April 25 [Thunderstorm]
April 25
When I woke up I felt a little too hot even though I'd shook off all my blankets as I slept, which I figured was because I'd spent the night before outside and then was back inside, plus I'd taken a shower late and I thought that would mess me up, too.
I felt a little stiff, as well, but shrugged that off as well. I'd had a lot of fun over the weekend and I was paying for it now, that was all. So I got on my flight gear and called the airplane directors and it was the nice lady and she told me to be careful out there because storms were coming and you couldn't always rely on the weatherman to tell you when they'd arrive, and I said that if I was on the job they would be right where they belonged just when they were supposed to be.
There were scattered clouds and some of them were low enough for me to play with, so I bumped them around in the sky for a little bit, pushing a few of them together into a bigger cloud. Not so big that it would start to rain, though; I didn't want to make anyone mad by sending off a rogue raincloud.
Then I beat down a flat spot on the top and it would have been fun to play queen of the cloud but there weren't any other pegasuses to play it with.
From my perch on top of the cloud I could see the nature center and if I'd had more time I would have flown over there and sat back on the bench on the hawk trail, but then I'd have to skip my shower or breakfast or both.
I'd been drifting southish with the wind, so I had a bit of ground to make back up, and I decided that I was going to do it fast. So I pretended that I was racing even though I didn't have anypony to race against, and dug into the cloud like we did back at flight school to get a good launch, and then I was off the edge and falling but I had my wings out quick: if you dropped too far you got some speed, but you wasted most of it getting back up to altitude.
Well there wasn't an official timekeeper at the end, but I thought I'd done pretty well when I landed back in front of Trowbridge. I'd considered the sidewalk that runs through the middle of it to be the finish line, so I kept up my speed until I crossed that and then dumped as much speed as I could for my landing.
I was completely soaked in sweat and I swear that I kept on getting hotter while I waited for my turn. It probably didn't help that all the steam from the shower was filling the bathroom.
Well I felt a lot better and ready to face the day when I went to breakfast, although it turned out when I sat down and started to eat that I wasn't as hungry as I'd thought I was, so I more picked at my breakfast rather than eat it properly.
Professor Sir Doctor Banerjee introduced us to discrete time dynamical systems, which is where you sort of imagine a graph of points that are actual observations that are as in-detail as you want them to be and then model them over time. He gave us a couple of simple examples, like population growth in a country. He said that censuses could be an example of the data points, and then you could kind of figure out trends from that.
Of course the models could get pretty complicated because there were lots of factors that went into population growth, and things like food shortages or war or monster attacks (which he forgot to mention) could all change it.
He said that an interesting study done on wild populations of animals was the wolf packs and moose population on Belle Isle, which is way up north in Michigan, in the middle of Lake Superior. He said that some years the wolves did well and some years the mooses did and that currently the wolf population was very low and people were debating if new wolves should be brought to the island or if the study should continue until there were no more wolves on the island and then after that they would make a decision.
I should have read more of Samuel before lunch but I didn't feel like it. The pressure had dropped while I was in class and I was feeling antsy: there was another storm coming. I went back to my dorm room and looked on the computer and was calculating on my weather wheel when Peggy came in and asked me what I was doing.
She said that it was silly for me to calculate the weather when someone else had already done it, and I said that it was silly for her to snowboard when there were probably other people who were better than she was and that kind of changed her attitude and she sat down and I showed her how to do the calculations.
It was kind of like when she taught me how to snowboard, I think. I could tell that there were some things that she didn't understand, but she sort of got it, and then said that she wanted to try a test and asked me to calculate out the weather for Colorado Springs, so I turned the page on the computer to Colorado Springs and did some back-of-hoof calculations and said that the temperature was going to stay pretty flat for the rest of the day, it would be cloudy, and that there was a slight chance of rain but it probably wouldn't.
I told her it would be easier if I'd spent time there because there were a lot of variables and I just didn't know them all that well because I didn't know the area. She just turned her portable telephone towards me and she'd gotten the weather forecast and I stuck out my tongue because that was all I needed to say.
