December 2
Peggy woke up when I did, which was nice, and I leaned over and nuzzled her and asked her if she knew what her parents were gonna do with us today, and she said that she didn't know at all, but she hoped that it would be something interesting.
Today was gonna be our last full day together—tomorrow I was going to go back to Kalamazoo. That was kind of exciting, 'cause I'd get to see my new apartment and I missed Meghan and Aric, but leaving Peggy would be hard.
Peggy said she'd just take a quick shower, 'cause she thought that she was pretty clean after soaking in the hot springs for hours. And I didn't think that I needed one at all, 'cause I hadn't exercised enough to work up a lather at all yesterday, and if you took too many showers it dried out your skin and washed off the oils on your coat.
So I went downstairs to make coffee, even though it was a little early. That would make Peggy happy when she came downstairs and that would make John and Chrissie happy when they got up.
I thought about finding some things for breakfast, too, but maybe we were going to go somewhere to eat and I didn't want to spoil everyone's appetite if we did. I was pretty hungry, though, 'cause we'd eaten dinner early yesterday and then had only had some snacks after that, which weren't as filling as a real meal.
Peggy was still in the shower when John came down, and this time he didn't ask about the coffee, he just poured himself a cup, and asked if I wanted any. I'd been meaning to wait until the carafe filled up but he said that it was better before that because it was stronger.
We'd both drunk some of our coffee when he said that he had something that he wanted to show me and he had meant to before but he'd forgotten. And he went into his office and he came back out with a little vial with flakes of gold floating around in it, and he said that was from when we'd gone panning, and that he'd taken the time to get most of the water out of his gold. And there was a little label on it that said it was his retirement fund, and so I was kind of curious how much it was worth, and he said probably not even a dollar. But he said that the price of gold kept going up and maybe it would be worth two dollars by the time he retired.
Back in Equestria, we had lots of gold. It wasn't good for too much, 'cause it was too soft. Earth ponies could hammer it flat with just their shoes, if they wanted to. It looked pretty, though. And we weren't allowed to bring any of it with us to Earth.
Even if it wasn't worth anything much, I thought it was still special because it was something that we'd all gotten together.
He said that he was putting it on the mantle, and he'd meant to do that before I came but he'd forgotten.
John also wanted to know where we'd gone yesterday, and I was telling him about Valley View when Peggy came down and she got kind of embarrassed especially when John said that he and Chrissie had gone there a couple of times. I guess some people don't even like talking about being naked, which doesn't make sense. It was a lot of fun, and she'd had fun there, too.
Peggy changed the subject and asked him where we were going to go today, and he said that he thought that Cripple Creek would be a fun place to visit if I didn't mind burros, which were the same as donkeys. And I told him that they were kind of smelly sometimes and had funny ears but ponies got along with them okay.
Peggy said that as long as he wasn't planning on trying to sucker me into a gold mine it would be a fun place to visit, 'cause there were lots of museums and it was really pretty even in the wintertime, and if I wanted to go flying later, it was in the mountains.
So after Chrissie had her coffee and had taken her shower, we packed up and got in John's Highlander, 'cause he said that we might as well have breakfast on the road, and we went through town and stopped at the Omelette Parlor, which he said had the best omelets and best pancakes in all of Colorado Springs.
I couldn’t decide if I should have pancakes or an omelet, ‘cause it all sounded good. I didn’t think I could eat both, because the menu said that the pancakes were the size of a plate, but Peggy said that we could share a pancake, as long as I'd give her some of my omelet.
On the last page of their menu, instead of having more food that you could buy, they had etiquette instructions which was really interesting. Chrissie said that there were lots of rules on dining etiquette, but most people didn’t pay it that much attention any more. I read over some of it but I didn't think it would apply to ponies, although maybe unicorns liked to eat like that.
A lot of their omelets had taco ingredients in them; even one that had a burrito in it, but that one also had meat, so I tried one called No Meadow Muffins Here. I wasn’t sure what a meadow muffin was, but John said that I should be happy that my omelet didn’t come with them. I’d thought about the 11-Miles omelet, but it had ‘almost’ crab in it and so was kind of scared of it.
Both the omelets and the pancake were really good—they were better than Nina’s omelets. Chrissie let me try a little piece of hers, too, which was the Cadet and had really good spinach in it.
