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Rambling Writer


Our job is not to give readers what they want; our job is to show them things they never imagined. --Walt Williams

E

After losing her last baby tooth, a young Twilight learns something about dragons from her new adopted brother: apparently, they never stop losing teeth. Naturally, Twilight and Spike decide to milk the Tooth Breezie for all she's worth. After all, the Tooth Breezie never seems to run out of bits while she can never get enough teeth, while Spike can't run out of teeth but can never get enough bits. Win-win. It's a great idea.

So why does Mom look nervous all of a sudden?

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 30 )

Omg yes!!!!! This was really cute xD great execution btw :)

“You don’t understand!” Velvet said as she paced back and forth. “Thanks to her experiments with her teeth, the Tooth Breezie solidified Twilight’s trust in the scientific method! If Spike doesn’t get his bits, her faith in it will be shattered! If her faith in the scientific method is shattered, she won’t know basic experimental rigor! If she doesn’t know basic experimental rigor, she won’t do well in school! If she doesn’t do well in school, her brilliant mind will go unused! If her brilliant mind goes unused, she won’t fulfill the destiny Celestia thinks she has! If she doesn’t fulfill the destiny Celestia thinks she has, someday a cataclysmic problem will come up that she can’t fix! If someday a cataclysmic problem comes up that she can’t fix, Equestria will be destroyed!” She loomed over Night Light, pushed his paper down, and whisper-screamed, “I don’t want Equestria to be destroyed! She’s got to keep believing in the Tooth Breezie!”

Night Light raised an eyebrow. “I reeeally hope she didn’t inherit your neuroticism.” He pulled the paper back up.

The exact moment I favorited this.

:moustache:Don't let Rarity know, But this story is really cute.
:duck:Like I wouldn't know
:facehoof: I'm shattered!

Yes. All of my yes.

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The terrifying thing is that Velvet was right.

Why not just tell Spike that dragon teeth aren't worth as much because there's so much of them? Seems like a much simpler solution to me.

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Even at a reduced price, Spike could eventually save up enough teeth to earn quite a significant chunk of cash. Probably for the best that they nip that in the bud before it takes root.

Come on, Velvet, it'd've been 12 bits a month. Two bits buys one cherry. I think you'll be all right.

7983484 Hey man, those cherries are expensive.

Great story!
I enjoyed reading it.

The explanation at the end was a very interesting idea.
Stupid older dragons!

:moustache:: "But just why does a baby-dragon already have chores?"

“Negative numbers are awesome, by the way! They’re less than zero!

Okay. That is adorable. :twilightsmile:

Night Light raised an eyebrow. “I reeeally hope she didn’t inherit your neuroticism.”

Oh, she did, Night Light. She did. :pinkiecrazy:

Already, Spike thought inflation was a stupid idea. Why couldn’t you just keep one bit at the value of one bit? Then you could smelt lots and lots of bits, give them away, and everybody would be rich! That would be awesome.

In total agreement Spike, but unfortunately economics doesn't work that way. Also, Night Light's onto something with that explanation. Assuming the tooth-breezy really did exist, and she gave bits in exchange for teeth to dragons too, I could see an inflation issue arising in time, assuming enough dragons participated continuously...and all played an active part in the Equestrian market rather than going off to do their own thing.

...but then again, I nearly flunked Economics in high school, so...maybe I'm not the best person to be talking about this. :rainbowlaugh:

Anyway, an amusing and adorable story. Definitely faving. :pinkiehappy:

Set

Wait, he Tooth breezie isn't real?! :pinkiegasp:
MY LIFE HAS BEEN A LIE! :raritydespair:

cute story, though i have thoughts on other ways it could go ( note left saying that since dragons replace their teeth all the time, she doesn't accept them, but suggests to them to try arts and crafts with the teeth and sell them. skip to a few days later the two are raking in more bits from dragon tooth necklaces sold via auction then her parents make in a month combined heh heh)

The setup here is just golden :scootangel:

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I could see an inflation issue arising in time, assuming enough dragons participated continuously...and all played an active part in the Equestrian market rather than going off to do their own thing.

Now that's the rub, isn't it? So far Spike is the only known dragon to take part in Equestria's economy, and 12 or even 24 bits a month isn't likely to put much of a dent in it.

If I were Twilight and knew dragons pretty much hoard everything they get and sit on all of it greedily, I'd bring up that giving dragons bits would be akin to printing money and turning around and immediately tossing it into a volcano.

I suppose after thousands of years, somepony would stumble onto a deceased dragon's hoard, but by then the economy would have inflated on its own and it wouldn’t cause as much of an impact when all those bits turned up in circulation again.

This is an ingenious answer. Even if Twilight did look up inflation in the encyclopedia (magic encyclopedias are infinitely dense -- probably) she would be dissuaded from pursuing the topic further, as it seems like a logical answer.

Assuming that dragons lose 12 teeth over the course of a month, in ten years that would be 1440 teeth and 2880 bits. Since there's no real total sum of money in the economy, I guess we can estimate using the apple theory -- with cities like Manehattan and all the other cities on the map of Equestria, then there's probably a few billion bits that it took to make everything. So even if a few thousand dragons were in the economy (+3 million bits ), then inflation would rise by a couple percent, which is noticeable, but negligible. The only real problem would be if there were many, tens of thousands of dragons -- assuming the tooth v bit ratio stayed the same, since there is such a large pool of teeth, then it would stand to reason that the total pool of money the breezy fairy currently distributes out would basically even out over all the dragon teeth -- which would make them effectively worthless with that many teeth available, so the inflation rate of teeth would say the same, and be calculated into the inflation rate normally.