After lunch was over I went to Anthropology. Professor Amy split us up into groups and gave each group a story about a tribe that we had been observing, and we were supposed to figure out some stuff about their marriage and birth rituals, and that before any of us quick readers figured out that there was missing information, we were supposed to figure out what else we needed to know to draw proper conclusions and then write a short essay about what we'd discovered and what we hadn't and how we'd go about finding out what we wanted to know. She said that it was due in at the beginning of our Wednesday class—which was the next one. Then she said that Friday we'd be having our mid-term test because she felt it was her duty to make us suffer a little bit before we talked about where babies came from in different cultures.
So we spent most of the class talking about that and while I didn't really think that religion could be as important as they did, since all three of them were sure it was a factor, I sided with them. But they liked my idea that what Professor Amy called food insecurity was a reason for the large festival before the marriage, because I thought it was a way to prove that the man could be a good provider to a family.
When class was over we all agreed to meet tomorrow after dinner at the library to finish up the assignment and Rachel said that she would type up what we'd come up with so far and so she got our computer mail addresses and said that she would send us a computer letter that said where the essay was and we could put in comments as we thought of them.
I tried to read more of the Bible after class but I just wasn't in the mood because the pressure was still falling and so I sat in a tree instead and let the wind blow on me.
It hadn't come by the time dinner was over, or by the time I was ready for bed, either, but I could feel it. I'd been out on the quad and flying low passes over campus—low enough that I didn't have to call the airplane directors—and it felt more and more like another big storm with each passing hour. The wind was shifting and picking up speed, and I could smell the rain and when I finally went in for the night I'd started to see some distant flashes of lightning that were far enough off I'd never have seen them during the day.
I was in bed but not asleep when it came in. The thunder and lightning had been getting more and more frequent and pretty soon it was on us. I got out of bed and went to the window and Peggy sat up in her bed and I told her that I wanted to play outside and she said that I was stupid and I would get hit by lightning but she also was putting on her pants when she said that.
So we went downstairs and she held the door open for me and I ran outside and started galloping around in the rain and pretty soon she joined me and it didn't take too long before both of us were soaked to the skin but we didn't care. It was fun to be out in; it was fun to see the lightning flashing around us, and it was fun to get wet.
When it had tapered off a little we went back inside and Peggy crossed her arms over her breasts because her wet t-shirt wasn't hiding anything, and when we were back in our room she started taking off her wet clothes and said that she had the advantage because she could towel off and put on dry clothes and she'd be warm right away and I was going to have to suffer with wet fur.
(I thought about shaking myself off to prove her wrong, but that would have been a mean thing to do in our dorm room.)
When I'd dried off as well as I could I noticed that the light was blinking on my portable telephone and I saw that I had gotten a telephone telegram which was from Aric and he said that I hadn't been at Durach and to send him one back if I was planning on coming over to his house.
I'd been distracted by the weather and completely forgotten about it.
So I sent him a telegram back saying that I was sorry and I had been distracted by the thunderstorm but I could still come over and he sent one back and said that he wasn't mad at me because when I hadn't been there he had decided after Durach to drive Winston in the storm because they were so much fun. And he said if I wanted to come over I could let myself in but if I didn't want to walk or fly in the storm that was okay too.
Well, I did want to go over but I was pretty exhausted so I promised that I would come over Wednesday night.
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monster attacks (which he forgot to mention)
A food chain is like sex. It's good to be on top.
make anyone mad
antsy
Guess Peggy doesn't know that lightning bolts just frazzle a pony for a bit, to the point that using them to prank a pony is ok.
The stress of not knowing how your friends are going to react to your secrets played no part in that, I'm sure
Aaah! The joys of planned weather!
That sound almost like a tech from a civilization game.
"Planned weather allows to build farmland on any kind of tiles. Farland yields plus one food and plus one gold"
And we could use that quote of Silver as the relevant quote they associate with the tech...
And the worst is that it makes sense...
It's been 40 years but I remember my Anthropology class, not all cultures make the connection between sex & babies. What I found interesting was sometimes 2 nearby groups had different answers. When asked both said the other group knew the truth & was lying.
They didn't enjoy the thunderstorm together... The ship is going down, the ship is going down!
7330881
Also, monster attacks in Equestria are so powerful a factor as to affect population growth?! I suddenly don't want to go to Equestria.
7331272
Probably more so in the past, or with animal populations.
Imagine that, the human professor forgot monster attacks.
That sounds like the start of a flu.