We drove into the mountains, and it was kind of grey and gloomy, but John said that it was supposed to get nicer later on, and I hoped that it would. We had to slow down a couple times when the road rose up into low clouds, and he said that there might be ice fog, which would make the road really slippery. Sometimes the ice it made was dark-colored and very hard to see on the road, and even with snow tires, the car could still slide off the road.
We stayed on the US 24 Highway until we got to Divide, and then we went south and it kind of opened up to another high prairie for a bit, which Chrissie said was called Rainbow Valley, before we got back between a couple of mountains again, and the road twisted and wound around through the mountains.
Before we got into Cripple Creek, John took us off the main road and along to see a big gold mine, which had a spot where you could stand and look over the edge. It looked a lot like the iron mines I'd seen in the Upper Peninsula. It was a bunch of really big holes in the ground, and it sort of stepped down like an upside-down cake. And there was a road that went down the middle, and trucks full of rocks that didn't really look like too much and shovel tractors were moving around it in a constant parade. John said that the gold was in the rocks, but they had to process them to get it out, and he said that the trucks and shovel tractors were a lot bigger than they looked from up here. He said that his Highlander could easily fit in the back of one with plenty of room to spare.
There was another mine that was next to it called the Mollie Kathleen Mine, and that was an underground mine and I said that I wouldn't go in there, and he said that I didn't have to.
Then we started to drive around town, 'cause the burros could wander around freely, and we finally found them by the Double Eagle Hotel. They were standing on the sidewalk and there were some people petting them, so John stopped the Highlander and we got out and went up to them. And they were kind of interested in me and came over and we blew into each other's nostrils and pretty soon we were all friends, and there was one young jenny who started to follow me around a little bit. She stayed a little ways back, but whenever I moved she would sort of follow along, and she wouldn't eat any of the carrots that John had brought until I ate one first.
When we were finally done being friends with them, she looked kinda sad when we got in the Highlander and drove away. John told Chrissie that if she followed us home, he was going to keep her. But she didn't—once we got around the block she didn't follow any more.
John said that the first tourist attraction that we should see was the jail, and I was a little curious what they were like.
It was a two-story brick building, and inside the rooms had been made like they would have looked a hundred years ago when it was new, and there were little signs that explained what you were seeing. So there were some rooms on the bottom where the police officers worked, and there was a big square block of cells that had bars on the doors and inside they had beds or hammocks, and a shiny toilet that was made out of metal which was right out in the open, and the sign said that was so that the guards could check on you without having to go inside.
There was a cell that you could go into to see what it was like and I made sure that Peggy stayed outside so that she could let me out, 'cause I didn't like it in there at all. And when she asked if she could close the door all the way I shook my head no, and I kept my ears cocked just in case I heard the hinges squeak. She was a good guard, and put her hand between the door and frame so nobody could close it and trap me by mistake, but I was still happy to get out of there.
There was another row of cells stacked right above that, I guess if the first layer of cells got filled up, and there was a sign that said that some people reported that the jail was haunted by ghosts. I didn't see any, though.
Humans had to wear special clothes while they were in the jail, which were striped black and white like a zebra. And they had some that you could try on but none of them would fit a pony.
The prison in Orange is the New Black is a lot different. They wear orange suits and brown suits, and their rooms had cement brick walls and the whole thing was surrounded by biting fence wires, and they had a big shower, too. It looked a little bit nicer than this.
I decided to go back inside a cell so that Peggy could take a picture of me and I could show it to Gusty. She'd probably like to see it, even if I wasn't wearing the right kind of prison clothes.
Once we were done touring the jail, we went on to Fire Station #3. The town had burned down twice in 1896, which I think was why it was called #3.
It also had signs everywhere that said what you were seeing, but I knew what a lot of it was already. They had a horse-drawn pumping engine that had a big boiler on the back that ran the pumps, and they also had some big hose reels on wheels, which you could tow out to the fire and then unroll if you needed more hose. And there were water tanks, too, in case there wasn't any water near the fire. Chonamare had a wagon that could be backed into the ocean and then pulled back out but we had never used it for that, 'cause the salt water corroded the pump and it was a lot easier to just get some rainclouds and dump them into the back of it, or empty them on the fire directly which was the smartest way to do it. In the summer, it got used sometimes as a wading pool for foals. It would be handy if there was ever a fire when it was really dry, though.
They also had a human-operated pump, which had two long levers that crews could push to pump the water, and that was what they had used before they had the steam-operated pump. That was what we had—Chonamare was too small to need a steam pump—but instead of levers it had a treadmill for stallions to walk on.
