The Ponies Answer: Part Six · 9:59pm Jun 19th, 2013
We got another round of questions and answers for y’all! Find out our favorite flowers, how to get ready for a vacation, and how you’re supposed to feel when a pony ya’ love passes on, right down below.
Dear Ponies,
A few days ago, I started a kind of cool project. There's a TV show I really like, and a bunch of my friends like it too, so I decided it'd be fun to put something together where my friends could ask questions of the characters from this show and I'd write up responses from those characters. I'm having a lot of fun doing it, and my friends have given me a ton of questions to answer, but I'm a little worried that maybe I've gotten too into this project and my friends will think I'm overdoing it, and wasting their time.
What should I do with this project I really like? -
Majorly Meta in Manehattan
It’s great when you find something fun to do, but it’s also important to remember that there are a lot of fun things to do in the world, and also things that aren’t as fun but need to get done. I mean, I love to read, but I also love to spend time with my friends, and I have spells and studying that I need to do too. Also, even with Spike around, I still have chores and responsibilities.
If you’re spending too much time on one particular fun thing, it’s fair to worry that you’re not spending enough time with your friends, or on other things you’d like to do. In that case, it might be a good idea to set aside some specific time just for the fun activity, but leave room on the rest of your schedule for other things.
At the same time, sometimes you like to do fun things that you’re friends aren’t really interested in. If that’s the case, good friends will let you have your fun and be patient while you’re excited about it. They might not be as excited as you are, but they should like seeing you happy.
Dear Applejack and Rainbow Dash,
Hey, I'm going on a two week vacation soon. This will be my first time where I travel on my own and I'm kinda nervous. I have basically no survival skill (cooking, washing clothes, the works) so I have to figure a lot of stuff out. Any tips on making my vacation a most pleasant one? - Figment of your imagination
Sugarcube... you’re a grown, uh, whatever ya’ are, and you don’t know how to cook and take care’a your own things?
Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to learn! If ya’ got time before ya’ leave, try and make sure you learn a bit about things you might need. Learn to cook a thing or two, and learn to clean whatever clothes you might have, those are things that’ll come in handy someday, even if ya’ don’t use ‘em on vacation.
Other than that, remember to do somethin’ special on your trip. Some ponies go someplace amazin’, and spend the whole time sleepin’ or what have ya’. When you’re old, ya’ ain’t gonna remember that time ya’ got to sleep in, you’re gonna remember when ya’ got to run with a buffalo gal through the canyons.
If it’s a vacation, I hope you’re not gonna be doing a lot of cooking or washing stuff. If you are, you might wanna pick a different vacation next year, because that sounds lame.
But a really good idea might be to find out as much as you can about where you’re going, like if there are good places to eat, or if you’re really gonna have to wear clothes. That can also tell you how much fun stuff there is to do there, and if you’re gonna need a lot of money. Like, if you go camping you don’t need much money, but if you go to the Daring Do convention they have all kinds of artwork and t-shirts and sculptures... if you don’t budget right, you’ll end up trying to decide if you can eat the Daring Do Tropical Fruit scented soap you bought with your lunch money.
Dear anypony,
This may be a bit too morbid, but how do you deal with death? Either in Equestria, or here on Earth, how are you even supposed to feel when someone dies. --Massachusetts
There ain’t no way you’re supposed to feel when someone dies. That don’t matter if it’s pony or human. I seen folks act a lotta different ways, and it don’t take much thinkin’ to figure why they mighta been angry, or scared, or sad, or even just kinda empty and confused. Some ponies are even happy, if they think a pony is goin’ someplace good, or some ponies make jokes ‘cause they don’t know what else to say.
The important thing is to be respectful ‘bout how other folks are feelin’. If somepony is sad, let ‘em be sad. If somepony is mad ‘nough to buck a fence post down, just let ’im go. If a pony wants to find stuff to do ‘til she’s too tired to think at night, you go on and let her do it. Everypony will come ‘round, when it’s not as fresh in their minds and hearts. Then, if they’re smart ponies, they’ll realize how lucky they are to have each other every day, and love each other even more.
Uh, ‘scuse me, sugarcube. I think I oughta stop back home for a bit.
Dear Anypony,
I just got back home from a nice long weekend vacation.
How is this a question? well, while I was on vacation I made a rash choice and shaved my well loved pair of glorious muttonchops!
Terrible whim, I know, but they'll grow back.
Needless to say, when I got home my friends were downright surprised, but we had a good laugh over it... Mostly.
