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Dec
28th
2024

Story Notes: The Hearth's Warming Horror · 12:02pm Dec 28th, 2024

Written for Equimorto!
Pre-read by AlwaysDressesInStyle!


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Jinglemas is an annual Secret Santa (Hooves) tradition on FimFiction, where writers submit characters/settings/themes they'd like, and then Shakespearacles does magic and then everyone gets assigned a fic to write for someone else. And it's secret, so the recipient has no idea who's writing for them or what they'll get. It's loads of fun and while you're a little late to enroll this year, there's always next year!

I suppose you all know who Cozy Glow is.

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Flitterheart is a toy-only* pony which is a shame 'cause she's adorable. Her being Cozy Heart's sister is a nod to ADIS's 16-verse.


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And I'm sure by the end you'll figure out what the Thing that Cozy fears is.


We've covered snow rollers in these blogs before, but for those of you who don't know, in the days prior to the automobile, instead of plowing snow off to the side, big rollers instead compacted it, which made a nice surface for horses to use and it was okay for people.


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There's a chance you can see one in action around Monson, Maine.


Luminiferous aether is an archaic idea for the propagation of light. At the time, it was believed that light was only a wave, and waves needed a medium to move through, yet light had been observed moving through vacuums. The idea was proposed in the late 1600s, but by the late 1800s scientists had their doubts, in part because many scientists believed light was a particle, not a wave. In 1887, the Michelson-Morley experiment was meant to measure the movement of the Earth through this aether, and the results suggested that it did not exist. Further experimentation through the 1920s proved beyond all doubt that there was no luminiferous aether and that light could travel through the vacuum of space—or any other vacuum—with no difficulty whatsoever.


An andiron is a support for logs in a fireplace. They're also called firedogs and iron-dogs, among other names. The idea is that you rest the logs on top of them, which lets air in from underneath and makes the fire burn better and I would presume also helps with the chimney draft, but I can't be sure of that (I'm not a chimney mechanic).

In the West, they were one of the first items commonly made of cast iron. The cast iron of the time wasn't very good, not good enough to use for anything structural, but it was very resistant to normal fires.

The outward--facing part of them often was decorative, sometimes with other metals (including brass, bronze, and silver if you're rich). They outlived their usefulness when fireplace grates were invented; however, they were often kept for their decorative nature. Some of them even had built-in hooks for a roasting spit, although ponies probably don't do that.

This fireplace has decorative andirons (in the front), with a more modern grate behind them.**

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Like many professions, Accounting has Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, of which there are ten. The Hobo ethics code had fifteen tenants, in case you were wanting to compare. Also different sources list them in different orders (Accounting, not Hobos).

Cozy Glow didn't make it through all ten of the Principles, but the two she did are as follows:
The Principle of Sincerity is pretty simple; accountants should be honest and accurate. This includes transparency.
The Principle of the Permanence of Methods means that the methods you use for accounting should be consistent, so that meaningful conclusions can be drawn from quarterly reports or whatever. Inventory should always be counted the same way, and you cannot substitute bricks for hard drives to cover for a massive quarterly loss.


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Noctilucent clouds are the highest ones in Earth's atmosphere, 249.000 to 279,000 feet (76-85km) up. They only form when it's really cold up there (-184F/-120C) which contradictorily really only happens in the summertime because atmospheric physics.

I'll be honest, this is certainly not the type of cloud I was picturing in my mind, but I couldn't remember what those clouds were actually called, and to be honest not only is 'noctilucent' a really cool word, the clouds are very pretty.


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Hoarfrost, also known as radiation frost or purina, is fine white ice crystals which forms on the ground or other items. It can even form on snow, and it happens on cold, clear, still nights when heat leaves the earth faster than nearby warm objects can warm things, causing those exposed objects to chill below the frost point.

