There was a big difference between having a hat or not having a hat, and she wasn't getting nearly as many raised brows as the last time she came with nothing at all.
None challenged her progress, except one stallion that stepped in front of her while wielding a cape. "This would complete your ensemble, ma'am. Only three bits!"
It wasn't a bad looking cape, but she wasn't really in the mood to shop at the moment, and she shook her head, pressing past the roadblock.
Her hat buzzed softly and she flicked her ears, activating the view of the front of the house. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were peeking through one of the windows. Scootaloo had her face pressed against the glass. "They look pretty normal to me. Are you sure this is the right place?"
Apple Bloom was beside her. "Of course ah am! The ponies here are aliens!"
Sweetie Belle, who had somehow been roped into being the stepping stool for the other two, looked up at them. "What do you see in there?"
The front door suddenly swung open and Lucy poked her head out. "Hey Crusaders! Are you here to play?"
The girls shrieked as one. Sweetie tried to flee, which unsettled the pile on top of her. They came crashing down, pinning Sweetie to the ground as they made a mess of themselves in a heap of pony flesh.
Lucy grinned at the mess she very likely intended to create. "You don't have to peek from outside, come in and hang out."
Lyra flicked off the view, satisfied that all was well. Lucy was really adapting well to her life as a new foal. She was becoming more playful by the day, though her desire to consume knowledge hadn't ebbed. Lyra suddenly stopped as a new thought came to her. If these souls really were copies, perhaps they were made of local... stuff... That would explain how some of them adapted so well and thoroughly. Lucy wasn't just Lucy the human, she was Lucy the Equestrian with a human's memories and past...
Lyra shook her head and approached the gate of the castle. "May I see Princess Luna, please?" she asked of the tall stallion in golden armor. "It's very important."
Sam asked for a forward on his pay, and got it. It was all... too easy. He took the money, which looked sort of like real money. It was green, and had a face on it, but it wasn't any president he knew. It was more an impression of a face. He took the collection of bills to an apartment building he spotted and looked around for an office, but saw none at all.
When a person wandered past heading out, he stopped them. "Hey, sorry to bug you, but how do you move in?"
The person shrugged his shoulders. "Need help moving boxes?"
"No no, I mean, you know, paperwork?"
He looked baffled. "Uh, just pick an empty apartment."
This was becoming disturbing. With every interaction it became more clear that this was not Earth, and not America. He thanked the guy anyway and found a spot on the second floor that looked empty and abandoned. There was a sign on the door that was blank where the others had people's names, so he added his own name. There, all his now!
So what did he do with his money? Of course! "Gonna need a bed, maybe a TV, some food..." He walked out of the apartment building and headed downtown.
Loud pulsing music suddenly drew his attention. Some teenager was walking down the road, bobbing her head to some large headphones, and it seemed the entire world was bobbing right along with her, moving to the beat that her music produced. The people around him seemed blissfully unaware, but when she got in range, the music grabbed them, and him, and he was swept along in the beat until she moved past. What the Jesus flipping Christ was that?
"What are you an expert of, ma'am?" asked the guard that stood in Lyra's way.
"Uh... Anthropology? I'm a professional friend for once-humans, at Luna's request. Can you get her or bring me to her?" Lyra wasn't sure how to deal with the guards, but they had been rather stubborn so far.
"It's day."
"So?"
"She's sleeping. Come back at night."
Lyra scowled and stomped a hoof. "She came to see me during the day! Just tell her who's here and she'll see me. Please!"
The guards looked at one another before one turned and trotted into the castle. The one left nodded at Lyra. "We'll get the night guard. They would know better about Luna's wishes."
Lyra waited impatiently before a large figure landed just in front of her. The bat pony folded her wings tight against herself as she smiled down at Lyra. "Hello there. I'm told you want to speak to Luna?"
Lyra was filled with a thrill of dread and awe at the bat pony. "Oh, uh... yes? Please..." She was so large! Lyra felt like a filly in the presence of the intimidating guard of the night, even if she was smiling and even seemed friendly.
The night guard gestured to herself. "I am Dark Horizon. Be at ease. The mistress has spoken of you before, and you are welcome here. Miss Heartstrings, was it?"
Lyra nodded. "Misses Heartstrings. Lyra. Nice to meet you. Is Luna really asleep?"
Dark leaned in, her face filling Lyra's vision. "She is, but I will bring you to her waiting room." Dark turned around and sank to the ground. "Up."
Lyra blushed a little. Adults were not supposed to ride each other normally, but with the size difference, she hardly felt like an adult around Dark. She clambered up carefully and draped herself over Dark's back. Dark slid to her hooves, spread her wings wide and was soon in the air, carrying the stunned Lyra towards Luna's chambers.
That is a very simple registration process. But in order for the room to be found empty at such short notice, there must be more rooms than there are people willing and able to move in... either that, or the universe spontaneously manifests rooms for new people...
You know there's always Typos out there SOMEWHERE, waiting to strike from the shadows!! They're like Rogues, except none of them are ever useful T_T
Suddenly song magic!
6051967
Song magic is my favorite when it's done well. And by well I mean like the Tale of Sir Lancelot in Monty Python's Holy Grail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-jO1EOhGkY0#t=422
6051985
Or the wedding? Where the groom keeps trying to turn it into a musical, but his father keeps quashing it.
6052004
Yes, I fixed the link to the correct part this time.
6052009
Indeed. Also, I apparently mistakenly thought you were referring to Sir Robin and the minstrels. Which, while quite delicious, didn't quite make for the perfect reference.
6051958
There's some evidence that vacant houses outnumber homeless people.
