Friendship is Drama

by HipsterShiningArmor

V: Life in Ponyville

Before leaving Canterlot, Princess Celestia did give one major task to the girls, and it was a similar one to what she gave to Twilight two years prior: write to her. Unlike Twilight's lessons, they didn't necessarily have to be about friendship. They could be about anything, really (within reason of course, I don't think Celestia particularly cared about hearing what the girls had for lunch, or about how many toilets they've clogged since their arrival.)

And she suspected they would need to write a lot. Even if they were given a warm welcome by absolutely everypony in town, which wasn't likely to happen, there was still a plethora of things they'd have to get used to. The clothes thing was going to be a problem. Celestia had asked Rarity to make clothes for each of the girls (with the proper remuneration, of course,) but Rarity's scheduling was often inconsistent due to the fact that she often got priority offers which couldn't really be ignored or postponed to a later date. Add in the fact that the human clothes were more difficult to make because Rarity was using measurements so unlike anything she'd ever used before, and also the fact that every girl had her own distinct style and Rarity, artist that she was, didn't want to make all of their designs perfectly uniform; and it was hardly surprising that the girls were unfortunately stuck with a limited wardrobe during their earlier days in Ponyville. And while Rarity thought that it was awful to make someone wear the same two pairs of clothes over and over again, especially in a culture where clothes were considered a necessity and not just a status symbol as they were in Equestria, but business was business and there was only so much Rarity could (and/or was willing) to do.

The diet was also another point of contention for the girls. Meat, while not outright banned in Equestria, was difficult, expensive, and annoying to purchase. The folks who sold meat had ridiculously high prices and were often rather shady, sometimes to the point where you didn't even know what kind of meat that really was. You think you just bought a tuna fish (one of the few species it was perfectly legal to kill and eat in Equestria,) and it turns out you just ate zebra meat (which is unquestionably banned and has been since the days of Princess Platinum.) This meant that the girls basically had to stick to a vegetarian diet. Now, this wasn't at all problem for Bridgette, who was used to an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, or for Lindsay, who generally tended towards the "I'm not gonna eat anything anyways," side of the spectrum, but the other girls weren't so happy. In particular, it was a rather large dilemma for Izzy, who's diet consisted of about 95% meat products.When she learned that she would most likely have to stick to greens for the rest of her days in this place, she went a little nuts and quickly promised that she would get her meat, even if it meant killing a timber wolf. Unfortunately...

"Izzy, I hate to break it to you, but the timber wolves I've seen here in Equestria are made of actual timber." Heather said, "So, unless you want to eat wood-"

*snicker*

"Oh shut up. So, unless you want to consume logs to get your fill, you should probably just stick to the veggies."

Courtney had, at one point in her life, a set schedule about what she was going to eat day-to-day in order to get the nutrients she needed, but once she arrived on Camp Wawanakwa and saw the food they were serving there, she quickly realized that kind of schedule was useless and tossed it. And that was another thing: it didn't matter what they ate, it would always be better than the inedible piles of shit they received that Chef Hatchet called food.

If clothing and diet were the only issues that would have been bearable, but in actuality they were just the tip of the iceberg. There was the whole culture shock thing that hadn't worn off; Equestria was a vastly different world than any place on Earth, and not just because it was populated mostly by equines. The customs were different, the slang was different, the education was different... basically, this isn't the kind of stuff you can adjust to overnight.

And then, of course, there were the housemates.

As you can imagine, our pony heroines weren't overly thrilled with having to share their living quarters and their money with a bunch of people who essentially amounted to little more than house guests. The latter wasn't too much of a problem for Twilight, Rarity and Applejack, who all had a considerable amount of income to their name. Pinkie Pie had basically no money, but most of Gwen's expenses were handled by Carrot and Cup Cake, so that again wasn't too much of a problem. But Fluttershy was already struggling. Her only real job was to take care of animals, and since she wasn't a veterinarian, that didn't exactly pay a ton (hell, even if she was a vet, she still wouldn't be making GP money, although certainly more than she currently had.) Basically, paying for another fully sapient being that couldn't pull its own weight wasn't something the adorable yellow pegasus was particularly keen on, although as usual she mostly kept that to herself.

And we still haven't gotten to what the actual pairings were. Twilight could only assume that the pairing choices were Celestia's lame attempt at trolling because, if she wasn't, then why on Earth would she even consider sticking Lindsay in her house?

While Twilight had previously retracted her statement about Lindsay, and by extension the human race in general, being unfathomably moronic, she quickly realized her initial sentiments about the former weren't particularly off the mark. Because Lindsay was aggressively stupid.

When Lindsay had gone rummaging through Twilight's bookshelf earlier, the alicorn mistakenly assumed that this meant she had an interest in books. In actuality, she only had an interest in one book. She had a much larger interest in phones and computers, but of course, those didn't exist in Equestria. And when Twilight brought up other potential topics, she didn't fare any better.

