Another Random Plot Idea: Rainbow Learns The Facts Of Birthing · 5:51pm Aug 6th, 2020
Thanks to Reddit, I was cursed with the knowledge of the "eponychium," (sp?) a neat little bug feature present in horses. When a foal is born, its hooves are covered in a fleshy growth to protect the mother's birth canal from getting torn up. It falls off right away so the newborn can function normally--it's basically a little extra baby-horse packaging.
The problem: that covering looks like something out of Lovecraft.
So here's the idea: Applejack and (heavily pregnant) Rainbow are in their birthing class together. Rainbow is so excited for their new foal she can barely contain herself--until the instructor explains that their hooves are going to look wierd. Rainbow is extremely grossed out, and starts rethinking this whole "childbirth" thing, despite the fact that she's about to pop. Applejack tries to calm her down, to no avail.
That's about all I have, but I feel like it could be a funny little scenario, if done right. Any thoughts?
Estee does something similar with wings and horns in Triptych. It's a plot point that Bulk Biceps' protective caul over his wings was missing, and his wings were badly damaged during birth.
Weird horse fact inspired stories are mandatory, sir.
Afterbirth too v:
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Instructor: "Now, after you give birth, you may feel the need to eat the placenta. Go ahead and do it, if you like! There's no reason not to, and might even give you a little extra protein!"
Rainbow: aggressive vomiting
(horse moms have strong instincts to eat the placenta, in order to keep predators from smelling it)
And then Dash realizes that her hooves once looked like that. Followed by her swiftly realizing that, knowing her parents, there's photographic evidence of that. And they may want to repeat the process with their granddaughter.
Goodness, this could just be one step in a traumatic conga line as Dash has to both ward off her parents and try not to turn into the next generation of parental superfan.
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Now imagine if those caps looked as horrifying as the eponychium. Now imagine how Flurry Heart would've looked fresh out of the womb.
Don't worry, I'm just as horrified as you are.
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Birthing is fucking disgusting
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Yeah. Justice3442 and I both did horse placenta stories back in 2017: The Mare You've Always Been, which is one of my grim, weird little headcanon specials, and his (much better) straight-up comedy Pumpkin Spiced What?!
Listen here now, young man (who's probably older than I am). Lovecraft was mostly about the psychological horror. Even in Pickman's Model, where the grossness of the visuals was actually relevant to the plot, it was still incidental to the existence of beings who look at us the way we look at ants... and that one of them was the proverbial kid with a magnifying glass. (Nyarlathotep, for the record.)
More relevantly, Applejack better be there because she's the father. Watch the series finale and try to tell me that anything else could be the case. (Yeah, surrogates, but being married to the mother means that changes nothing about why she's there)
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Oh alicorns, her wings were larger than Cadance's.
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In my head: this would take place after the series finale, so AJ and RD would be married, or at least together long-term. RD, eager and impatient to have a kid as awesome as she is, made use of a sperm donor. Alternately: RD is bi, and, with AJ's permission, got pregnant by a stallion (though I prefer the first option).
5330501 Darnit, now I've got two more stories to read as research for my latest chapter of Monster, where Cadence gives birth (and Sunburst gets to assist, the poor guy)
I was showing the article you linked to my mother, and her reaction to the pictures was "ooh! It looks like a flower!"
Not quite what I expected, but I suppose it goes to show that beauty's in the eye of the beholder.
I never want to eat lobster again. ._.