The human firefighting equipment was neat to look at. They had axes and pole-arms to get at the fire, and since none of them could fly, they had different kinds of ladders and there were even pictures of big nets that people could jump into to get away from a fire. And the firemen wore special black coats and helmets to protect them when they went inside the building to fight the fire. Now they wore brown coats, but the hats were very similar. And they also had bottles to carry air in, 'cause you couldn't breathe smoke. We knew to push the clouds upwind of the smoke and get them going and then we knew that the wind was going to carry them over the fire, and we could leave the cloud before we were in any danger.
The four of us went to lunch at the Miner's Pick, which was in the Brass Ass Casino. And after we'd eaten, John agreed to go with me into the casino, 'cause I wanted to go in one and Miss Cherilyn wasn't there to tell me that I shouldn't.
I had to give them some money so that I could get chips, and John said that a wise gambler quit when she had run out of chips, instead of getting more. And he stayed with me and explained all the games that I didn't know, which was most of them. I'd learned in Texas that ponies aren't good at poker, so I avoided that. I played the roulette wheel a couple of times which was fun, even though I lost more than I won, and then I played some Blackjack, 'cause he'd taught me how, and eventually lost almost all of my chips at that, too. I think I would have done a little bit better except the dealer seemed kinda impatient when I was calculating the odds of getting a card I wanted.
I had a couple of chips left and I thought I'd keep one as a souvenir and put the other one down on the roulette table on a single number, and he said that I should put it on a lucky number, so I decided to put it on 23, 'cause that was my birthday. And the ball came up really close to my number, but I didn't win.
We went back outside and John said that if I wanted they could go to the Mollie Kathleen Mine and while they were there I could go flying.
John had his contour map, and he pointed out a bunch of peaks that were near us, and it looked like I could make a big loop and land on six or seven of them in a few hours—Nipple Mountain was a little bit further south than the rest but it looked like it wasn't that far out of the way, and John even let me keep the map so I wouldn't get lost.
We rode in the Highlander all the way to the Mollie Kathleen Mine, and that was where I'd meet them when I was done flying. And there weren't any airports too near, so I used the small airplane frequency on my radio to tell them that I was flying and where I was going.
I went to Big Bull Mountain first, which meant that I had to fly right over the gold mine, and so I got a really good view of it. From above, it was even bigger than it had looked from the little overlook, and I wondered how long it had taken them to dig it all. Even with the big trucks and shovel tractors, it seemed like it would have taken forever, 'cause they were so small compared to the mine.
In the air, it was pretty easy to spot the peaks. Cow Mountain and Big Bull Mountain had trees all the way to the very top, so I found a little clearing next to them and stuck a flag in, and then I flew south to Brind Mountain, which had aspens along with the evergreens. A sign at the fire station had said that aspens did well after forest fires, so maybe there had been one here in the past.
After I left my flag on Nipple Mountain, I looked at the map and at my watch. There was another peak a little bit south of it called Cooper and I could have gone there, but it was kind of far, especially since I hadn't started the upwind leg of my flight yet. So I went east into the wind like I'd planned before and landed on Little Pisgah Peak and then Grouse Mountain which was right next to it.
I was really glad that I'd gotten my winter coat, 'cause it was kind of chilly and the wind was really gusty. The mountains made it have all sorts of interesting currents, and I think that if I'd had lots of time to explore them, I could have really used some of them to my advantage. But as it was I could only make guesses about where the wind was likely to be in my favor, and I wasn't always right. I came around a rock formation close to Booger Red Hill, and there was a nasty gusting upwind that almost knocked me into a wall, 'cause it sort of bounced and funneled off of an outcropping that was a little ways further upwind.
And I was starting to get a little bit tired, 'cause I was out of practice at long distance flights and I'd been fighting the wind more than I should have, so I almost gave up on the last mountain.
I had to go almost to it on my way back, though, and it probably wouldn't even add a mile to my trip back, so I climbed up a bit higher where the winds were at least mostly steady, and flew to the top of Mount Pisgah, and after I planted that flag, all I had to do was get up off the mountain and then let the wind push me back to Cripple Creek.
On my way back, I passed over a little creek, and I thought I ought to rinse some of the lather off of me, so I dropped down and splashed around in it, and the water was really cold and refreshing, and I felt like I had a little bit more energy when I took off again.