That may be the wordiest way I've ever heard someone say "a graph with a time axis." I suppose there are quite a few unfamiliar concepts involved for Silver.
It does say a lot that monster attacks can cause statistically significant population swings in Equestria... assuming that Silver's right to cite them on a national level.
And remember, folks, most pegasus breeds need plenty of exercise. It's an especially bad idea to keep them in the house during a storm. They'll whine and scratch at the door all night.
7331325
Well, he did mention wars. Maybe humans are the real monsters [/contemplative voice]
It sounds like she's getting sick.
Wonder what Silver would think of the "Case Studies of the Nacirema"?
I'll join in the Silver's coming down with some bug crowd. It might just be the pressure change but I think she might have caught something, I'm not sure what would hit a pony though, it might be a side effect of her drinking the coolant but if so it's taken a long time to effect her.
I expect that monster attacks affect population more by encouraging emigration & discouraging immigration than by number killed.
As to Silver being sick she might have picked it up over Spring break, either from her fellow ponies or just possibly Earth horses.
Maybe Aric's finally gotten her pregnant.
They did have sex while she was in heat.
Be funny if this story ended in a "war of the worlds" esque way.
"Princesses Issue State of Emergency as 'Sniffles' Epidemic Claims Another Million."
Hmmm?
Oh no, she's coming down with something, isn't she.
Silly pony, that's because we killed all the other monsters.
lightning
Awww yeah that does sound like fun! I remember driving during a storm once and it was an interesting experience. Now that it's been mentioned here, I want to go do it again.
lh5.googleusercontent.com/_IFbzOvEefi4/TZZ6XM4qOnI/AAAAAAAAAZo/jsf7JEXcW8U/s1000/BOARDWALK%20-%20'Waves%20of%20Mutilation'.jpg
mad
antsy
you're forgetting the words 'the rain'.
7331423 for all our intelligence, we're still just animals obeying our instincts.
7331672 I would be down with a sequel about a centaur going to human school.
7331672
That would change some things.
Change some things? Change some things? You mean, like, "Honey, it's Nature on the line, they'd like to have a word with you?
That's a direct quote from something...I wonder how many people will recognize it?
"Dear humanity, fix your Celestia-darned
waffle-makersweather."I wonder: Can pegasi condense clouds to the point where non-pegasi can walk on them? Or are all instances of that happening on the show actually using the Cloud-Walking spell?
7330881
Yup.
7330906
Oops! Both corrections made; thank you!
7331099
Probably not. Good thing for Silver that opportunity didn't come up in weather class. (Actually, she probably would have learned not to zap people with lightning).
7331176
It was a factor, that's for sure.
It does make your agricultural system a lot easier when you've got earth ponies who can grow crops in practically any kind of soil, and then pegasi who can make sure they get the water that they need.
7331268
I would guess, though, that once a culture has reached the point where they're domesticating animals, they've figured it out.
Would a culture who didn't make the connection be so concerned about who has sex with who, I wonder?
7331272
cache3.asset-cache.net/xd/586-79.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=72BFC987C85EE17257DF2B296A6337B286871D979DBBA8368B08E7ED773D55AF810F755E003CBEB8
(nah, they're still good)
Remember what she said about food being tight about the Parasprite infestation? Even if monsters aren't directly eating ponies, they're going to have knock-on effects.
7331321
Nope, even currently they can effect pony population--not necessarily by eating a lot of ponies, but by other side-effects.
7331331
It does, doesn't it?
7331415
and for the author
There are canon examples where it can be inferred. The dragon that was going to blot out the sun over Ponyville, the parasprites who could easily have wiped out all of Ponyville's food supplies, the buffalo (potentially) wrecking the orchards in Appleoosa--if there's a food shortage, the ponies aren't likely to try for a family until that shortage is dealt with, for example. And some of the more rural areas of the nation, it's probably even more likely that a monster attack could cause a town to be abandoned, or at least for ponies to hold off on having foals until they've secured their borders against monsters.
It's true! That's why Peggy is the best roommate.
7331423
Maybe we are.
7331430
Yup.
7331493
Good question--I'll have to re-read that. I can't remember specifics, besides who it's actually about.
7331504
She is (and it has nothing to do with the coolant).
7331602
That would be a major factor, along with ponies in the 'danger zone' also not wanting to have foals until the danger has passed.
