The signs of the Zap Apple harvest are weeks overdue. A worried Applejack seeks Twilight's help in figuring out what's wrong...
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- Member Since 26th Jun, 2018
- offline last seen 6 hours ago
Lets Do This
We're going to build an exact copy of Ponyville... right over there! We've got less than a minute!
Lets Do This
Joined 26th Jun, 2018 ·
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Fascinating idea of how the whole Zap Apple cycle works, I was really impressed by the concept of the Timberwolves and their symbiosis with the trees.
Great work all around (as per usual in my humble opinion
).
9654846
Thanks much! I set out to write a Twilight/Applejack story which made use of both ponies' talents, and in Twilight's case that's magic, which suggested the Zap Apple trees, and the rest came out of looking at the signs of the Zap Apple harvest and exploring what that implied. It kind of became an ecological awareness story in the process, but that's not a bad thing -- what's an MLP story without a gentle moral of some kind?
Sweet story here involving the Zap Apples & a good moral to boot too! 😀👍
I do enjoy a good science adventure, but I do have to question your characterization of Granny Smith. Remember, she's the one who tracked the signs and experimentally determined the other rituals involved in making the jam. Yes, she isn't likely to write a journal article on the behavior of Malus prismatica, but I don't think you gave her quite enough credit.
Aside from that and some questionable bits of phonetic accent, great stuff. Thank you for it.
Ah the environment, sadly proof positive that sapients are the real monsters.
That's an excellent description of learning and research.
9657755
Thanks! One objective I had with this story was showing Twilight's conscientious researcher side (as opposed to her omigosh-freaking-out-now side). I was looking for an interesting way for her to sum up how knowledge demands patience and effort -- without making it sound too preachy -- and this is what I came up with.
9657948
You succeeded
You know when I first saw this story I thought it'd be longer.
Love the science/mystical mystery this is as well as the character interaction. Though I agree that Granny couldn't be that stubborn giving away information considering she shared how she found the zap apples and planted them for a school presentation
9665535
Thanks much, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
And regarding Granny, the point of the story is not that she resists sharing information (because just get her started and lordy can she talk your ear off), but that she's rightly resistant to having what she sees as busy-bodies interfering with something her family depends upon. So what she has to share with everyone on Family Appreciation Day is what she did to find the Zap Apple trees and how she makes the jam, and what it means to the town -- not how the Zap Apple trees actually work, which is the point of this story. As far as Granny knows, it's "just magic", and magic is "funny that way". This isn't wrong, though it has consequences when things stop working the way the Apple family expects them to. And then you need to call in an experienced, responsible researcher like Twilight to help get to the bottom of things.
Creative use of the environmental aspects in the show to make something new. This was well-written.
Legitimate or not, singular usage of y'all will always make me uncomfortable.
Fine usage of nature headcanon here! Too few people do anything with timberwolves! Especially when it comes to how oddly involved they are with zap apples.
9731559
Thanks much! I wish more folks had given this a look, because I liked the way it turned out, fitting together what we've seen of the timberwolves with a bit of headcanon on how Zap Apple magic works. It's not a strict mystery in the sense of Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie, but it is a bit of a "puzzle" story, so it seemed to deserve the tag.
9731695
Adding it to more groups would probably rectify that; they’re where most non-follower traction comes from tbh.
Personally, the ending of this story makes me interested in the possible effects down the road. If we assume the Timberwolves are at least somewhat analogous to their real world inspiration timber wolves, this providing of the resources they need to thrive by the apple family (for admittedly their own purposes as well) is very similar to the process many think might have been the catalyst for the domestication of the wolf into the domestic dog. And if we eventually have domestication that could lead to a more constant consistent zap apple crop.
9731559
Just going to point out that in regions where y'all is used in the singular its plural is actually often "all y'all" not also simply the word "y'all". Aslo its better to think of it not as a contraction of "you all" but as a dialectical replacement of the pronoun "you" itself, which can be either singular or plural
This is fascinating! Love the implication that Twi and AJ can play on the same intellectual playing field at least as far as botany is concerned.
10464117
Thanks much! I was kind of proud of how this turned out -- wish it had gotten more readers like you!
9665535
Yeah but after she planted the first one she never studied it in its original environment to see if there was a difference between the farm and the forest besides the obvious. She studied the effects she could see from ponyville.
Ahh, sweet science-y magic. Good story, and a great medium for an important message. If there's one thing I've learned as a scientist, it's that natural phenomena are ALWAYS more complex and interconnected than they first appear.
An oddball ghost happened across your fic and read it. Have a review!
I discovered this story from a review months ago and just got to read it now. It's such a great story and not a hard one to follow since Twilight and AJ point out their discoveries, hypotesis and observations as in an informal study case, great work :D