A couple of my friends seemed more than surprised, they seemed shocked. Downright worried. They're behaving strangely around me now and I fear the worst.
I think my friends were replaced by changelings, what should I do? -A charming small town in rural Minnesota
Well, the good news is that my research on Minnesota indicates that it’s on Earth, so changelings aren’t very likely!
More likely, your friends were worried about you. Sometimes when someone you know changes, it can be scary. You worry that they started thinking differently- if they liked your muttonchops, and they thought you liked your muttonchops, they might be worried that there are other things that you used to like that you don’t anymore. And they might worry that includes them.
So, I’d say you should spend some time with them. Let them get used to how you changed (even if it’s just shaving your muttonchops!) and let the see the ways you’re still the same friend they loved.
Dear anypony,
Are there any theories, hypothesis, myths, or any other general ideas about how a certain pink colored pony with bouncy hair is able to achieve things which would normally be classified as magic, despite lacking a horn? -Texas
Heh, there are theories. Lots and lots of theories... several notebooks full, actually.
Sadly, none of the ones I’ve been able to test have panned out.
She’s just Pinkie Pie. For now.
Dear Anypony,
I never understood how it's possible to eat flowers and grass. I do eat my greens and reds and other colors too! I once tried grass but it tasted... bad. Should I use some seasoning, or is there a type of grass or flower that I should go for? What are your favorite flowers for comparison? -The field behind your house
How do you tend to eat flowers? Do you bite off the whole head like some kind of flower-eating monster? Pull off the petals one-by-one like a proper gentlepony? Pull off the petals one-by-one and then just shove them all in your mouth?
Also, what are your favorite flowers? - Manehattan
Um, grass is kind of bland, by itself. We don’t usually eat it plain, similar to lettuce. It can be good in a salad, or as part of a sandwich.
As for flowers, there are lots of delicious kinds of flowers, and lots of ways you can eat them... it’s hard to say which you should try. My favorite is violets... especially candied... um, maybe everypony can tell you their favorites, too...
Girls?
Huh? Oh, right. Favorite flowers, got it. Tulips. The red ones are awesome, however you can get them.
Honeysuckles! I can eat a whole bush full of honeysuckle flowers! And they grow on bushes full of honeysuckle flowers, how perfect is that?
Roses, naturally. Red roses go well with desserts and rich foods, while lighter roses are more delicate and should be paired with something light. And of course, if a pony is so kind as to bring one roses, one should wait until one is alone to enjoy them, try not to eat a whole bouquet at once. Not that that ever works...
Apple blossoms are good candied, but that’s a lot of cookin’ for some little bites of flower. I’d rather have some nice marigolds, they always taste sweet and fresh right outta the garden, and they’re good just bitin’ ‘em off or in a salad.
I like lavender, especially with chocolate. Or in tea. Or a cake. Okay, I pretty much just like lavender in anything sweet.
Also, I checked, and all of these are flowers humans can eat! Just make sure you know what kind of flower you’re eating, and that you’re preparing them correctly so that you don’t get sick. Pony stomachs are different from human stomachs, but that’s no reason not to try new things, as long as you’re safe about it!
Dear Applejack,
Are all these apples you sell each day enough to make doctors unnecessary in Ponyville?
Nope, we still got doctors, and ponies still get sick.
Guess that means they oughta be buyin’ more apples, right?
Dear Anypony,
My thoughts are constantly going a thousand different directions at once. How do I keep them under control?
signed Discord in my head
If you figure it out, you tell me!
Actually, there are some things you can do! So do them!
Um, a little more info for our readers, Pinkie.
Doing things! Like, with your hooves! If you’re doing something, like baking cookies, or baking cupcakes, or baking pies, oooh, pies sound good. How about blueberry? Or strawberry? Or blue strawberries! Do they make blue strawberries?
Pinkie. Question.
Right! If you’re doing something with your hooves, you’ll be focused on that, so there’s not quite as much room in your head for doing other things. Sometimes just something like writing something down will make you think about it more, which mean you’ll think about other things less, which means the other things might get sad so you should make sure to think about them later, like as soon as I’m done with this I’m going to think about blue strawberries.
And who doesn’t want to think about blue strawberries, really?
Dear Anypony,
Do you bear the Elements of Harmony, or ARE you the Elements of Harmony? - My own little world filled with sunshine and rainbows. :)
We bear the Elements of Harmony, and we represent the Elements of Harmony.
None of us were born as our elements, and nothing transformed when we activated them, so saying that I am the Element of Magic isn't technically correct.