7331672
No, he hasn't.
7331756
That would be terrible and yet kind of funny.
7332716
Yes, she did.
We are the monsters.
Correction made, thank you!
7332777
I love driving in bad weather. Snow, fog, rain . . . whatever it is, I love it.
7332959
Although I think it would be fair to say that our intelligence helps us avoid some of our baser instincts, or at least redirect them in a more socially-acceptable way.
7332839
Fixed! Thank you!
I don't think that's actually needed. I think it's understood what it's fun to be out in.
7332971
Actually . . . so would I. Hmm.
7333176
Once the first exchange-student pony gets knocked up, new rules might go into place really fast. Or maybe not: with an eleven-month pregnancy, and them not going into heat until late March or early April, they wouldn't be having babies in the US. . . .
<spoilered text>
I missed the reference.
7333380
There's that old saying that everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it . . . a team of pegasi could change that.
I think they could. We've seen items in cloudhouses, like Rainbow's Daring Do books, and they don't fall through, so it's probably possible. I doubt they bother most of the time; after all, a non-pegasus can't get up there anyway. And they may have to actively maintain it.
It's not likely to be something Silver Glow can do for any length of time, but she might be able to bring down a small cloud and manipulate it enough that a human can sit on it for a little while.
7336903
7333380
Have you considered that the clouds might be enchanted?
It would be more efficient to use magic than to waste cloud resources in packing it dense enough to hold weight.
7331672
And here I was thinking that wouldn't be a concern, and the could just go bareback.
Ouch! Peggy totally Pwned by the Pony!
7331099
Yeah, that's totally in my head canon, too. Look at Gilda's first appearance.
Taser an earth pony or unicorn and you get a quivering lump of flesh. Taser a griffon, you get shredded by a smoking cat-bird. Taser a pegasus, you get the living shit stomped out of you. Taser an alicorn, you get sent to the moon!
ooookay, been too long, but good news, IRL was calmed down, move is done, and should be stable here for a bit, so back to best Exchange Student Pony!
I like right off how she's clearly avoiding 'the talk' and just does not want to deal with it, while finding perfectly logical and reasonable reasons to put it off. It's... pretty much what so many people would do in her situation. Good thing for her she has Best-Roommate to make her actually deal with this.
Granted, part of the reason is that said Roommate still hasn't QUITE grasped the cultural differences in how Pony sees things. but does get it's different and is trying to help he see how humans see it. Though she's being a taaaad bit extremist about how huge a deal this is, which is just making Silver feel even worse and more scared. Granted Peggy is saying only it COULD be that huge, not that it is, and is just trying to get Silver to see she needs to talk about this to know, but still, the way she's delivering it comes off far more huge then it is for Silver and is just making her all the more anxious. Just, really love all the details and the nuances to this whole situation.
Also, again, part of the blame here is on her prep courses for dealing with being on Earth apparently doing a really really shitty job of warning her about this kind of stuff. I can get a human run on just blithely assuming no hanky panky would happen, but pony side, they should know better. Also on Silver's whole hang up of seeing things in strict 'wrong/right' everything is black and white terms, making her see this even worse since she has a hard time dealing with things that are technically not right, but not exactly wrong either.
Finally on this bit, I love, and at the same time have less then awesome thoughts, on his reaction. I love how open and accepting, and just 'hey, you do you' he was about it, and how he gets she sees things differently and just wants to let her do what she wants. At the same time, just HOW easy it went, how open he was, and the way he said it, just kind of also increased the overall feel I have for their 'relationship' of it never being at all serious and them, really just being in this for some no strings attached fucking. (Something that if Peggy understood, she likely woldn't have freaked out as much, but she seems to see this as a legit relationship rather then just fuck buddies)
"Black Box Theater"
Where's Sweetie Belle when you need her?
Love how the big, huge, all these lights don't work... is all just someone had a part in backwards.... that's how it always is. Best is when it's been that way for so long, and everyone is so used to working around the issue, that when fixed they end up with no idea what to do.
But, I really loved this chapter and the trip here. It's one of the best bits of these two interacting and really coming off as friends, really doing something together, and one of the bits to actually give Aric some character beyond 'guy fucking Silver'. A lot of the rest of him is just.. kind of bland. Not to Flash Sentry levels of dull, but just, so normal and ordinary there's really nothing to him beyond that type thing. Seeing him at work with the theater stuff is the one thing that really stands out and I enjoyed seeing it here.
