Apple Bloom tossed and turned fitfully in her sleep.
Earlier in the day, Applejack, Big Macintosh, and Granny Smith had told her about the time Applejack's terrible and outrageous lying had led to calamity. The story had been as hilarious as it had been surprising and horrifying, and Apple Bloom had enjoyed it immensely, but now, hours later, something was bothering her.
As the first bright glow of dawn filtered through her window, Apple Bloom's eyes snapped open wide. "That's it!"
* * * * *
A wide-eyed, alert Apple Bloom with dark circles under her eyes joined the family at breakfast. "So hey, uhh..." She fiddled with her hooves. "There's one thing about y'all's story yesterday that don't add up."
"Oh?" Granny asked as she laid out grits and hay bacon on the table.
Apple Bloom looked around the table. "So, uhh...if'n Applejack wasn't much older'n Ah am right now when that all happened, that'd mean Ah wasn't born yet," she said. "But, well...y'all were fightin' over who'd take over th' farm, right?" She looked from Applejack to Big Macintosh. "But if'n this all happened before Ah was born, why were y'all goin' on about who was gonna run Sweet Apple Acres? Ah mean, Mama an' Papa woulda..." She trailed off, then added suspiciously, "An' for that matter, y'all didn't mention them even once in that whole story!"
The three elder Apples froze, looking at one another with deer-in-the-headlights expressions.
"W-well now," Applejack said, eyes darting back and forth, "they were, uhh...off campin'! Yeah, they was off campin' when all that happened! Shucks howdy, were they—"
"Nnnnope," Big Macintosh rumbled, frowning.
Applejack froze, her jaw working. "Second honeymoon?" Big Macintosh shook his head. "Vacation!"
"Nope."
"...off seein' Aunt an' Uncle Orange?"
Apple Bloom folded her hooves. "Okay, we all know you can't lie for beans, Applejack," she said. "Granny? You wanna give 'er a try?"
Granny coughed and looked away. "Whut's that y'say, dearie?" she asked loudly.
Apple Bloom groaned. "Big Mac?"
"Eeeeeeeenope."
Apple Bloom facehoofed. Glaring at Applejack, she said, "You do know Ah'm smart enough t' put two an' two together, right?"
"Ah have no idea whut you mean," Applejack said, looking pointedly away.
Apple Bloom planted her front hooves on the table and snorted steam. "Ah mean Mama an' Papa was already gone when all that happened, meanin' Ah wasn't born yet, meanin' they ain't mah mama an' papa." She pointed a hoof at Applejack. "Meanin' either Ah'm adopted, which Ah know Ah ain't, or mah real mama's you."
Applejack gulped. "Uhh...now that's...that's some mighty odd thinkin' there—"
"Which don't really surprise me," Apple Bloom cut her off. "Ah mean, it makes too much sense. Th' part Ah'm more bothered by is who mah daddy is." She glanced slowly at Big Macintosh, eyes narrowed.
"Ain't me," Big Mac grunted. "That's jes' sick thinkin'."
"So who is it?" Apple Bloom asked.
Applejack fanned herself with her hat. "W-well..."
* * * * *
"Thanks so much for helping me," Ditzy Doo said to Pinkie Pie as they sorted through stacks of birth certificates in the Town Hall archives. "I don't think I'd ever get all this sorted on my own!"
"Eh, I needed to update my files anyway. Lots of new ponies coming to town and a lot of new foals born lately," Pinkie said.
As Ditzy unstuck two birth certificates, she peered at one curiously, her lazy eye spinning. "Well this can't be right," she said.
"Hmm?" Pinkie took the certificate Ditzy was holding and looked at it. "Yeah, it's right," she said. She giggled. "Kinda funny, huh? Imagine if Diamond Tiara knew Apple Bloom was her half-sister..."
That... actually makes a disturbing amount of sense. Casting their conflicts as an unconscious sort of sibling rivalry works to an astonishing degree.
Also, way to dodge the incest implication.
OH DEAR GOD! I can't un-realize it!
DAMN YOU IN THE NAME OF MOTHRA!
So Filthy was still getting some Apple products on the side even without getting the cider, eh?
7682140
Still, getting around with a mare he knows since she was a child...
your not postscripting episodes as they come along, you are just postscripting the episodes you hate
...yeah, I can't really go with this idea. I'm fine with thinking of Filthy Rich as a godfather to Big Mac, Applejack and Apple Bloom, but this? Nah.
7592743
Forget about him. I know someone better for the job
(min 2:27)
Nah, AJ would have chosen somepony MUCH better.
I'm pretty sure Word of God says the parents and 'Bloom were away when the episode happened, but...yeah. Wow.
7682190
Oh. Yeah, there is that.