At the same time, while the objects are called the Elements of Harmony, there's more to using them then simply wearing them. We act as living symbols of the elements. Not perfectly, of course, but well enough for the magic of friendship to take hold between us.
So it's correct in a metaphorical sense to say that we are the Elements of Harmony, and not just because we use them. But in a literal sense the Elements of Harmony are the stones themselves.
Dear anypony,
What went through your minds when you got you cutie marks?
Then years later when you found out RainbowDash helped you, were any of you upset that you didn't EXACTLY get it by yourselves?
If ya’ don’t mind, sugarcube, we’re gonna answer that second question first.
A cutie mark ain’t somethin’ you can cheat at. It’s knowin’ somethin’ about yourself. So, I think I can speak of all us when I say that findin’ out we all had a connection was another amazin’ reason for us to stick together and take care’a each other, but Rainbow Dash didn’t give us our cutie marks or nothin’. Everypony finds their special talent someday, we all woulda got ‘em eventually. RD just made it so we all got ‘em at the same time, so we can share somethin’ kinda special.
Right, Rainbow?
Uh, yeah! You know I didn’t mean it when I said you guys would’ve been blank flanks forever... you can let me down now.
Maybe in a bit. Now, for the first part of your question. When I got my cutie mark, I was feelin’... um, myself. I dunno how else to put it. It was like I knew just who Applejack was and where she belonged. It felt righter and truer than anythin’ I’ve felt before or since, so there’s nothin’ I can compare it to.
What went through my mind was relief. And wonder and excitement! But... mostly relief. You have no idea how long I’d been scared about my entrance exam! Then I found out I would be Princess Celestia’s personal student, and I got my cutie mark in less than a minute. Actually, I think that might be the only point in my life where I had nothing to worry about; I hadn’t even started thinking about what those things meant, and all the worries I’d been having the previous year were just... solved!
I felt important...
Fluttershy, sugarcube? Do ya’ think ya’ could use your “other ponies can hear me” voice?
I’m sorry. I felt important... but, um, not that important. Important to my animal friends. I’d never really been important to anypony before, so knowing that there were ponies who needed me, even if they weren’t ponies who needed me, was amazing.
Oh, darling, I was inspired! Never before or since have I been filled with such drive to create. I won’t say that the costumes I made were my best work... I do believe I was rather enamored of the gems I found, and I could have done with a bit of editing. But even if it was not my greatest work, it was my most heartfelt and passionate.
I felt... you know when you’ve been waiting for something for a really, really, really long time, and you’re bouncing because you just can’t wait anymore, and then it happenes and it’s just as superawesomefantabulious as you imagined it would be?
Now, imagine that but you didn’t even know you were waiting for it! That’s how I felt.
It was awesome.
No! No no no. Rainbow, in the past hour, things you’ve described as awesome have included your friends, a milkshake, getting to respond to letters, tulips-
The red ones.
Red tulips, and AJ untying you. How you felt when you did the first sonic rainboom in centuries and discovered your destiny is going to require a little more detail than “awesome.”
Okay. Fine. I felt... safe. I mean, I always knew I was supposed to be a really great flyer, but I never could prove it. I was just a filly, and I was great for a filly, but I couldn’t be sure that would mean I’d be a great flyer compared to grown up ponies, someday. Then, when I did my sonic rainboom, I knew I just had to do my best and I would be awes- I mean, uh, talented and successful someday?
Thank you.
That’s all we have time for today! We're going to try to answer about once a week from now on.
Oh yeah, and if we haven't answered your question yet, we might still be trying to think of what to tell you, or it might be a little too personal. We don't like to disappoint our readers, and we don't mind questions about Equestria, but we don't really like answering questions about our private lives. But remember, you can ask us more questions here: Ask a Pony!
What an incredibly intriguing concept...
Sorry, I'm behind on the times. Still.
That first question...
Oh you.
Whoa, that got kinda meta...
1155408>>1155169
I didn't ask that question. But I know who did.
Rainbow's description of how she felt when she got her cutie mark made me teary-eyed. That just felt like a very true response, to me. Thanks.
Very cute! i'm really enjoying this and I hope you'll keep them up. Speaking from experience orange cupcakes with candied violet flowers are deeellish!
I actually eat honeysuckles myself! There is a park near by with a whole bush of them!
1161465 What's wrong about that, they're really sweet and yummy
1218147 Nothing, there is just a bush of them in the park!
1221335 Ya I used to have a bush near my house, but now I don't. I think it died or something
1221547 That's cool, I wish I had some by my house