A Very Eventful Day
There were few ponies not named Apple who had seen Applejack’s morning face. The roosters were still crowing and, far away, Celestia was still snoring, when Applejack stumbled through the screen door of Sugarcube Corner and plodded up to the counter to add Pinkie Pie to their number.
“Hi, Applejack!” Pinkie said, bouncing up to the counter. “I had a counter-clockwise double-Axel tail twitch that told me you were coming! Did you come all the way from Sweet Apple Acres for one of my delicious new flugleberry-cinammon-raisin gobstoppers that I invented last night in my sleep?”
“No, Pinkie,” Applejack said.
“Well, did you come all the way from Sweet Apple Acres because you had a sudden premonition that it would rain chocolate rain today and you wanted to warn me so I could get in my swimsuit and put out an inflatable swimming pool?”
“No, Pinkie,” Applejack said.
“Hmm.” Pinkie scratched her chin. “Oooh! I know! Did you come all the way from Sweet Apple Acres to find out why your barn is upside-down?”
“Yes, Pinkie,” Applejack said.
“But Applejack, don’t you remember you said I could throw a party in your barn this afternoon?”
“Ah confess Ah did,” Applejack said. “But Ah expected the barn would stay upright at least until the party started.”
“Don’t be silly! Then all the water would run out!”
Applejack blinked.
“Pinkie. Is my barn upside-down and full of water?”
“Not yet!” Pinkie said.
Applejack blinked again. Her mind tried to cope with Pinkie at too-darn-early o’clock. Maybe that was why she said, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just take off the roof?”
Pinkie tilted her head. “Huh?”
“Ah mean, it’s a barn.” With this undeniable truth, Applejack felt her argument gain a little momentum, and decided to run with it. “It ain’t designed to be upside-down. And water’s heavy. Now, granted, you got it balanced and not collapsed right now, but are you sure it’ll stay that way when you turn the thing into a jumbo-sized elevated swimmin’ hole?”
“I’m not turning it into a swimming hole!” Pinkie leapt onto the counter and reared up, pointing a forehoof at the heavens. The rising sun shone through the front windows, painting her in golden light. “I’m turning it into the ultimate apple-bobbing experience!” She hopped back down, pulled out a bottle of disinfectant, and started wiping down the countertop, adding, “Service mark, all rights reserved, patent pending, some restrictions apply, cash value one one-hundredth of a cent.”
Applejack had a nice, long blink before shaking herself back to alertness. “Pinkie, you know how they say it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission?”
Pinkie nodded. “Uh huh.”
“They’re full o’ horseapples,” said Applejack. “Ah mean, even if you didn’t crush my barn with water weight or make it tip over, it ain’t exactly watertight. There’s a door.” She narrowed her eyes, though given their already half-lidded state, this left them nearly shut. “And where exactly were you plannin’ on gettin’ the apples for this ‘ultimate apple-bobbin’ experience’?”
“Well…” Pinkie glanced at the Corner’s kitchen. “Hey, I think the bagels just said that Mrs. Cake is done gotta go nice seeing you—“ She tried to zip off in midsentence. Instead, she bounced off of Applejack like a rubber band off of a marble column.
Pinkie blinked up at Applejack. “Whoa. Not bad. Didn’t see you move.”
Applejack helped Pinkie back to her hooves, then gave her a bleary but stern look. “Like Ah said, it’s just better to ask permission. You seem real intent on makin’ this happen, and Mac says we’re doin’ well enough that you can have the apples. Ah just don’t wanna have to raise a new barn so soon after giant migratory termites ate the last one.”
Pinkie tilted her head. “I thought you tore down the old barn because the support beams were developing dry rot.”
Applejack nodded. “Right. What did Ah say?”
“Basically the same thing.” Pinkie leaned in close. “So, favoritest maybe-cousin of mine, can I turn your barn into the,” she stabbed a forehoof skyward, “ultimate apple-bobbing experience!?”
“With help from us Apples, sure,” Applejack said with a smile.
Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “Pinkie Promise?”
Applejack yawned, chuckled, and went through the motions. “Sure. Pinkie Promise. Now, Ah know you got work, but so do Ah, and Ah need my barn back the way it’s supposed to be. How quick can you get it fixed?”
“In two shakes of a lamb’s tail!”
Applejack scowled. “Now you know how Lanolin feels about that.”
“A figurative lamb,” said Pinkie. “Or a laminated fig, though those don’t shake much.”
Applejack nodded. Made sense to her.
A few hours later, she was having second thoughts. ”Pinkie, Ah was barely awake enough to put one hoof in front o’ the others!”
“But you still Pinkie Promised!”
Applejack sighed and moved out to join Pinkie on the ranch’s front porch. “Ah know, but—“
“But nothing. You. Pinkie. Promised.” Pinkie poked a hoof into Applejack’s chest with every word. “I put the barn back right-side-up—“
Applejack quirked an eyebrow. “How’d you do that again?”