When I got to the Highlander, it was already getting shadowy on the ground, 'cause the sun was creeping behind the mountain peaks off to the west. Everyone else had gotten done with their mine tour, and they were inside the gift shop.
I named off all the peaks that I'd put flags on, and I wondered how long it would be before anyone noticed. Maybe no one ever would except for the pikas.
The four of us went to have dinner at Dynamite Dick's, and after dinner me and Peggy shared a piece of triple chocolate cake which was a little too sugary and I hoped that it wouldn't make me sleepy later.
John had gotten us all tickets to a play at the Butte Theatre, and he said that it was based on The Christmas Carol, which was a play by Charles Dickens. He said that it had gotten pretty good reviews and that there was a variety show after it was over.
The theatre was kind of small and cozy, and there were a few empty seats but it was mostly full. And the play was about a mean, greedy man named Scrooge who got visited by a trio of ghosts that showed him how he might have had money but he really had nothing because he didn't care for anyone at all, and then he realized what a bad person he was and that nobody would miss him when he died and so he spent Christmas with his nephew and became a better person.
Then after that they had some jugglers come out, and a cowboy showed off some lasso tricks, and then everyone sang some Christmas carols. They had the words printed in the playbills, but I still had to listen through the first time 'cause people have a kind of strange way of writing music.
It was late when we finally left the theatre, and it had been a really fun day. Peggy was yawning and she fell asleep on the way back home and I almost did, too. I think if I'd put my head down on the seat I probably would have, 'cause it was kind of comforting feeling the Highlander gently sway as it was driving. There wasn't a lot that I could really see out the windshield or through the other windows, either. Just a few cars coming the other way, and there wasn't much traffic until after we got to Divide.
Peggy woke up when we turned there, and she was awake for the rest of the trip back, but then Chrissie fell asleep until John stopped at a gas station in Woodland Park to get some coffee.
It was almost midnight when we got back home and I should have taken a shower to rinse the last bits of salt out of my coat, but I was too tired to, and I didn't want to go to bed wet.
I hopped up into the bed and had made myself comfortable before Peggy had finished putting on her sleeping clothes, and I was almost asleep when she got in bed with me.
I meant to post this video yesterday.
Related to today's chapter, horse treadmills to power equipment is a real thing.
Dang. Those are some big pancakes.s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9b/7e/62/9b7e6253dda89226b4cc5647d6c357d9.gif
7920636
That's why they only ordered one.
(correction made; thank you!)
7920636
Did someone say pancakes?
I remember reading that having Dalmatians in the firehouse dates back to horse drawn firetrucks. The dogs were good at finding the fireplug. The horses were not, but the dogs were distinctive enough that the horse could follow them & fast enough to keep up with the horses.
It wouldn't have affect the world economy much since most, if not all, countries are no longer on the Gold Standard.
Silver Glow will never understand why kids would never want to imagine their parents naked. :V
I know someone else who has an obsession with betting on 23. (Wish when you inserted youtube videos in the comments, you could queue it up to the right spot.)
i.giphy.com/vqfqs9LcFOSyI.gif
I'm sorry. I guess I'm just not mature enough to handle the names in this chapter.
I'm not sorry, and I regret nothing!
Miss Silver Glow never commented that the story of Miss Snowfall Frost is similar to A Christmas Carol. Professor Flintheart is right:
We did not get to the Moon through laziness; it took the work of half a million people to get thither.
7920570
No, in those stories, humans have to become ponies. You can write such a story.
7920569
Hm... Alrighty, I'll take it as that then.
7919425
I realise that TF probably qualifies as it's own sub-genre.
I'm talking about the specific case of "X living with a pony, gets turned into a mare by magical medication."
7920928
Why just one, when you can have more?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teton_Range
"Early French Voyageurs used the name les trois tétons (the three nipples)."
Also,
reminds me of
i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s---QSbk2UF--/ypll5apomjhntimechjt.jpg
Silver is lucky she got to go to all those places. When I went to Cripple Creek, my parents only wanted to go to the casino.
Now Im really anoyed Ive misplaced my map of western USA. From California to Portland to Cascades.
For some reason, I blame the medication, I immediately thought about the time the two local lads decided to rag on a visiting scolar on who could pump the most water.
Local lads?
Super Charger
Roots Blower.
The Scholar?
Twin Scroll.
7920750
It's actually rather useful in electronics for corrosion-free (short of chlorinated stuff) connectors, to the point where more than 10% of the gold in the world is currently in various bits of Japanese gadgetry (and a fifth of the world's silver).