Not surprising, she had absolutely no knowledge of magic. As far as Twilight understood, magic, or at the very least, the way it's used in Equestria, didn't exist on Earth. What was much more disappointing was her lack of knowledge in politics. Twilight thought it would be interesting to try and pick up the conversation she had with Gwen and try and come to a better understanding of what Terrestrial politics were actually like, but Lindsay's knowledge of political matters mostly consisted of what she learned from Disney movies. Well, that, and apparently this "Bush" guy is, like, the worst thing ever.

For a while it seemed like Lindsay may have had an interest in fashion. Twilight didn't share that particular interest, but it was at the very least something to talk about (and something that would definitely interest Rarity.) However, as Twilight began to delve further into the cesspool that was Lindsay's mind, she began to notice that it wasn't so much "the art of the dress" (as Rarity would put it,) that peaked the blonde's attention, it was more about finding whatever was popular and making sure she had that. Granted, Lindsay would never come right out and say that she only cared about popular shit, but she did heavily imply it. Whenever she would describe a brand she liked, she would always talk about her friends finding out about it, or how they looked in it, or something along those lines. Also, a lot of the brands she mentioned seemed to trigger Rarity's gag reflex, although this had less to do with the trendiness or lack thereof of said brands and more to do with the fact that she thought they were ugly/poorly made/whatever. Thankfully, Rarity wasn't around very often or else she might be forced to clean up puke from Twilight's floor. And we all know how much Rarity would love that.

Oh, and for those wondering, this was basically Lindsay's Modus operandi when it came to music as well, which rendered that topic obsolete as well. So, what topic was Lindsay particularly well-versed in?

Boys.

Yeah, romance wasn't exactly Twilight's strong suit. As a matter of fact, she had never even really been in a serious, long-term relationship (she had a bunch of flirty moments with random stallions and even the occasional date, but no stallion could ever legitimately be considered a part of her life.) In fact, if not for three minutes of complete terror with a stallion she never spoke to again at her eighteenth birthday party, she would still be a virgin. But it wasn't as though she hated males either, so she couldn't approach the topic with that angle the way that Bon Bon could. It simply wasn't a very large part of her life. And with Lindsay, it was virtually the central focus of her life.

Sometimes she would talk about how great this "Tyler" dude was, how she felt like putty in his arms and how impossibly difficult life was for her without him there. Twilight didn't have much to say to this, so her response was generally 'uh-huh.' Other times, it would be about her crazy, drunken escapades at house parties and the pros and cons of "spitting" as opposed to "swallowing." Again, Twilight didn't have much to say, so she mostly smiled and nodded.

Lindsay also talked about Twilight's butt on more than one occasion. She wasn't touching that one with a 10 foot pole.

Twilight Sparkle's problem summed up was this: while she didn't particularly mind having another being living in her house, even if it did put her #1 assisted into a hormonal trance, she just wished she had something in common with this woman, something that both of them could talk about. She did want to like Lindsay, at least on some level, but they apparently shared absolutely no interests. Which meant that making friends with her, even if it was feasible (which Twilight had her doubts about,) didn't seem like it was worth the effort.

Oh yeah, and that one book that Lindsay was seemingly interested in? Well...

"The Catcher in the Rye!?" Twilight exclaimed.

"Yeah," Lindsay said, "It's incredibly deep, don't you think?"

"It's not deep," Twilight said, "It's about a spoiled, whiny little brat and his misadventures after getting kicked out of school."

"But you can really feel Holden's struggle when you read it," Lindsay said, "It makes him very reliable."

"I think you mean relatable," Twilight contradicted, "And no, it doesn't, it just makes him annoying. Spike, tell Lindsay that The Catcher in the Rye is a terrible book."

"Spike, tell Twilight that The Catcher in the Rye is awesome."

"The Catcher in the Rye is awesome," Spike said quickly.

Spike had said in the past that he didn't like that book either, but Twilight knew exactly what Spike was doing here, so protesting would be pointless. Instead, she just gave him a dirty look and stormed off to her room.

Needless to say, she was frustrated with her new housemate.

**********

Pinkie Pie was absolutely enthralled with her new housemate, but then again, Pinkie Pie was enthralled with everything. The Cake foals absolutely loved Gwen as well, and Mr and Mrs Cake found her pretty tolerable, if a little bit dreary. So it appeared as if Gwen wasn't alienating her hosts the way Lindsay potentially was. The only real problem was she had begun to notice Mr Cake looking at her in increasingly uncomfortable ways. However, her general policy was "look but don't touch" so since he hadn't made a move on her there wasn't really anything she could do.

