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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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From little rolls "to" selections of fruits and cheeses.
Shei is her "niece."
Also, I suspect that you can drop the "s" after the apostrophe when she refers to Silver.
6189733 Typos do not have an invitation to this dinner!
I am getting a defiant feeling that Jawa & Wajdi know about the little bobble around silver's pride.
and I think they have the knowledge of ware the second part of it is at.
given the choice Bottom will be with Silver for life be it a long happy one or till his life is ended some how.
Harts Fire
That old fart Oman... He just seems to annoy me with his perceived superiority. Seems so full of himself.
Hmmm....
6192278 Hmm?
6189777 This chapter was laudable simply for how much it's clearly trying to accomplish. Moreover, it handled several topics quite adroitly, marking what I hope will be a continued upswing with how things are proceeding.
The first issue was Bottom. Her conversation with Silver pointed out quite thoroughly that she's far more comfortable with what's happened than he is, which underlines what I feel is the most salient point: no one else has the right to tell Bottom what makes her happy. Yes, she's been subject to awful abuse for a really long time, and yes, that makes her state of mind suspect, at least in several regards. But at the end of the day, she's the one who gets to define what she wants out of life; the moral duty of the people who care about her is simply to help her achieve them (within reasonable limits).
In this case, she's decided that what makes her happy is being closer to Silver, and that she's comfortable with making this particular sacrifice (e.g. her maleness) in order to achieve that...and make no mistake, she has achieved that. The fact that she's having so much sex with him now, whereas it was all she could do to go down on him before, shows that quite clearly. At this point, the one with more pathos over the entire thing is Silver; it's a question of him making peace with what's happened, now...given that there's no indication that Bottom is anything less than completely happy, I'd say Silver should give himself a pass on this issue.
Moving on, before anything else I just want to note how little we got of Bright Eyes in this chapter. What's up with that? She didn't even introduce herself when the king was asking everyone's names at the banquet. Moreover, the story didn't remark on that at all. It's like everyone forgot that she was there! When the quiet, submissive mare draws more attention to herself than the bitchy ex-pirate, something's gone wrong.
But now we return to the politics, and I have to say that I enjoyed this quite a bit. We're finally getting to the international relationships that Silver should be dealing with at his level! Specifically, Saddle Arabia wants to expand trade to Zebrica, and the Anubians are in the way.
Before going any further, I want to mention that my analysis is somewhat hampered by the lack of a clear idea of how the geography here works, which is an important factor in quite a bit of analysis regarding these issues. If we presume that these nations mirror their Earth counterparts (and based on what few hints the story has given us so far), then trading with these nations means that Saddle Arabia's western border is the local version of the Red Sea. Since we've been told that the Anubians are south of Anugypt, then it sounds to me like they're hugging the "Zebrican" continent's eastern coastline beyond Anugypt's southern borders. Given that, it sounds like Saddle Arabia wants to expand trade further west into the landlocked nations of Zebrica (e.g. where the zebras live) and the Anubians are in the way.
My first question is what exactly brought this about? Has expanded trade always been possible if not for the Anubian threat, or is there some new aspect that has made trade with the Zebricans more worthwhile now? Presumably trade with them was always possible - hence why this is an "expansion" - but was difficult due to having to pass around the Anubian lands. Or maybe there is no particular impetus for developing a more direct trade route, beyond Wajdi's wanting to increase national prosperity (and his own personal reputation)?
It's also worth noting that if these geographic details are correct, then the Anubians have a coastline, which would mean that at least some of them do their raiding nautically. This would also mean that they're much more of a threat to Anugypt than to Saddle Arabia, since disorganized raiding means that they'd lack the organizational command structure necessary to let them venture very far from their boats when sailing to foreign lands, whereas a land border can be surged across with much less planning or preparation.
It was good that Silver thought to ask what they're raiding for, and even asked if food was a possibility. That's notable, because local traditions tend to arise as social methods for dealing with local issues (though they can persist long after those issues have been solved). In this case, if raiding others has become an integral feature of their way of life, that would suggest that domestic food production was never something that their native lands were very good at. If the ground simply isn't very arable, then you don't have much in the way of agriculture, and that in turn will make it difficult to perform any sort of large-scale ranching. Of course, very few lands won't support any sort of domestic food production, but if it's not very much then the population will nearly always be at its limit, meaning that most of them will be hungry and desperate for something to eat (this is another reason why raiding would be central to their way of life...it's dangerous enough that it cuts down on the number of mouths to feed).
Of course, this would mean that the coastal areas would be the most populous, simply because fishing would be a major source of food compared to conditions inland. In that case, the Anubians likely do have some permanent settlements, if only because maintaining and repairing boats requires that. In the other hand, if they're a population that's fractious and constantly dealing with internecine struggles, then these might not be much more than sprawling dockside slums, fortresses that are constantly changing hands, or large semi-permanent dwellings of the strongest tribes.
So why is this noteworthy? Well, as has been noted, it means that this isn't a problem that's going to be easily solved. If you have a population that's consistently underfed, and has been raised with the underlying message of "take what you need, and want, or starve to death" then it's not going to be easy to talk them out of it. Moreover, the underlying conditions aren't going to allow for any sort of easy resolution - whether it's sandy wastes or rocky badlands, if there's no hope of domestic agriculture, then the basic truths of such a harsh way of life aren't going to change.
I suspect that Silver thinks that he can cut some sort of deal, a la "caravans that go through will pay a (not-inconsiderable) toll for using your lands, that way they get to use a straighter route and you have a dedicated source of food coming in, and everybody wins." That, however, strikes me as so optimistic as to be naive. That's because any group that has to import food just to survive is going to be dependent on the ones they trade with, and they'll know it; those who have the least tend to be the ones with the most pride, since that's all that keeps them from wallowing in unending, abject misery, and that's why many if not most won't agree to any deal that even looks like it has them relying on outside assistance. That's leaving aside issues of tribalism and ingrained violence at the cultural level.
At this point I want to put aside the political concerns for a moment to focus on the stories other main theme, that being sex. If the Anubians have hands - real hands, not the paws that the nekomata and baastians do - then that means they're likely bipedal, which is to say, humanoid.
That means that their women likely have boobs.
As much as it may sound puerile, seeing an Anubian female with prominent breasts should be a very big deal to Silver. He may have acclimated to being a pony to the point where he can recognize the alluring shape of a mare, but there's no way that he's lost his human instincts to the point of not finding the curves of a humanoid female, especially her mammary pulchritude, to be arousing. Depending on whether or not the Anubians also no naked, or even mostly naked, seeing tits bouncing around on a svelte female figure should be a sight that goes right to the groin...especially with that cursed item he's wearing.
Oh, and speaking of which, apparently Wajdi and Jawa know all about Oman? I suspect that we're about to get a confession of subterfuge...
6193356 Oh we aren't even half way into this madness yet! As you will find out in the next chapter, where Bright Eyes also gets some needed attention. I'm actually happy I finished it before you posted this review, since otherwise it really would look like I just plain forgot about her until you brought her up.
Bottom, poor Bottom. Ponies need to be happier for her instead of trying to figure out what's wrong with her.
Clearly there's something between Oman and the royalty, but what is it? Next chapter!
Your considerations on the geography and motivations all strike true by my reading, so you're on the money there! Thanks for reading and for your thoughts.
invariably
dependent
both males and females gravitate toward
biggest and smartest