Also, silly pone, yes you can get on any roof you like.... little show off.
Everyone is talking about how bad monster attacks must be if Silver thinks they have an impact on population. My big thought is how clearly she still does not get certain things that she thinks he 'forgot' to mention them, rather then them not being an issue at all on Earth.
Also love her retort about how just because someone already done something, or better at it then you, doens't mean you can' enjoy doing it. Showing again, she might be kind of naive, and way to literal, but at times she can be incredibly profound too. Also reminds me of a response I LOVE to the idiotic tripe of telling someone they shouldn't be upset,since there are people who are going through worse then them. "By the logic,you should never be happy either,since there will always be someone better off then you as well."
Have I mentioned I love her anthropology teacher? Second best teacher after Conrad!
Peggy, she's a pegasus, she's dealt with getting hit by lightning before most likely. At worst, you'll have to deal with the small of singed hair for a bit.
Also, not being able to quickly dry off without making everything around you wet. #ponyproblems.
Oh and do love the little hinting to her starting to come down with something. Missed it my first time through, very nicely done.
8947533
I know it's what I would do in her situation. That's what a good friend's for--to make you do something that you don't want to do, but need to.
While Peggy is of course approaching it from more of a human perspective than a pony perspective, that's really what Silver needs in a situation like this. Her relationships back in Equestria are of course different (as well as what she would consider things that are sexual and things that are not, etc.), but from Peggy's point of view, if she's going to be getting into physical relationships with people than she ought to know what the expectations of such relationships are, and if she doesn't know, she'd better ask before she gets in too deep. Even if you screw up, if you confess early things tend to go better than if you wait until you're in really deep.
I feel that odds are that part of the reason that the pony side of things is kind of vague and not terribly helpful is because the human side of the equation doesn't give them much to work with. Like, when they're setting this all up, I can imagine ponies asking about relationships and whatnot and humans saying something like 'oh, relationships are only for procreation' or something stupid like that. People not thinking about what's surely going to happen, or just saying that 'it's illegal,' not even thinking that something like that is hardly going to stop a college student. I've heard that at college some people smoke dope and drink when they're under 21, even though that's against the law.
On the other hand, a lot of of college age boys aren't necessarily in it for the long term (especially in this case, since Silver's going back to Equestria at the end of her exchange program); not to mention like Peggy or Christine says (can't remember who said it) that all college boys hope that their girlfriend is casually lesbian, thus opening up the possibility of a threesome.
The funny thing is, that's based on two problems I fixed when I worked in the theatre--we had Fresnels that never put out as much light as it seemed they should, and the reason was that they had the wrong lamp in them, so the filament wasn't centered on the reflector. We also had some Berkeys that didn't focus well at all, because someone had put the lenses in the lens train backwards.
One of the advantages to being a pegasus. She really should have gotten some paint and put a message on a rooftop before she left Earth, just for the fun of doing it.
Consider how many times they've wrecked Ponyville. Besides just the rebuilding after the attacks, there would be continuing issues, especially for a less-advanced nation. Food supplies damaged, etc. And it's not like we humans are immune to this kind of thing--in the West, we generally have pretty good food security, but that's not the case everywhere.
Heck, if I waited until I was as good as actual published authors to submit a story to Fimfiction, there wouldn't be any stories of mine. Only way to get good is to practice, and of course you can have fun even if you're not the best. Plus, Peggy's not giving Silver enough credit. Maybe over the course of a year she wouldn't learn Earth's weather systems well enough to be 100% accurate in her predictions, but she'd be pretty damn close. She hasn't gotten to be a team leader back in Chonamare by being stupid when it comes to that kind of thing.
Yeah, as long as it's not positive lightning, Silver's pretty much immune to lightning strikes. Which would actually have been something for people to see . . . Silver Glow standing out on the quad, gets nailed by a direct hit, and then just shakes it off. Instant viral video if anyone happened to record it.
That's actually a minor plot element in an upcoming story; a pegasus shorts out a power line by mistake and gets blown off the pole. All the humans freak out, and the other pegasi are wondering what the big deal is.
I bet those silly unicorns cheat and use hair dryers.