As for her new job? Well, Gwen wasn't really that big on cooking, but she was a quick learner, and having a pair of hands really helped the Cakes make their orders faster. Also, after what she had to put up with from Chef, being around real, good food, even if it was unhealthy, was a practically a dream come true for Gwen at this point. Yeah, she got some dirty looks and questionable (and occasionally, even hostile) comments from some of the ponies, but nothing they said could possible be worse than what Gwen had to put up with in middle school. So no, working at Sugarcube Corner wasn't her biggest problem either.

No, Gwen's biggest problem was definitely Pinkie.

Now, it wouldn't be fair to say that Gwen hated Pinkie. She was funny... in small doses. Her seemingly reality defying quirks were amusing... until they got annoying. She could be intelligent and articulate... when she wanted to, which was rarely.

You're beginning to see the problem, right?

As a rule of thumb, Gwen could generally only enjoy Pinkie's antics when she was already in a good mood, and even then she had a pretty low threshold. When she was pissed off though, and she often was (getting dumped off in another universe will do that,) Pinkie being Pinkie really didn't help things, in fact, they often made them worse. Gwen did realize that some of these things were simply her reaction towards the pink mare, and it was hard to tell Pinkie she was doing something wrong when everyone in town seemed to like her, but there was plenty of things about Pinkie that pissed Gwen off to no end.

First of all: she never gave Gwen space. Whenever you're stuck living in the same room as someone else, things are going to get a little crowded at times, but Pinkie took that to a whole new level. At every opportunity she could get, she tried to talk to Gwen. Usually it wasn't about anything either, she was just trying to make some kind of small talk. Except when it came to Pinkie Pie, there was no small talk. Everything had to be extremely loud and extremely fast. And when she asked Pinkie to give her space, she would. For about 30 minutes. Maybe a few hours if she was lucky. But sooner or later, she would be back to incessantly talking to Gwen about any little thing she could think of.

The only time Gwen really got any real measure of space was when Pinkie was out hanging with her friends. Needless to say, Gwen encouraged this, as it gave her more time to draw, write poetry, and generally just do stuff that doesn't involve Pinkie Pie. That was by far her favourite time of the day, as Gwen had always valued her space, and no other pony would bother her (all the other ones were either scared of her, disliked her, or simply saw no reason to waste their time with her.)

Another major thing that drove Gwen absolutely up the fucking wall was just how incessantly cheery she was. It was pretty much the same thing that bothered her about Geoff, except instead of laid back and stupid, she was hyperactive and crazy. With most people, you could generally get a sense of how they were feeling. Whether they were in a good mood, a bad mood, a 'meh' mood, or an 'oh my god if you fucking talk to me I will rip your throat out' mood, etc. Pinkie's constant happiness, to Gwen, just wasn't natural.

And then, as the piece de resistance of annoying, there were her parties. When Gwen heard that Pinkie was more or less a professional party thrower, she was actually pretty intrigued. While Gwen never really cared for the typical high school party, but if this girl was a pro, she had to be able to make a party actually feel like a party, right?

Apparently not. Pinkie Pie's parties were odd to say the least; basically they were some unholy fusion of a 9 year old's birthday party and a bachelorette jam. The party games often felt like something straight out of a "how to throw your son/daughter a birthday party" book, but there was at least enough alcohol to go around which made it a little more bearable (it mostly came in the form of a punch which Pinkie wouldn't give out the recipe for, everything else was BYOB.) None of the girls aside from Gwen and Bridgette even bothered showing up to any of Pinkie's parties, and the two human girls mostly just chilled out in a corner, drank and talked, both with each other and occasionally with the ponies.

So, long story short, Pinkie Pie was annoying. One particularly bad encounter left her gnashing her teeth in agony as she trepidatiously made her way to her "room," where she decided she had enough.

Dear journal, Gwen pulled out the little noteboook given to her by the princess.

I hate Pinkie Pie. She never shuts up. She never gives me space. Her happiness is grating as all hell. The fact that Celestia stuck me here must be some kind of cruel joke on her bitch-ass part. I hate Equestria in general. Everyone here needs too-

Gwen heard a knock on the door as she was writing. Fearing the worst, Gwen cautiously opened the door. She did see Pinkie, but this time she was holding a cake in one of her hooves.

"Hi, Gwen," Pinkie said, "I thought you looked kind of upset, so I made a cake to help cheer you up."

Gwen smiled a little out of the corners of her mouth, but said nothing.

"I know I can be a little hyperactive sometimes," Pinkie said, "I'm sorry if it really bothers you, I know I'm not trying to, it's just I'm so excited over meeting a new friend, who's a member of a different species from a different culture, and having a roommate now as well, so I sometimes get carried away. I hope you don't hate me now... please tell me you don't hate me, I don't want you to hate me."