7682191 judging from his scores from a previous blog, Moth actually liked this episode.
http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/680132/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-season-6-episode-23-where-the-apple-lies-spoilers
7682191 No, I'm postscripting episodes as I think of something to do for them. Don't make strange assumptions when you don't know anything about me or how I think.
7682224 well, nearly all of them say "I hate this episode fix it"
7682219 well, that, my friend is what we call sarcasm
like, since when is an applejack episode good, much less an applejack episode where the element of fucking honesty gets caught up in a lie, and big mac can't keep his mouth shut
also, some older brother figure you are, mac
That still wouldn't have worked.
I mean, that episode completely messed up the timeline. Almost worse than the fist EQG movie did.
I mean, ages are never mentioned in the show in numbers (we only know that Celestia and Lune are over 1000 years old) but we do know a couple of things.
If AJ was already an almost grown up filly, and AB wasn't born yet, then she should be almost thirty now.
But we know that all the mane 6 have the same age as they got their cutie marks the same day.
So the cases are two: either Apple Bloom is five, or Twilight and the others were atleast 27 at the start of the show. I honestly have a hard time trying to picture Twilight that old when she was studying.
Then again, I like to take it simple and not think about, since it is a cute story for a good episode.
P.S. Tiara and Bloom... Ha
Nice idea.
RIP Spoiled Milk.
Yeah, I seen others making this theory of Applejack being Apple Bloom's mother, but I really can't see Filthy Rich being father since his rather an upright pony (contrary to is human counterpart).
And besides, as pointed upward, the show's staff have answers that the parents were out at the time. Although it's not hard to realize they went lazy and didn't bother drawing them.
Still a funny post script anyway.
Oh, found a mistake.
were
Oh shit...
7682235 I don't often say this directly to one of my readers, because it isn't very nice and I'm trying not to be that guy, but I've seen some pretty awful comments from you this morning and I've had about enough of it, so I'm going to be direct and to the point:
You are an idiot.
7682248
Except no, because:
Fluttershy is a year older than Pinkie. This was established in season one.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders got their Cutie Marks a good two years after their peers at school. Getting your Cutie Mark has nothing to do with your age.
I'm going to go ahead and mention that there has been tweets from the writers saying the parents were on vacation, and as a sibling, I can personally verify that kids do argue about 'who'll be in charge when it's just us' when they're the only two people in the room and the person who's been left in charge is a senile old bat.
With all of that said...
Headcanon accepted.
7682265 That's what they call 'how country ponies speak'. Not a mistake.
7682265 That's not a mistake, that's dialect.
7682265 That's common farmhand and black stereotype speech. It's not an error.
Well, it makes sense...
7682319
7682320
7682330
Sorry, my bad, Mea Culpa. I'm not well verse in southern speech.
Hmm. Interesting thought.
I don't know where on the acceptance scale this would lie for DT, but I imagine it'd be closer to the positive end than before.
I mean, I've already been reading a story in which Applejack adopts her...
7682312 I was leaving a one-two year margin, but they all have the same age.
At the time of the show; Apple Dad was killed by his master Celestia for turning evil and Apple Mom was just so sad she died in childbirth. Apple Bloom won't find this out until "My Little Pony: The Crystal Empire Strikes Back."
7682175 And while he was engaged to Spoiled no less. But then again, considering how nasty Spoiled is, I don't blame him for looking into somepony else.
7682265 Actually, MythrilMoth didn't make an error there. That's just a deep southern accent.
"Surprise, you're sisters!" is one of those things that works surprisingly well for ponies.
That's it. I'm outta here. And I actually liked a few of these too.
This one is fine I guess. Not really a fan of the idea of Apple Bloom being Applejack's daughter instead of her sister but the idea at the end was funny, half-sister's with Diamond. At least you didn't go the incest route. I hate mlp incest, especially from any of that witchcraft crap!
Oh, Applejack! You little tart you. Oh what a tangled web we weave!
Hmm...
Not something I'd accept as canon, but something I'd love to see as a basis for a fic. Maybe Filthy and Spoiled were an arranged marraige, and what resulted in Apple Bloom was genuine affection. Then, when Filthy sees just how horrible Spoiled really is and how much she's screwed up Diamond Tiara, he divorces her (managing to get most of the assets and full custody of DT) and then asks Applejack if she'd be willing to be a mother figure to Diamond Tiara. Don't know if it'd be more amusing to have it happen before or after DT's canon 'redemption'.
7682216
IIRC, Apple Bloom wasn't born yet, but yeah. Word of God says the parents were alive, but away.
so in my opinion it would've been more funny to have big mac as the dad and not applejack as the mom. this is pretty funny though
To all those who are complaining about "The ages don't match up!", need I remind you that Ponies Are Not Humans and as such, have different milestones and maturity ages. We've seen month-old foals flying and/or utilizing basic magic. A month old human baby just lies there, soils itself and cries.