“Don’t change the subject. I put it right, and now I get to create the ultimate apple-bobbing experience with help from us Apples.” Pinkie scowled. “Or are you actually going to break this Pinkie Promise?” The earth began to shake, and Applejack felt rather than heard the next word.
WELL?
“Pinkie, Ah wanna keep that promise, but Ah don’t know if Ah can!” Applejack cried.
The tremors halted, but Pinkie still glowered at her. “Explain.”
Applejack adjusted her hat and frowned back. “First off, what the hay was that?”
Pinkie shrugged. “I know it isn’t much, but I never really got the knack for subsonics before I left home.” She resumed her scowl. “Back on topic. Explain.”
“Ah don’t know if you noticed, but Fall Finale’s in two weeks.”
Pinkie snorted and rolled her eyes. “Come on, AJ, since when have I ever forgotten a celebration?”
Applejack raised an eyebrow.
“My birthday doesn’t count. I don’t plan that party. Besides, of course I know Fall Finale is coming up. That’s the whole point of this party. I want fall to go out with a bob!”
“Well, we gotta get the farm ready for winter,” said Applejack. “That means cannin’, jammin’, wrappin’ th’ trees, makin’ sure th’ hogs’ll be warm enough… We ain’t got time to spare for this fool errand o’ yours, and we certainly can’t spare the barn either.”
“Sure we can.”
Both mares turned to see Apple Bloom, who continued, “The harvest is over. We can move the tools in the attic, and the apple cellar’s still got room in it after the last expansion. The cows may let us keep the hay in their barn, or you could just leave it out overnight. There ain’t no rain scheduled for tonight, and you can ask Fluttershy to make sure nothin’ nests in it.”
Pinkie grinned. “Apple Bloom, what are you doing to help winterize the farm?”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Not much. Helpin’ Granny with preserves, mostly.”
Pinkie and Applejack turned back to one another. Pinkie’s grin widened. “Applejack, I think we just found our chief of logistics.”
“There ain’t no ‘we’ here, Pinkie.” Applejack paused for a moment. “Well, there is, but it’s you an’ Bloom.”
Pinkie beamed and started vibrating slightly. Apple Bloom glanced at her and took a few steps back. “Uh, what’re we doin’?”
Pinkie leapt, leaving a trail of confetti. “We are turning that boring old barn into the best apple bob ever!”
“No, seriously, what’re we…” Apple Bloom trailed off. “Huh. Actually, Ah think that could work.”
Pinkie Pie and Apple Bloom stood in front of the barn, looking over a blueprint of it. Both were wearing hard hats from one of Pinkie’s emergency stockpiles. Crumpled pieces of paper surrounded the drawing board.
“How about hatches?” asked Apple Bloom. “A whole bunch of ‘em?”
Pinkie shook her head. “No, it’s no fun if you can’t see the whole apple-bobbing tub.”
“But if there ain’t some place for ponies to stand, then this is gonna be pegasus-only. Besides, where’re we gonna put the roof?”
Pinkie tapped her chin for a bit, then gasped. “I’ve got it!” She sketched out a series of lines across the roof of the blueprint.
Apple Bloom tilted her head. “So…”
Pinkie beamed. “It’ll be like a pirate ship!”
“We’ll still probably need pegasi for gettin’ other ponies in place, but after that…” Apple Bloom nodded. “Yeah, secure ‘em in the rope harnesses, hook up some pulleys, put in some kinda counterweight system, and ponies’d be able to control their altitude real simple-like.” She frowned. “But that still don’t solve the roof problem.”
Pinkie bit her lower lip. “Yeah, it doesn’t.”
“It ain’t like makin’ the place watertight. That’s just sealin’ cracks. But Ah just don’ see what to do with that thing.” Apple Bloom’s head darted up, eyes unfocused. “Unless…”
“Unless?”
Apple Bloom flipped over the blueprint and started writing out equations. “Tensile strength of materials. Cost per pound. The ol’ forge should still have somethin’ useful in it. Can the wood handle the resultin’ torque? Not normally, no, but add in the good ol’ earth pony force multiplier…” Apple Bloom turned to Pinkie, a mad gleam in her eye and on her flanks. “Hinges.”
Pinkie tilted her head. “Hinges?”
“Hinges.”
”So,” said Twilight, taking in the scene. The barn’s roof laid open like a book’s covers, and a rope lattice suspended dozens of ponies above the apple-filled building. Splashing and cheers resounded across the farmstead as the sun set, and pegasi were already positioning specially made, cloud-hung firefly lamps over the barn.
“So,” said Applejack.
“Early morning Pinkie Promise?”
Applejack sighed. “Eeyup. Almost broke one. Wouldn’t do to risk another.”
