Twilight Sparkle decides to go to Griffonstone and invite Gilda to Ponyville for Hearth's Warming as a friendship gesture and a nice surprise for Rainbow Dash.
Too bad griffons don't celebrate Hearth's Warming
Written for TheBandBrony for Jinglemas 2017
Its nice to see a good Gilda story that doesn't make her out to be terrible.
Ube = http://www.colorhexa.com/8878c3
It is also the name of a purple sweet potato from the Philippines.
forgot a space in there.
Griffions are asses. Twilight's somewhat more stable and this was a nice read.
Nicely understated
You made me look up a railroad Wye. You evil educational person.
Very, very nicely done, Biscuit! I really enjoyed seeing Gilda interact with Twilight. The ending was perfect!
8639962
I second this frustration at inadvertent education. We shake our fists at thee, Biscuit.
I dunno who added that part, but it's a perfect addition!
Because meat.
But what about Hearth's Warming?!?!?
Gilda: Hearth's Warming?!? I'm Jewish!! I get eight candles, a dreidel and some rat meat every year! I'll be as bucking grouchy as I please you little Hoofler youth!! Now scram !!!
This is a interesting story and a good read.
But what if she's not actually a true Griffon anymore?
Keep going! ;)
8639796
Looking back on the episode, also with the knowledge of how crappy Griffonstone is, I don't think that she's a terrible griffon. She never really resonated for me as a character, so I'm glad I got the opportunity to write this, because it gave me the chance to get to know her better.
8639861
That's what I got the name from (and I've edited the blog post to add that in). In this case, though, it's meant to reflect that Gilda's visual spectrum is greater than a pony's.
8639894
Correction made; thank you!
Well, yes, griffons do seem to be. I don't know about Twilight being more stable (especially in the early episodes), but I guess if nothing else, she's less of a jerk than the average griffon.
Glad you enjoyed it!
8639935
Thank you!
8639962 8640002
What can I say? I learned half the words I know by coming across them in books.
Besides, I've always figured that my stories ought to be educational and factually accurate. Hopefully, they're also entertaining, but if not, the first two will do.
8639990
Thank you! Glad you liked it!
8640019
I thought about it as I was reading through your far superior dialogue in that section. My editing note changes "Or are you just here for the library" to "Or are you just here to pick at the library books," and then when I was actually editing the document (I usually do edits on paper), I thought of changing it to "pick at the bones."
It's easier to eat than Chinese takeout.
derpicdn.net/img/2012/8/9/70377/full.png
8640107
Somewhat related:
img00.deviantart.net/5cdd/i/2014/352/4/f/rarity_hanukkah_2014_by_pixelkitties-d8acanx.png
8640222
Thank you!
8640320
Maybe she isn't--she went to pony flight camp, and she's friends with ponies? Plus she saved ponies instead of getting the idol?
8640823
Also somewhat related: https://derpicdn.net/img/2012/6/28/23615/large.png
8640888
We call hax!
Aww, warm and fuzzy feelings that weren't from alcohol!
I like it!
D'awww... So nice to see another side of Gilda, the one we rarely see, where she's not just some grumpy griffon. She just needs a few hooves extended to her in friendship, that's all.
8640888
8641567
I do what I can.
8641662
Thanks!
8642855
It was a bit of a stretch for me, to be honest . . . in my other stuff, I use griffons as antagonists. But that didn't feel in the holiday spirit, and anyways, sometimes just a hug or an outstretched hoof in friendship makes all the difference.
Okay, not bad. I like Gilda, so seeing her in non-grouch mode was pretty nice. This story gets an upvote and a fave.
8647630
Thanks! It was a lot of fun to write, and a bit of a challenge (because I usually think of her being in grouch mode, myself).
8647705
Whenever I write her, she's not afraid to call someone out on their nonsense. A straight-forward, blunt but not too rude.
(Have a watch.)
8647741
I've always just used griffons as antagonists, but since I was writing this story for someone else, that didn't seem right, so I took a different tack.
Plus, in The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone, she did seem to value her friendship with RD enough to choose her over the statue.
She is very much a no BS kind of lady, though. And I like that.
Underutilized, just like Gilda.
Who, Amethyst Star?
8640800
I like to imagine that she was trying to do a predator dominance ritual thing, but instead of challenging or deferring to her enough to let her settle into a comfortable social position, ponies just kept blowing her off like she was worthless, right up until the entire herd suddenly turned on her at once.
8705371
Actually . . .
That's a fair point. There would be a very different type of display (for lack of a better word) between a natural predator and a natural prey animal.
Nicely done!
9191771
Thank you!
Due to fan pressure, they warped Hearth's Warming into Christmas. You watch the first episode, it was "Ponies coming together to found Equestria." NOT Christmas, Thanksgiving & IMO, non ponies think it's a big, fat, hairy deal. Still, it brought this to mind.
Moderately intrigued by griffons seeing a broader (or at least) different color spectrum.
10602105
True fact, many birds see in a broader color spectrum than humans do. We’re trichromatic (three ‘colors’ of light receptors), and some birds are tetrachromatic (four ‘colors’), so they’d be able to see additional colors. Some insects can, too, and some flowers actually have UV ‘paths’ for the bird (or bee) to follow to find the nectar (’nectar guides’; google for fascinating pictures ).
Also for what it’s worth, IRL equines are dichromatic, so they don’t see as many colors as even humans do.
cloudfront.horsenetwork.com/sites/4/2016/07/VAR11-e1419027940877.jpg
10604824
Least they aren’t like dogs or bulls. Still strikes me as humorous that bulls can’t see red.
10605127
Actually, horses have rather similar vision to dogs in that respect. Equines can’t see red, either, and can’t easily distinguish between greens and yellows. On the plus side, they’ve got good night vision, and a really wide field of vision.
This is true. I wonder how that myth got started; after all, people have been working with bovines for a long time, and you’d think that somebody would have noticed that the bull got mad no matter what color cloth was waved. . . .
10606717
According to at least one website matadors used red capes to hide the bloodstains from killing the bull with the sword hidden behind it.
10606741
I’ve heard that, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s after the fact justification. I’d guess (and it’s only a guess) it was red because that worked well with the audience (easily visible, etc.) or because red was fancy and expensive (just look at the rest of their outfits).
10619182
Also possible. It might even come down to the dyes that were prevalent enough to be relatively inexpensive.
10619328
Yes, or the ones that were expensive . . . I think that red dye was actually pretty expensive back in the day . . .
So I got curious and did a bit of reading, and found out that the red cape and most of the trappings of ‘modern’ bullfighting were set in place in the 1720s, and I also learned that the Spanish had the lock on good red dye by the mid 1500s. From a skimming reading of another article about bullfighting, there is apparently at least some Christ imagery in it, and the Wikipedia article about dyes mentioned that that red was often used by Renaissance painters to represent the cloak of Christ.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Hero (the Jet Li film), but there’s a lot of what I’m sure is important color symbolism to a Chinese audience, and which goes completely over my head. [and I just looked that up, and in fact, there are articles explaining it]
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Yeah with Hero it’s obvious that there are major color themes but it doesn’t convey a great deal to the western audience other than a change of narrative.