Equestrian precious metal imports would definitely have a significant impact.
Fun thought that occurred to me the other day.
The show never specifies the actual size of ponies, and it has always been a bit of a debate within the fandom. However, it occurred to me that while it's true there's nothing said about pony height, the show includes donkeys, and there's no reason or suggestion to assume these donkeys are the same size as their real life counterparts.
Assuming Cranky is a burro breed donkey, and of average height, he'd be about 43 inches (3'6"~) at the withers. Hence, ponies are probably around that, at their withers (Or approaching 4 feet on whole).
This actually conforms nicely with some of the analyses that have floated around the fandom, such as the one using Twilight's eight foot candy cain and Scootaloo.
So that jenny is probably actually slightly smaller than Silver Glow.
Has there ever been a fan story that actually went into the problem of trade between Earth and Equestria?
Gold and Gems are plentiful in Equestria and comparatively valueless even if gems are used for small purchases.
Earth valuable export would be technology based and perhaps steel and aluminum.
This would probably mean humans would have to return with the cameras and laptops they left with or pay tariff several times it's value.
The transfer of non physical things like literature and music would need to addressed also.
(Alien aliens might not like Earth music unless it was frequency shifted and played at a different speed.)
The ponies might see something that uses technology and recreate it using magic.
A calculator as an example.
7922416
Yes, to electronics industries. Positive, in fact, since gold got cheaper. Couldn't say the same for jewelry and the gold market though.
What I was getting at was that nowadays it wouldn't have tanked an entire nation's worth of money supply (and therefore her entire economy) with that influx of gold.
7920972 so you basically didn't get the meaning of that episode at all did you? Don't work yourself to the point where it negatively affects your mental health, don't abuse your employees, work life balance, and don't neglect personal relationships. It's not about hard work vs laziness. We didn't get to the moon by abusing the employees and teamwork is the key to engineering success.
I also don't see how abusing employees is bettering equestria.
I expect the same applies to any of the various types of gemstones that occur, finely cut, in easily dug-up piles under the dirt.
The Equestrian economy could take the bottom out of Earth's, leaving some very rich pones and a lot of broke bankers.
Awww
7922773
Exchanging Earth technology for Equestrian gold sounds like an unsustainable deal for both sides, really. Interdimensional arbitrage is limited - there's only so much gold you can take from one world to the other until the relative scarcities level out. So in the end you're left with a crashed gold price on Earth, and Equestria having to go back to bartering*, because their bits were all exported to Earth and it's impractical to start using ipod nanos as currency.
(*Admittedly, in the context of this story that might not be such a big deal for the ponies, at least where Silver Glow is from.)
7921233
That situation seems like the best possible use for a personal time machine.
Gold softness is exactly what gave it value it the first place. Being easily maleable made it a choice metal for decorating.
7920707
7920712
Also, the dog didn't bother the horses, and the horses didn't bother the dog, which is also important. If they'd had a little, yappy dog, odds are the horses would have just stomped on it to get it to shut up, no matter how good it was with finding fireplugs.
Also also, the Budweiser Clydesdales have a dalmatian who accompanies them to shows, and rides on the beer wagon, something which I learned fairly recently.
7920750
Although it would do something to anybody who held gold for its value. Or mines that produce gold for any reason; they'd be pretty bummed out if the ponies started bringing gold by the trainload through the portal.
Especially since she's used to seeing everyone she knows naked. Her Mom, her Granddam, her little sister, the mailpony . . .
7920928
I can only assume that the people who named things in Colorado were constantly snickering.
7920856
After seeing that, I had to go check Run Lola Run to see what number she bet on (spoiler: it wasn't 23).
7921009
I have written stories with ponification. And gender changes during said ponification. And about an erection lasting more than four hours.
7921193
And now that I think back on it, the obvious antidote would be viagra.
7921233
I don't know what that's from, but I am now imagining it with Silver Glow in place of the girl.
7921298
I've never been to Cripple Creek. Or a real casino.
8019566
True but it also makes the electronics industry boom. :3
7921354
whipplesuperchargers.com/images/detailed/1/332_294_ford_mustang_kit_xsec_angle.292_800.jpg
7922416
And I'm sure the electronics suppliers would be happy to get their hands on it at cut-rate prices. Which is something that potentially in time could be negotiated, especially if the Equestrians really do have a huge surplus of the stuff. Maybe they know how to get it out of seawater.