“Well, some good came of it.” Twilight nodded towards the Crusaders. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were grinning like madmares, while Apple Bloom was hopping around like a tiny yellow Pinkie Pie. On her flank was a slide rule with an apple blossom for a cursor.
Applejack couldn’t help but smile. “You think Pinkie knew that’d happen?”
Twilight shrugged her wings. “This is Pinkie Pie we’re talking about. Every time I try to make a predictive model of her behavior, it’s less accurate than guessing.”
“So you don’t know.”
Twilight turned to Applejack. “Isn’t that what I said?”
“Ah suppose it is.” Applejack sighed. “At least now those three’ll settle down some.”
“Cutie Mark Crusader Siege Engineers! YAY!”
Both mares’ eyes bugged out, and they galloped towards the fillies.
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My new head Canon is that pinkie is hunting down Liliana for breaking her pinkie promise with the demons.
Wow... my only complaint is there's no discerning between scenes. it's just blamblamblamblamblam, with absolutely no rest in between
Twilight clearly isn't thinking big enough here. If that's a reliable, reproducible effect, then all she needs to do is officially predict that Pinkie Pie will fail to solve all of the world's problems by tomorrow morning, and pow, utopia.
(A utopia with an alicorn Pinkie Pie ruling as some sort of transcendental Overprincess, yes, but c'mon, utopia.)
Whatever you do, don't let siege engineer Apple Bloom convince you to let her build a tree-bucket. You know she can't pronounce trebuchet.
5614655
It wasn't a Pinkie Promise, but an Infernal Pact.
They both have repercussions for breaking one that no mortal dare contemplate but other than that they are nothing alike.
5615051
But the problem with that is by expecting Pinkie to do the unexpected the unexpected become the expected and she'll just wind up making all of the worlds problems slightly worse some how.
Great little story FoM. If you don't mind sharing what was the prompt that, well, prompted this?
5615051 Also, a predictive model that's worse than random can be converted into one that's better than random. By taking its reciprocal distribution, horizon, Bradel? I'm not sure that the reciprocal distribution is guaranteed to be better than random.
omg somebody actually did it
5615051
5616295
You gotta do it with at least one level of experimental blinding -- convince Twilight to predict that Pinkie will fail to solve all problems, while not letting her realize the implication or doing the prediction yourself.
5616792
I dunno about formal functional analysis of predictive models, but intuitively it seems like this would work. The problem is that Twilight's models presumably produce specific, usable predictions like "Pinkie will bake 36 cupcakes", so when you invert it you get general, meaningless predictions like "Pinkie will do something other than bake 36 cupcakes", which could be singing a song or opening a door to an alternate dimension or baking 48 cupcakes. (Also there's a feedback problem in that Pinkie's unpredictableness will always react to the model actually in use in order to keep her unpredictable.)
>>FOME
earth pony skills blog post is when
5615051
The thing is, "less accurate than guessing" can still be accurate at times. It's not a guaranteed NOT operator. Also, Twilight's guesses have gotten much more accurate over the years; she doesn't realize it, but she's developing an intuitive model that works much better than any of the ones she's made through structured analysis. And really, that's the only way a working behavioral model of Pinkie Pie can be made: by being her friend.
That being said, I welcome the rule of Party Princess Pinkie Pie. (Doo dah, doo dah.)
5615140
And don't let her pour you a glass of fusillade, cannonade, colonnade...
Basically, if it sounds like a drink and isn't a potion, turn her down. Because there will be fire or angry columns or both.
5616295
The prompt's right there in the story description, Vlad.
5616792
Twilight tried that. It still didn't work. She suspects that Pinkie's behavior may be modelable only on the complex plane.
5617292
If you haven't already, I recommend reading "Negotiations" for more on my earth pony headcanon.
5616295 5616792 5617292 5617693
Submitted for your consideration: I have just gotten you to logically explain the failure of a proposal to use an illogical force to defeat common sense.
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw1564_small.jpg
Good game, gentlemares. *tips his hat; sweeps gravity, Gause's Law, and Ellsberg's Paradox off the table; and strolls away*
5618190
When you sweep gravity off of a table, in which direction does it travel?
I started writing a comment snippet and it sort of ballooned.
Very cute fun.
AJ is wandering past the sheep pen, but pauses and glances over at a specific sheep.
"Hey Lanolin."
"Yeah AJ?"
"How'd you get your name? I mean lanolin is something in your fleece right? So why'd your momma name you after the stuff?"
"Oh hello Applejack dear, what brings you by? Lanny dear are you being a good boy?"
"Yess mooom. AJ just wanted to know why you named me Lanolin."
"Oh goodness yes! Well, it's a very funny story, you see-"
"Oh my gosh Mom! I can't believe you're doing this! I'm not a lamb anymore. I'm almost a full grown ram."