This also happens sometimes in modern society with refrigeration, where exposed pipes that are much colder than the air around them will build up a layer of frost as humidity touches them. It's not uncommon on AC systems in cars, for example--and it's always amusing to see an aluminum pipe with a coat of frost in the middle of the summer in a 150 degree (65C) engine compartment.

Maybe it's not so pretty in there, but it is when it's in something lacy, like a spiderweb:

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Speaking of spiders, did you know that some kinds of spiders can live for more than 20 years? Now you do!


Outro!

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Comments ( 15 )

*I'm pretty sure she's only G4, but I forgot to check with AlwaysDressesInStyle before writing the blog.
**I checked 1428 images to find this one, in case you were curious.

Noctilucent clouds are also some of the few clouds one finds in the mesosphere. A test of the Saturn Ⅰ created Noctilucent clouds:



Saturn Ⅰ SA-3

This experiment was in the ionosphere, which is even higher than the mesosphere.

Maybe not spit roasting but, before stoves, fireplaces in Ye Olden Tymes would have a strong iron bar on which you could hang cast iron pots to cook your food, which ponies would also do.

noctilucent
noc ti lu cent
nice

It looks like Winter Wrap Up day, Yakutian snow pony style, in that last picture. :twilightsmile:

5823297

Noctilucent clouds are also some of the few clouds one finds in the mesosphere. A test of the Saturn Ⅰ created Noctilucent clouds:

I did know that, but only because I wikipediaed it as I was trying to figure out what kind of cloud I was thinking of, and then settled on noctilucent clouds 'cause they're really cool. :heart:

5823358

Maybe not spit roasting but, before stoves, fireplaces in Ye Olden Tymes would have a strong iron bar on which you could hang cast iron pots to cook your food, which ponies would also do.

Yeah, all those who hadn't upgraded to a kitchen with a stove. I don't know if that was something that would have been attached to andirons back in the day, or if it would be a separate thing--I suppose it could go either way, and there might have been options, depending on what you were trying to do (is this a fireplace where you occasionally make a big pot of chili, or is this meant to be a primary cooking fire?)

And I'm glad you mentioned that; as TheRedBrony always reminds me, Fluttershy Doesn't Have a Kitchen.

[I really should do a blog post about kitchens and cooking solutions through the ages; we've got some material in the show to work with, and it's something that not all that many authors explore.]

5823405
You're not wrong; the piece is titled "Springbringer" and I just now discovered that the Deviantart link (under the picture) has a link to music that the artist wrote which is way cool and worth checking out!

5823465

On earth, noctilucent clouds occur in summer, but on a world with whether control anything goes:

I wonder what marvels of weather exist on Equestria. One could write a fic just about clouds that pegasi can make, but are impossible on Earth.

5823468
OMG, good catch! :raritystarry: Love Bandcamp! The classical guitar reminds me of the Derpy's Journey pieces by Derpidety (which I have burned to a disk of MLP fan compositions that play regularly in my car). The artist, dr_Fade, is from Ukraine too, right by the area where relaxed modern domestic horses arose. Thanks for the heads-up!

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*I'm pretty sure she's only G4, but I forgot to check with AlwaysDressesInStyle before writing the blog.

This is 100% accurate. Also, thank you!

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On earth, noctilucent clouds occur in summer, but on a world with whether control anything goes:
I wonder what marvels of weather exist on Equestria. One could write a fic just about clouds that pegasi can make, but are impossible on Earth.

Yeah; I think that the switched cutie marks episode where Rarity makes checkerboard clouds is a good hint at what they could do if they wanted to. And building clouds like Cloudsdale and Las Pegasus are made out of. I'd imagine that there's lots of stuff that they could make if they wanted to, especially since they've got thousands of years of weather control experience, and magic to boot.

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no problem! Glad you enjoyed it, I did too, and I gotta check out some of the artist's other work. I haven't really done much more than dip my toe into the pool of MLP fan songs, and that's really my loss; practically everything I have found thus far is an absolute banger.

5823779
Huzzah, I got it right! :heart:

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