There are economic and law reasons why we cannot simply give all of them homes... and the fact that everyone wants to turn a profit off of their homes, either by selling or by renting them, so they do not want to "out of the goodness of their own heart" just give them away... but I can see another world handling it very differently.
Does Sam even need to pay rent at this point? Maybe just his bills?
6052134 Who would he even pay?
6052034
Yes, but people are hardly able to just move into them - for, as you say, economic and law reasons. If people had been able to do so, then you would quickly have run out of homeless population a long time ago, and much fewer houses would have been built (since, if no-one wants a house, there are no good economic reasons to build one).
6052139 I guess he doesn't even need the job anymore. He could probably get free food by asking at this point.
6052181
Right but... what I mean is, mostly the reasons why we cannot give away houses are psychological ones: because no one is motivated to do it. But in a society where the psychology is different, then that would not be a barrier.
The idea that giving the homeless homes would bottom out demand for new houses... is a little flawed. It's true if everyone was guaranteed a house, then there would be "no demand" outside of finding better housing (which already generates demand. Imagine a system where you were guaranteed a house no matter who you are, but unless you paid you had little or no control over where it was, or the quality) but... as it is now, the homeless don't generate any demand anyway. They can't afford housing, not at the prices housers would like to charge, so they have no effect on the market at the moment.
6052277
I do see your point that a lack of homeless does not negate the demand for housing upgrades, and I acknowledge that it is correct, but this:
...is false. As the housing bubble crisis in the US demonstrates, just because someone can't afford a house does not mean that someone else can't get a whole lot of money by trying to sell one to them...
Yep, I saw this coming. Looks nice and normal. Way more normal than the last place. Then you let you guard down and, BOOM! Crazy! Poor Sam. LoL.
6052312
Well... people who were put out of homes in the mortgage crisis were either people who shot too high (by having a mortgage that was too ambitious, especially the sort that increased it's payments over time, and not being able to keep up) who would be able to afford some other kind of housing, which falls under the category of housing upgrades, or people who fell on hard times and don't have the income to find any housing, which put them out of the demand market again.
I can't think of any common or reasonable scenarios where someone who can't even afford a cheap apartment would be able to take out a mortgage and keep it up for any payments at all, thereby allowing someone else to profit off of them, unless there is some third party that is paying out to the second party.
I suppose that's not "no" effect, though, to have someone displaced from their homes have had an effect on the housing market as they leave their house by reducing demand, and then they generate demand if they ever do get the money to afford any sort of housing again.
One thing I never got about Sam is that if his story is taken at face value, then he died and was in a way reincarnated. Assuming Lyra's idea about them being copies is false, he might still fit the criteria of a natural Equestrian pony with human memories.
That has two implications. The first is he has a counterpart in mirror world. The second is that he couldn't have been so attached to his job as a truck driver. I highly doubt it was very fulfilling, and the nature of his job might have him not have many roots outside his truck.
Not that it would matter much since, you know, he died in his original world. Everyone would have moved on. Was his accidental killing of himself a kind of suicide the first time? Will he have a Steven over there to keep him grounded? Maybe there is, even more proof of the copying theory.
6052457
I can think of a not completely unreasonable one. It involves unethical lenders offering a home loan that the victim has no chance of being able to repay (in a way that would be illegal here (South Africa - I don't know about other county's laws)) but that the victim can afford for the first few months (perhaps because of an "introductory low rate") and then repossessing the house afterwards.
Pony ride!
6052277
No, as you stated earlier, the reasons we can't just give away houses are economic ones. Though it's more socioeconomic.
The reason that Sam getting an apartment so easily is eerie is because it would be a terrible idea. Because, if anyone could write their name on their apartment and not pay at all, there's nothing stopping them from doing just that. And people that are having trouble with money won't pay things that are optional.
A system like the one being described here requires that everyone is economically stable, and no one is sociopathic enough to take advantage of others. That's obviously not the case in Equestria if you look at sunset shimmer or starlight glimmer. (You cant have a cult like that without taking advantage of others.) Plus those requirements make the semi-human world seem more like a cult, because significant differences are taken away.
If I found myself in a place like that, I would run.
6052769 I'm not sure what Sunset Shimmer proves.
6052784
She took advantage of a bunch of strangers to get any benefits she could from them for a while, and then to get the element of magic and her own personal army.
Also, diamond tiara and silver spoon constantly bully so they can put others down and get things the cmc would have otherwise got. (That cmc Equestria games episode.) And lightning dust didn't care that she almost killed Rainbow's friends.
this is going to be good. are they copy's or the real deal??
Harts Fire
I knew the EQG verse was creepy but...well at least that explains why Sunset Shimmer isn't homeless. She's probably living in a mansion or penthouse by herself for free. Also there are no locks or keys but nobody ever tries to steal anybody else's stuff. Except video game heroes maybe.
6051958
I think the simplest answer is that the Equestria Girls universe is a flat plane with a center (the high school with the portal) but no spatial boundaries. Therefore, there are actually a countably infinite number of apartments, all of which are occupied.
The only disadvantage is that whenever somebody new wants to move in, everyone has to shift to the next room over.
The longer you live there, the further away from the high school you get.
From what I've heard from this chapter of the Equestria Girls Universe...
... and yet another quite unnerving theory... hmm, talk to my masters about this, I will.
Detroit classically is the illustration of what happens when you have more abandoned property than homeless. The stock of built property tends to degenerate into unbuilt real estate on the decadal scale. The city was auctioning off abandoned property to homesteaders on the cheap in exchange for the hope of property taxes paid l; I think all they were getting were adventurous hipsters. As Glenn Reynolds says, home ownership isn't a quality but a marker for a quality that allows for it. Subsidizing the marker instead of the quality doesn't increase the stock of said quality, but only dissassociates the marker from its quality.