My headcanons generally put the Mane Six at about young adult stage. The best way to put it would be "Old enough to know what they want to do with their lives, young enough to not be there quite yet". The CMC would be at pre-pubescent age
If I must pin down numbers for you, the Mane Six around 16 chronologically, 20 or so mentally and the CMC are about 9 chronologically, 11-12 or so mentally.
That's not even getting into the fact that it's quite possible that what ponies call a "month" or a "day" might be radically different to what we would call a "month" or a "day", due to the Diarchy controlling how time is generally measured and as such, might decide that a 25 hour day in a 10 day week in a 10 week season in a 4 season year might be incredibly more efficient than our 24 hour day, 7 day week, 4 week month, 12 month year
7682248 Well, to be fair magic is a broad and complex subject and I wouldn't be surprised if Twilight was insisting on trying to get a dozen different doctorates at the same time.
I don't see how it's so hard to see the rest of them being mid-upper 20s either: Rarity owns her own successful business, Pinkie Pie works for the Cakes AND has her own successful party planning business, Rainbow Dash is the main pegasus in charge of weather maintenance in town (as far as we've seen at least) and now a Wonderbolt (a top tier airborne military division) too, Applejack all but runs Sweet Apple Acres (another successful business), and Fluttershy lives in a self-sufficient cottage and takes care of pets for spending money (because living self sufficiently doesn't pay for outings with friends and fancier foods for picky rabbits).
I myself have a harder time seeing the Equestrian Mane 6 as any younger than 25.
PS: EG takes place in a parallel universe where while many things are the same (variants of most Equestrian Ponies exist, most relationships are in similar states, etc.) there are also a good number of things that are different. (EG Mane 6 are still in High School, magic doesn't exist, the only sapient species in the world are humans, etc.) The EG versions of characters being different ages and their various siblings being somewhat closer to them in age are by no means signs of timeline screwiness.
7684283 I guess I could go along with that.
However, what bothers me about EQG is that Sunset crossed the portal when Twilight still wasn't Celestia's student, alias before Twilight even got her Cutie Mark. And when she crossed the portal, Sunset immediately enrolled the school. Now, you could tell me that time in the two universes flows differently and that would work, but I think they just didn't think too much about it.
7682191 You haven't been following them have you? They do this for every episode.
Lighten up and learn to stop taking other peoples jokes so seriously or personally.
7683992
You, sir or ma'am, just blew my mind.
While the number of hours in a day is just an arbitrary number anyway that could be changed by law even in our world, the rest were literally controlled by Celestia alone for the past milenium. If she wanted to change the length of a day or a month she could easily do that and there is noone who could do squat about it.
A week is just as arbitrary as minute or hour so that is just a matter of law. Luckily neither hours or weeks define our age.
The biggest problem in all that is "year". We define a year as the earth circling the sun once. But not only would that be up to Celestia, it simply doesn't happen in MLP because apparently the sun circles the planet. Also we see the seasons as an indicator for a years passing but apparently ponies MAKE those themself too. In other words: the length of a year is just as arbitrary and a matter of definition as a minute and a week.
So not only is pony age and maturity possibly different from humans, the age itself is a matter of definition that can be completely different from our own. (Even if It's about time indicates a 7 day week.) So when a pony says she is 12 she may as well have been alive for the same amount of time as a 20 earth years old or a 2 earth years old. So in the end the question of age is completely mute.
As I said, you blew my mind.
Also, about the chapter, I have pondered ABs question too but simply decided not to dwell on it at all. Especially because I dislike this solution. Not just because of preference but because it kinda opens up an other can of worms. Everypony else in Ponyville old enough must know about it as a sister doesn't just show up out of nowhere especially when the supposed parents are already dead by then. And you are telling me nopony EVER let that one slip? In a town as small and gossip loving as Ponyville? Possible, but I don't have to like it.
MfG NIchtraucher
...HOLY SH*T
This was just too perfect! I think, currently, DT wouldn't mind being sisters with AB. When she was still bratty, she would have screamed and asked why her father slept with Applejack, but now...maybe they'd be great sisters!
7690094
A day isn't really arbitrary though on our planet. A day is a full rotation of the earth (or 23 hrs, 57 mins, and 57 secs. Rounded up to 24 hrs.). Now a month on the other hand is entirely arbitrary (seeing as how our world has 10 widespread calendars atm). But in a world where days / time is controlled by the princesses.
Well I mean we do see that they have an ordinary clock, with ordinary set up (rather than one aligned to deal with non-24 hr times). But we don't really see how days / months / years are held up. Other than seasonal events being as set in stone as pony enforced weather. But yeah, we don't know enough about there year structure.