"Lanolin Loaghton Gansey! How dare you be so rude in front of Misses Applejack! You need to apologize right now or I will give you such a butting."
"sigh I'm sorry AJ. I know better and I should behave myself."
"Aww shoot Lanolin, it's not a trouble. I know Apple Bloom sometimes gets a mite touchy about things too."
"There's my good boy. Why don't you run along and we'll chat. I'm sure I saw Tsigai and Polypay over by the far side of the paddock."
"Thanks mom. See ya AJ."
"Children are so particular sometimes. One minute they're still stumbling around all knock-kneed and the next minute their horns are budding and they don't have any time for you."
"You raised a good one Misses Gansey. Don't worry about that."
"Oh, thank you Applejack dear. You always say the nicest things. Now, did Lanny say you had a question about his name?"
"Oh shoot, yeah I did. I was wondering why you named him like you did. Just a distinct name y'know?"
"Goodness yes. Well, I don't have to tell you my mother was very perturbed when I didn't decide to name him after my late father. Of course my father was a champion sheep and changed his name to his show name. He decided being Mr Afrare, wasn't good enough and he had to become Suffolk's Seven By Obvious. Hmph. As if he needed more ego boosting..."
"Uh, Missus Gansey?"
"Oh yes! I'm sorry dear, I just get sort of distracted at times. Anyways. When Lanoline was born, he had the sweetest softest little curly coat you ever saw on a lamb. The midwife said if you squeezed him like a sponge you would be able to see the lanolin oozing out of him. So we decided that had to be his name. He's a bit sensitive about it."
5618251
The direction that gravity falls is "in love."
And let me tell you, a marriage proposal from gravity is a very weighty decision.
5618720
Are you interested in this being added to "Never The Final Word"?
Oooh, a commentfic!
5617693
Well, I wasn't sure if it was the title or not. Just wanted to be sure.
5618190
Hum, well played.
Though I'm not a mare, gentle or otherwise.
Excellent use of that prompt.
Yay! Apple Bloom got her cutie mark!
5618958 Bwa? Do you really think it's good enough? I mean, sure, if you think it'd be of value i guess >.<;
5621483
I, and the upvotes, say yes. It's not a complete story per se, but not all of the ones I've posted are -- I just care that they have something cool to offer.
Drop me a PM and we can chat about things like your commentfic's title!
I write a review of this story. It can be found here.
Cute. Not "favorite" level cute, but cute.
Yay story!
5825935
Fixed. Two "to"s is too many.
Awesome. Really awesome.
Rogal Dorn and Perturabo have potential rivals. Quickly, get the CMC a regicide board and a regicide grand master!
This. Is. Genius. And very well written!
When you read the prompt by Bad Horse did a bunch of people pop up and sing along?
What's the song?!
Another very cute and funny one-shot from you, with an actually plausible scenario for Apple Bloom getting her cutie mark to boot. My favorite scenes however would have to be any with AJ and Pinkie interacting; some of my favorite bits with Pinkie in the show are when she's bouncing off of straight-man characters, and they don't get much more straight-man in MLP than AJ (which also explains why Pinkie's driving Twilight nuts is also so much fun to watch). Very good stuff, and thank you again for yet another enjoyable read!
There's a little part of me that wants to see this go down a little differently:
Well. I do believe Captain Jack Sparrow said it best... D:
media1.giphy.com/media/es2TEjChRtspW/200_s.gif
The recent airing of 'Crusaders of the Lost Mark' makes this story a little humorous.
6626234
Yeah. Though the same could be said of any story where one or more Crusaders get their cutie marks.
I had been calling it Winter Start-Up in my head, but Fall Finale sounds so much better.
Anyway, this was a fun little story. It seems Applejack has a bad track record with Pinkie Promises.
Moar headcannon! (Where do you get these ideas?)
7108903 A large gun somewhere in the back of his mind...
And like that I like this story.
And like that I love this story.
And like that I'm favoriting this story.
Tuesday already?
Given where they live, it pretty much is.
Yeah AJ. Geez, if you can't figure it out by now explaining will do no good. You just need to learn these things on your own.
Being possessed by Him from Power Puff Girls.
Cutie Marks or not, Ponyville's insurance premiums will never be safe!
And like that I like this story.
And like that I love this story.
And like that I'm favoriting this story.
Tuesday already?
Given where they live, it pretty much is.
Yeah AJ. Geez, if you can't figure it out by now explaining will do no good. You just need to learn these things on your own.
Being possessed by Him from Power Puff Girls.
Cutie Marks or not, Ponyville's insurance premiums will never be safe!
8114018
In all honesty, I should note that everything up to "'Not yet!' Pinkie said." was Bad Horse's prompt, written by him and presented to all comers as an opening for which they could provide a story. Still I'm glad you enjoyed what I attached to it on top of the beginning itself.