I just love this explanation -- 'Inflation' :rainbowlaugh:

“You don’t understand!” Velvet said as she paced back and forth. “Thanks to her experiments with her teeth, the Tooth Breezie solidified Twilight’s trust in the scientific method! If Spike doesn’t get his bits, her faith in it will be shattered! If her faith in the scientific method is shattered, she won’t know basic experimental rigor! If she doesn’t know basic experimental rigor, she won’t do well in school! If she doesn’t do well in school, her brilliant mind will go unused! If her brilliant mind goes unused, she won’t fulfill the destiny Celestia thinks she has! If she doesn’t fulfill the destiny Celestia thinks she has, someday a cataclysmic problem will come up that she can’t fix! If someday a cataclysmic problem comes up that she can’t fix, Equestria will be destroyed!” She loomed over Night Light, pushed his paper down, and whisper-screamed, “I don’t want Equestria to be destroyed! She’s got to keep believing in the Tooth Breezie!”
Night Light raised an eyebrow. “I reeeally hope she didn’t inherit your neuroticism.” He pulled the paper back up.

That explains SO much.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Thoroughly marvelous. :D I particularly like how you showed that Dad wasn't the one who wrote the note...

This entire story is a pack of lies! Lies to children no less!

Loved it.

I half expected the Tooth Breezie to be real in Equestria and give the economic spiel.

I'd say that the tooth breezies simply have a $50 limit per person, so you don't get more than that. Cause they get money at person's birth, and that only happens once.

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That's pretty much what Night Light told him...your explanation is a heavily condensed version of his.

Bucking brilliant. I loved this. I don't mind Velvet and Night Light as Spike's parents but I'm more for Celestia myself. Still amazing story non the less.

That's one of the most adorable things I've read on this site. Also, the parents both fielded it reasonably well. As far as this paragraph, though...

“You don’t understand!” Velvet said as she paced back and forth. “Thanks to her experiments with her teeth, the Tooth Breezie solidified Twilight’s trust in the scientific method! If Spike doesn’t get his bits, her faith in it will be shattered! If her faith in the scientific method is shattered, she won’t know basic experimental rigor! If she doesn’t know basic experimental rigor, she won’t do well in school! If she doesn’t do well in school, her brilliant mind will go unused! If her brilliant mind goes unused, she won’t fulfill the destiny Celestia thinks she has! If she doesn’t fulfill the destiny Celestia thinks she has, someday a cataclysmic problem will come up that she can’t fix! If someday a cataclysmic problem comes up that she can’t fix, Equestria will be destroyed!” She loomed over Night Light, pushed his paper down, and whisper-screamed, “ I don’t want Equestria to be destroyed! She’s got to keep believing in the Tooth Breezie! ”

... what amused me about it is that Twilight Velvet probably isn't wrong.

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Night Light raised an eyebrow. “I reeeally hope she didn’t inherit your neuroticism.”

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A vain hope, ultimately.

Fun story. Loving Velvet's neuroticism.

So, um, does Twi still believe in the tooth breezie?

Hey there! I know I'm way behind the curve here, but I had to leave my thoughts on this amazing little slice of life from the Light household.

First off, the obvious: This is friggin' adorable. I always enjoy seeing filly Twilight using her already keen scientific mind to analyze things that we would see as silly, but are deathly serious to a child, like Santa Claus, or in this case, the Tooth Fairy Breezie. Also, having Spike call Velvet and Night "mom and dad" was just pure saccharine sweet. A favorite head canon of mine, and actually what brought me to this story—i searched for stories tagged with Spike and Night Light. The only thing about him that gave me pause was the fact that he was not just talking, but keeping up with Twilight and the adults... even though he's one year old, as you said Twi had been at the school for a year and he hatched when she got accepted. I would have either aged him up a bit or lowered his cognitive abilities.

The biggest takeaway from this story is Twilight Velvet and Night Light. Before Once Upon A Zeppelin, we had no idea who they were or what they were like. Now while I do enjoy Velvet being the thrill seeker, they way you had her made a ton of sense, too. Showing where Twilight got her freak outs from was hilarious, as what she does here it a pitch perfect bout of "Twilighting." What was also a joy was Night Light being just completely done with it. Well, maybe not "done." It's more that this far into their marriage, he knows that when she gets like this, nothing he can do will calm her down, and in fact it just might make it worse. All he can do is weather the storm. And this also perfectly fits with how we saw him in the show, as the laid back guy who likes to enjoy a quiet game of bingo, while also supporting his wife going over a waterfall in a barrel.

The only thing I kinda didn't like was how flustered he was when Spike confronted him. I don't know, I just thought it would have been more in keeping with his character in this if he had a highly detailed, ironclad excuse in the pocket. Like have it go exactly as it does, with him able to counter every one of Spike's questions, just have him calm and nonchalantly doing the dishes. Eh, just a personal preference.

All in all, this was a joy to read. Showing the Light family as I call them interacting with each other, especially with Spike as a full family member, is something I adore. Great job, my dude! :twilightsmile:

And thus was Twilight Sparkle set upon her path to become an Alicorn Princess. Some call it fate, while others say it was dentistry... Um, we mean destiny. Really.

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