7922470
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/a/a0/Matilda_and_Amethyst_Star_standing_together_S5E9.png
It looks to me that they're just a touch shorter than donkeys, but not much. Certainly, very close. (Pinkie appears to be shorter than Cranky; on the other hand, mares are generally smaller than stallions in show canon, so that may also be true of donkeys.)
Man, I'd have to think on the numbers (and find a measuring tape). To me, that seems a little bit taller than I picture my ponies, but maybe not. The last time I saw mules was at a draft horse show, and they were draft mules, so of course they were larger than your average mule.
pre15.deviantart.net/0391/th/pre/f/2016/194/7/1/unlikely_allies_by_admiral_biscuit-da9xfho.jpg
These are the figures I tend to use for scaling; Hercules is let's say 6' tall. That puts AJ's withers mid-thigh on him. I could measure on myself what that comes to, but I don't have a measuring tape handy--it's at work.
7922773
None that I can remember have gone in depth on the issue. I'm sure it's been done--I'd be surprised if it hasn't--but I can't remember any such story.
In CSI/OPP, Lyra is impressed by all the aluminum things that Dale has.
Yeah, working out copyright laws and such on that would be important, too. Never mind just exchanging existing copies. In Silver Glow's Journal, some of that has already been addressed; Daring Do, for example, can be had on Earth, and Silver Glow can take her poetry books back with her.
That's very possible. I didn't go into that in this story, but in every likelihood, they'd view most/all of our music as not being very pleasing to their ears, and vice-versa.
Wouldn't that be funny? Some major electronics firm finally gets permission to export, only to find out that the ponies have re-created their calculators using magic, and they're significantly cheaper, since all the ponies did was enchant an abacus or something.
7922809
Probably not a whole nation's economy, but you'd have a lot of really pissed, really rich investors (well, possibly formerly-rich) were that situation to arise.
7941065
That, and it doesn't tarnish much/at all. Lead is even softer (IIRC), but it's not as pretty.
7923625
I expect the same applies to any of the various types of gemstones that occur, finely cut, in easily dug-up piles under the dirt.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
img06.deviantart.net/6bef/i/2012/186/8/6/diamonds_for_free_by_csimadmax-d56524y.png
They could, quite easily. At least in the gem market and possibly the gold market.
7924371
My new headcanon is that twenty years past the end of this story, ponies use iPod nanos for currency.
8019627
I think it's a mistake to try and use other action figures as a means of determining height for characters in the show. Other than the fact that most of the toys are, shall we say, of questionable show accuracy, there's no reason to think that two different toys would be scaled the same. I mean, you wouldn't put Twilight next to, say, Megatron and expect them to scale appropriately.
I think Amethysts Star seems smaller because she's on the screen 'lower down' compared to Matilda. Regardless, I would wager that her height, and Matilda's are within a significant overlap of standard deviations in terms of height: that is, if you took a bunch of ponies and a bunch of donkeys, lined them up and measured their height for their mean and standard deviation from that mean, you'd expect a lot of the data to overlap, perhaps no more than a 2.35% difference in which a pony would be shorter than the shortest donkey, and a donkey would be taller than the tallest donkey.
8019673
In this case, I bought the action figure because it fit where I thought the scaling ought to, and it also was fully posable. Which made it useful for answering questions like 'could an adult male ride a pony' (probably not) or when Lyra hugs Dale, approximately how high on his body can she hug--things like that. I'm not assuming that it's 100% confirmed just because those two happen to work together, although of course we don't have any word of Faust on their size anyways, so it's always a bit of guesswork.
Yeah, I don't think it's a major difference. That was the best I could find at short notice where the two were at approximately the same distance, height, and similarly posed, and it is really close.
There is, of course, also the disadvantage that in general, the majority of the ponies have the same body type, where in reality of course it would all be different (we'd assume, for example, that AJ is bulkier than Fluttershy), and that in and of itself is probably going to lead to more variations in height than what we see between Sparkler and Matilda.
Maybe it's just the longer torso that makes the donkeys seem bigger than they really are.
8019725
If they are roughly the size of donkeys, though, than an adult human probably could ride a pony, although not necessarily easily.
TBH, I've often felt your estimation of pony heights seemed to be on the small size, but that's just me.
8019835
Even the size of an IRL Shetland pony, they could (although again, not easily).