Gwen smiled a little more, "I don't hate you Pinkie. I just need a little space to myself. I-"

"I know you've said that a lot before," Pinkie sighed, "I'm not trying to hurt you, I just-"

"Pinkie, it's alright," Gwen said to calm the pink mare down, "Just for now, give me some time alone, alright?"

"Okie dokie lokie," Pinkie said happily, "See you later, hope you enjoy your cake!" She slammed the door on the way out, leaving Gwen to once again collect her thoughts.

Okay, I guess she isn't so bad after all, Gwen wrote in her journal, yeah she can be frustrating, but no one can say she doesn't try her hardest. And, in a strange, fucked up sort of way, I'm glad she's here.

************

Courtney liked to live her life on a schedule. This fact is not exactly a revelation. What is also not a revelation is the fact that being thrown into an alternate universe will throw any semblance of schedule and routine instantly out of whack. However, Courtney still attempted to maintain her schedule... but a large part of the problem was filling that time up with things to do.

Back on Earth, Courtney was one of those people that always had to be doing something. But here in Equestria, there really wasn't that much for her to do. She could help out Fluttershy with her job, perhaps write a little... and then virtually nothing else except wonder around aimlessly. So, she quickly began taking every position she could possibly find. She'd help out at the elementary school, work as an intern for Mayor Mare, perhaps open up a business... basically do anything she possibly could to distract herself. She was looking to take a few courses, maybe on something she hadn't really thought of before, but schooling only went up to 15 at maximum in Equestria; with the age of adulthood being 16, ponies were expected to have a job or an apprenticeship by then. Courtney was 18, long past school age (and there seemingly weren't any colleges or universities around,) so school was a no-go.

Fluttershy would attempt to support Courtney, but she had some problems of her own. Courtney's obsession with order meant that she ended up dictating a lot of things to Fluttershy, making her feel like she was no longer the master of her own domain. This included things like what to eat, when to sleep, what and when to feed the animals, etc. While Courtney couldn't actually force Fluttershy to do any of this, she performed these tasks in such a way that it made it difficult for Fluttershy to go against what she was doing, especially because, well, this was Fluttershy we were dealing with her. Thankfully, due to Courtney's numerous activities, she wasn't around too often, so Shy was only oppressed some of the time.

Rarity was having a similar problem. Like Courtney, Izzy was out of the house a lot, although unlike Courtney no one had a goddamn clue what she was doing (could be anything from fighting wild boars to poking innocent bystanders with sticks.) But when she was around, she made sure her presence was known. She had Pinkie Pie syndrome where she was constantly hyperactive, but she lacked the sugar high happiness that was Pinkie's definition character trait. Instead, her insanity was mostly accented with, well, more insanity.

Thankfully she hadn't tried to ride Rarity around since their first encounter, but on numerous occasions she had screwed with Rarity's designs, tracked dirt and other uncouth objects all around her house, taught Sweetie Belle the most crude and offensive jokes she knew, "kidnapped" other ponies (and tried to play it off by saying they were "just horsing around",) and a boatload of other things that really should have gotten her thrown in the slammer. Rarity legitimately wasn't sure if she was trying to be an awe-inspiring asshole or if she just had a screw loose, but either way it was really getting on the fashionista's nerves.

Unlike Fluttershy, Rarity had the balls (figuratively!) to call her out on her bullshit, but unlike Courtney, who wasn't trying to hurt anyone, she just had a lot of other things much higher on her priorities list, Izzy legitimately didn't seem to care whether she offended anyone. She had considered kicking her out, and actually did a few times, although she always let her back in eventually. There were; however, three reasons why Rarity didn't kick Izzy out permanently: Sweetie Belle seemed to really like her (even if Rarity did consider the ginger to be a bad influence,) Celestia apparently wanted her to stay there, and as much as she despised having Izzy around, she wouldn't want to wish her on anypony else either. However, Rarity saw no way fathomable in which she and Izzy could ever strike up a friendship, and she began asking the rest of the Mane 6 if they were willing to trade.

So, to recap, four houses, four considerable conflicts brewing. Admittedly with different degrees of seriousness and severity, but there was still a lot of drama going on here which didn't previously exist in Equestria.

None of these conflicts; however, could even come close to the absolute bloodbath that was going on at Sweet Apple Acres.

Author's Note:

Another chapter out of the way. Next chapter we get to see Applejack and her family take on two humans (Bridgette and Heather,) and... I'm just going to say up front that it's not going to be pretty. It will; however, be entertaining. So fasten your seat belts.

Comments

[SuperPinkBrony12]

Ooh I sense some bad blood between Bridgette and Heather.

And of course Izzy poking bystanders with sticks? Is it wrong that I could totally picture her doing that and enjoying it for no reason?