Cropduster
Admiral Biscuit
I looked over at the pony who'd nosed up to the bar next to me. She was a pegasus with a light green coat and a brownish mane and tail.
It always felt a bit impolite to look down at a pony's flank to see their cutie mark, but that was just my human upbringing. The ponies didn't mind; they did it to each other all the time. Sometimes I'd even see them turn so that the other pony could get a clearer look.
Just the same, I waited until she was distracted before glancing down. Like a lot of pegasi, she had a cloud-themed cutie mark, which didn't really tell me much of anything.
I waited until she'd had a few drinks of her beer before speaking. Maybe I didn't have to, but I thought she looked kind of tense when she sat next to me, and I thought I'd give her a little bit of time to look me over.
Once she wiggled her rump a little bit on the seat and slouched forward just slightly, I thought she was probably as relaxed as she was going to get, and it was time to introduce myself.
“I'm Joe,” I said, sticking my fist out.
“Cropduster.” She bumped my fist politely and then took another sip of her drink.
“Cropduster, huh?” I had an image in my mind of her gliding low over fields, dispensing fertilizer or some kind of insect poison from jars tied around her barrel, and I took a quick look but I didn't see any markings on her fur. Back on Earth, you could tell the horses who wore harnesses a lot.
I mentally slapped my forehead. For all I knew, she carried sacks in her hooves or something like that. Or maybe pony harnesses were designed with more care than the ones we put on Earth horses. “Do you fertilize?”
“Do I what?”
I took a moment to consider what I'd said, and decided that I probably could have found a worse way to ask if I'd really thought about it. “Crops. Like, back on Earth, there are airplanes that fly low over fields and put down fertilizer or insect poison.”
“Poison?” She narrowed her eyes. “You humans poison your crops?”
“Ah, well.” I took a drink of my beer to give me a second to think. “We put things on them that the insects won't eat. Things that make the crops taste bad.”
“Oh.” She scratched her chin with a hoof. “No, that's not it.” She shifted on her seat and turned her rump towards me. “Pull my tail.”
And like a fool, I did.
I'm a fan of fountain pens too, when they don't clog or leak anyway, but trying to write with a feather salvaged from my fly-tying stuff was an eye-opener. You know that tiny ball-shaped tip on a fountain pen that keeps it from sticking into the paper? Feathers don't have that.
Just selecting a feather and cutting it to shape must have been an art all its own.
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At the time, I couldn't easily get a proper tip, so I used medium calligraphy pens (the campus bookstore had them). No tip on those either; they were square-cut, and easily capable of carving through the paper if you weren't careful.
I'd imagine it was. And I think a lot of people did it themselves, so I can't help but wonder how many manuscripts had kind of raggedy printing as a result.
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You got to respect the cutie mark, man. The magic of harmony doesn't fuck around.
...discovering her special talent must have been a helluva journey.
Point of trivia: The traditional down-on-the-farm outhouse was built so it could be moved, something like an ice-fishing hut. A hole would be dug a hopefully-safe distance from the well, and the outhouse was put over it. Each "flush" involved a shovel-full of dirt to hold down the stink. When the hole was nearly full, they'd dig a new hole and move the outhouse to it, using the remaining dirt to finish filling the previous hole. Then they'd plant an apple tree in the pile covering the oldest hole... Okay, I just made that part up.
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She might not be the hero Equestria needs, but she's the hero Equestria deserves.
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For her, or the ponies around her? Because I could see it going either way, to be honest.
Still, somepony's gotta do it.
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I did know that, actually. And that worked out fine for farms, but in places with less real estate available, you had to have a different solution. Especially since ponies probably poop like champions.
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Instructables has a lot of fun projects, including quill making. One thing I have learned in my time, the quality of the pen does nothing to improve the chicken scratchings that comprises my handwriting.
Cropduster. If you meet a pony named Swirly, don't ask...
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I actually have two projection TVs, which I intend to use one of these days to build a solar death ray.
Agreed 100%. I can't even always read my handwriting.
I taught myself to write left-handed, and I can do it, sort of. It comes out better than my right-handed chicken scratch, but it's slower.
Exactly!
This isn't the only pony he's going to meet with an unusual cutie mark, name, or occupation.
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You know her nieces and nephews have all warned each other about going near her during holiday visits.
“She’s eaten four fruitcakes and she’s on her third glass of eggnog. Whatever she tells you to do, DON’T.”
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I feel the same applies to fanon Cloud Kicker.
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Chrysalis' hordes should be glad Pinkie pointed Twilight's front end toward them. They got the laser instead of the grenade launcher.
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Maybe it's just me but I got a feeling that this episode exists to shut down some of the fan ideas about cutie marks. Lots of stuff that Ruble said about cutie marks I hear here numerous times before.
...that was a rather tasteless joke
I had to look that one up.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crop%20dusting
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Thinking about it, what other point did that episode make? I've got a flawed memory, but I remember an entire episode of complaining about cutie marks / kids complaining and it's almost like a subtle dig at the community lol
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I still disagree with your math in that one.
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I'm more or less sure that writers use Rumble to make jabs at the community. He said pretty much typical complains about cutie marks, like "they force you to do only one thing", "you can't learn anything that not connected to your cutie mark" and so on.
Well, main point of the episode is that cutie mark don't define the pony. That cutie mark just show what you enjoy doing but it's not prevent you from enjoyng other things. Like Thunderlane whos main tallent is fast movement, but he also really like to cook.
Well, official MLP RPG said the same things months prior but I don't know how many people read the rulebook.
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Well, I would also disagree with my math.
Luckily, after I posted, theRedBrony suggested I research mini horses, and the numbers for them suggested 5-8 gallons of poop output/day. Not sure how much that would weigh.
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Assuming poop weighs 80% as much as water, between 33 and 53 pounds.
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And our ponies are about half the size of mini horses (by weight).....
I stand by my advice to not get in a pooping contest with a pony.
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A maker of such things as kimchi and pickled beets?
Or, why not a military operative? The guard, incompetent as they seem to be, do carry blades and supposedly poke at their enemies with them.
Thanks for the mental image.
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To be fair, Joe should have seen that coming.
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Yeah, no kidding. The backside of a
horsepony is no place to be.8591384
Now I really need to see that episode.
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Well, in my defense,
. . .
I've got nothing.
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And now, for better or worse, you know what cropdusting is.
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And now we're back around to assassin.
i.ytimg.com/vi/zDqXT7Exm0w/maxresdefault.jpg
Pinkie Pie would actually be really good at it. And she'd pop up where you least expected.
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Y'know, i wasn't thinking of it that way, at least not consciously.
I don't know if that makes it better or worse, to be honest.
Oh you silly gullible man. haha.
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He really should have seen that coming. Poor Joe.
Well, I'm in.
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8592809
I wasn't the only one with a dirty mind in this story.
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She's not doing fly-by poopings on fields.
Although, now that I think about it, that probably is a thing in Equestria.
I guess the moral is, always wear a hat.
I am so borrowing Cropduster for my 1940 story...
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Do eeeeeeeeet.
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yeah but you would die laughing
Thats a heck of a bar bill.
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That may be so, but really, there are worse ways to go.
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You know that there's some pegasus who has that as a special talent.
And let's be honest, she's probably a lot of fun at parties.
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Depending on her effective radius, it's not only Joe who's paying, either.
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I don't know why. Your comments just made that pop into my head.
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It's true, though. Pinkie does show up where she's least expected. And one of those times, she might have a knife in her hoof. . . .
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Yeesssss!
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