I did some weight calculations, and it's plausible for a strong pony to carry an average-sized adult without being injured, as well. Silver probably couldn't--she's a lightweight--but Big Mac and other bulky ponies might be able to.
That's one of those things where YMMV. I do tend to possibly err on the side of smallness--roughly four feet high at the tips of the ears, assuming they're standing in a head-up position. (I also wrote one fic where the ponies were the size of housecats, but that's neither here nor there.) We don't have any firm statements on their actual size, so it's all guesswork.
On the plus side, assuming the sizes that I assume, I do know with a very high degree of confidence how much an Equestrian pony weighs.
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About 4' tall on average seems to be about the general height most used, with Celestia being on par, or even slightly taller then average humans.
And, despite how we think of Gold=Money, throughout world history the most widespread and longest use form of currency was cowry shells.Happy/Sad Pony, go away from one friend, but see other friends. Why can't her humans just all live in one place so they can all always be around her?
D'awwww, but she just wants to make others happy and help them out, such a good pony.
I see where Peggy gets her sense of humor from.
The massive, panicked screaming of every economist on Earth convinced the ponies not to bring over any gold or gems.
Silly humans, being so hung up about being naked.
Silveeeeer, your internal biases are showing....
Solve the dilemma of two many good things to nom, everyone gets something and shares with Pony, Pony gets to try all the Noms, and can still fly afterwards.
Yeah, very few give a crab about eating etiquette outside snobs. If you aren't a pretentious prick, you just get the food into the food hole however works.
Burrito omelette..... okay then. Also, give in Silver, Give in, partake of the flesh we know you crave. Also, on the plus side, no one mentioned, and she never saw, Rocky Mountain Oysters... that.... that could have ended very, very badly.
Good call on avoiding anything that says 'almost crab'
Oh, heading to The Divide? Say hi to The Courier and ED-E! If you see Ulysses, buck is pompous, self righteous, authorial mouthpiece ass into a very deep hole.
Those are good mines for pony, no caves. Though way to much damage to nature as well.
YAY! Pony make more four legged friends! And is very super cute about it!
So.... damn..... cuuuuutttteeeeeeee!!!!!
One of the less brought up deterrents to wanting to go to jail, you gotta shit where everyone can watch.
Not a good place for Pony, and smart pony keeps watcher on the outside to keep her from getting locked in while she's being adorable.
If that cell door had started squeaking shut, they might have got to see a Sonic Silverboom
But, no have to worry about that, cause Peggy is good pony protector!
No prison clothes for pony, not unless you go and become big time actress pony.
"Biting Wire fence' Well, yet again, she's not wrong.
And now Silver gets to feel right at home and can point out things that she's actually seen ponies using a version of. Yay old stuff!
Heh, even if not for what it's meant for, but YAY mobile swimming pool!
Treadmill powered pumps..... nice.
If no human is there to tell you no even if you know they'd say no if they were here, still means no human told you no.
Pffffft "Hey, slow down, I'm trying to figure out what cards are still left in the deck."
Pony now owns this mountain, I dare any to try and say otherwise.
Splashy splashy pony... again.. CUUUUUTE!
It's triple chocolate cake, how did you not go in expecting it to be sugary?
Silver should have brought up how even Ponies have their version of A Christmas Carol once she heard what it was.
Friends >>>>>>> Money, very important pony lesson.
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Most of the fanon trends towards that size, too, and so that’s just what I went with. Long boring lecture aside, sometimes as an author, it’s better to go with what readers expect, unless there’s a good reason to not do it.
Which could potentially have made the first person who figured out how to farm cowries filthy rich. Really, when it comes down to it, money is almost always a social construct that’s worth what a society says it’s worth. Things that are used as money due to their rarity can be supplanted, and don’t always reflect the situation on the ground, where a barter economy can always exist.
I know, right?
This is why ponies are the best--they always want to make sure that their friends are happy, too.
Isn’t that how it usually goes? Dad jokes get passed down.
Before Rarity Bankrupts DeBeers...
I know, right? What a dumb thing to worry about.
She is a bit of a tribalist.
This is why sharing is always better.
I bet unicorns care about eating etiquette. There are probably books in Equestria about table setting for all the different tribes.
Fun fact, I just read through a book about meat-eating horses, which included speculation that equines are historically omnivorous. Not that that was news to me, but anyway. . . . And yeah, hard to say how she’d feel about Rocky Mountain Oysters. As long as they didn’t come from stallions, she might not mind too much.
She’s learned from the last time she ate faux crab.
On the plus side, a pegasus-eye view of the entire operation. On the minus side, likely massive environmental impact.
See, she doesn’t mind burros at all.
That wasn’t the only reason I didn’t like it, but it was certainly in the top ten.
Pegasi especially have claustrophobia. Not to mention a general species fear of being locked into a place that can’t be escaped.
Yeah, Silver would have made a quick flight to the exit, that’s for sure.
Which is another reason why Peggy is best roommate.
Gusty surely appreciated all the costumes she got to wear. Even when they were prison jumpsuits (and while it never comes up, it’s fun to imagine that the director’s vision was for her to not wear clothes because ponies go naked, and Gusty shot that down right quick).
I’ve also heard iron ivy.
If one had to choose, would barbed wire be biting or stinging? Especially when comparing to electric fences? And would pegasi with their electrical immunity (to a point) name them differently than the other two tribes?
Suddenly, she’s the expert at how Earth equipment works.
If the equipment isn’t generally used for fighting fires, at least it gets some use to cool down foals in the summertime.
I could probably dig and find an example of that. There were treadmill powered machines back in Ye Olden Times (1800s), and no reason that a pump couldn’t be run that way. Although capstans were more often used.
Exactly!
Casinos don’t like it when you’re obviously trying to count the cards. She probably got away with more than she would have because she’s a pony.
If it’s got her flag on it, it’s hers. That’s a basic fact.
To be fair, you can make chocolate with less sugar than we Westerners generally do.
She should have, although I don’t know if that episode had aired yet or if I’d seen it when I wrote this chapter.
I would guess that that’s something that most ponies know instinctively.
Money won’t nuzzle you when you’re sad.
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Most Brits find Hershey's to be incredibly bitter. British chocolate is garbage.
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It must be nothing but sugar, because honestly Hershey’s is quite sweet.
Then again, I don’t eat much dessert-type things, so I probably am more sensitive to sugar than many.
But what if... it burned down... and then it burned downagain? Can you even do that?
HA! In yo face, Agent Buzzkill!
Titillating locale.
*squee*
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Not only can a town burn down twice (or more), which of course you knew . . . here’s a fun fact you might not have. Back in the sailing ship days on the Great Lakes, a lot of the sailing ships sank multiple times before they stayed sunk. Since groundings were common, and most of the lakes have sandy bottoms, after a storm was over, the ship was often emptied of its cargo, repaired and refloated, and continued on in service. If the masts and rigging were badly damaged but the hull was okay, sometimes they got reused as barges.
Ponies in casinos is always bad news. Whether for the pony or the casino, well, I suppose that depends.
Somebody would find out she’d done it, and go look for her flags. You know that would happen. Eventually.
And Cayenne too, as she's actually been arrested.
*cranks "Boris" by the Melvins*
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I picture her post-arrest sitting on a plastic chair in an interview room, handcuffs on her fore- and hind legs, while the police furiously debate what to do with her, how to arrest a unicorn, whether they can put her in a holding cell, etc., and when her handlers show up to rescue her, it's not like when Mr. Salvatore gave that cop a lifetime's worth of paperwork. No, they just had that kind of 'here we go again' resigned look on their faces. . . .
Never heard of it, so I looked it up.
And that reminded me of Silver Apples. Specifically Oscillations and Program ("the flame is its own reflection")
More importantly, lead is poisonous. Gold, on the other hand, is sufficiently inert to harmlessly pass through the digestive tract (which is why that ridiculous novelty liquor can exist)
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Most of the numbers that get thrown around in the show make the ponies the size of, well, ponies. Because duh. IIRC, someone did those calculations and "hung like a horse" evens out to a couple extra inches on average.
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This is true, but back in the day I'm not sure that the toxicity of lead was well-known (or known at all). I'm honestly not sure when people figured out it was toxic (or any of the other toxic metals, like mercury, for example).
One of those people who did the numbers was me . . . at least if we're talking about the 'hung like a horse.' Based on common fanon size, and depending on how one does their calculations, stallions would run on the large size of average humans (16cm) or all the way up to 45cm. There's a couple ways to calculate/estimate which give different results, but all of them can be backed up (to a degree) with Science!
Another user calculation figured 21.5cm, for what that's worth. That's probably a more reasonable number, if we're being honest.
[and of course any of these numbers depend on how tall you think ponies are; I generally assume that an average mare's ears are just below a human male's shoulders when both are standing normally.]