• Member Since 2nd Nov, 2012
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Admiral Biscuit


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E

There weren’t always ponies, and then there were. Suddenly, they were everywhere. They were in the news, they were on the radio and the television, and they were even shopping at Meijer.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 124 )

Reminds me of the first time that I ever heard Rap music. It was the mid 1980s in a shopping mall in east Texas.

It was playing in a department store window, so I stopped to look. Some kid starts telling me what the lyrics are.

I put on my best Stupid Look & said “That’s amazing! You don’t look especially holy, but he is Speaking In Tongues & you can understand him! Both are miracles!” He went away. Not running, but quickly.

Even back then, I knew “On the Highway of Life, crazy people have the right of way”

Oh I love it I love this

Two Shipts ships that pass in the night.

A delivery mare, Biscuit I love you so much. :twilightsmile:

I thought for a moment it was going to be about the coffee thrower.

9811446
Me too!
Specially the way he compared ponies with animals at the beggining. I suspect that may have bern ab intention.

Pretty nice story :D

Heh!
Was reading this while listening to the Spongebob production music song: "Me for You"
SpongeBob "Me for You"

Conventional wisdom is to not shop when you’re hungry, and I normally didn’t.

Yeah, well, my dad and I have never been good at obeying that particular bit of wisdom. ()^_^

When I got back on the road, I did spot her, walking purposefully down the cracked and broken sidewalk. Michigan isn’t known for the quality of its roads, and the sidewalks are generally worse, if they exist at all.

Depends on the locale, really. Before moving to the middle of nowhere in Kansas I'd lived in Dearborn Heights for several decades, and they were usually pretty good about keeping their roads and sidewalks maintained from what I recall.

That aside, I liked this story overall. It gives the reader a clue as to what things must've been like when humans and Equestria's residents started sharing the same planet over time, and that was cool.

We always expect cultural shifts to be sudden and sweeping, but they rarely ever are. It's a gradual process and we rarely notice untill the changes really pile up. In a lot of ways this story is a more grounded "Earth and Equestria meet" story, mach of the fallout wouldn't really sink in for YEARS after it happened.

It's official: Ponies use phones via boops.

I got to agree the apps out today are just insane. You can shop from your grocery at home and have it delivered to your door. Or you can do curbside pickup and just go to the store and they bring it out to you.

On a side note I think almost all of your ponies on Earth stories take place in the same universe. It makes me wonder how long until we start seeing the first pony politicians?

This story is the definition of slice of life, and a pretty darn good one, too.

It also highlights the fallacy of "overnight success" or "sudden failure." If you really scrutinize anything which happens out of the blue, you'll usually find there were several little things which led up to the big event. The housing crisis of 2008 was years in the making. Ariana Grande spent years building her career at places like Nickelodeon before she became white-hot.

I wonder whether I'd be bold enough to approach a pony if they really existed here, or whether I'd react like the narrator.

9811950
I kinda wonder the same thing about myself, honestly. If they made it known that they liked cats as much as humans did, I imagine that would help me out a lot, but otherwise I'd just keep to myself.

Really enjoyed this one, a very nice reflection how the aftermath of pony first contact might actually play out. Which is: very mundane and unexciting. If humans are anything, we're good at adapting to changes (give or take a varying amount of fundamentalists). And ponies are just the same, considering the weirdness of their home planet.

This really needs to transition over years as more ponies show up, until the POV character realizes how *few* humans there are, and then eventually how he is the only one.

Michigan isn’t known for the quality of its roads, and the sidewalks are generally worse, if they exist at all.

To be fair, the United States isn't known for the good quality of its pedestrian infrastructure in general. It's not just a Michigan thing.

Dan

9812451

Well, in the North, pavement in general has a very short life expectancy. As the saying goes, there's only two seasons: Winter and Road Construction. All winter the roads and sidewalks are worn and cracked by the tons of salt and sand dumped on them, and the ground freezing and flexing underneath causing buckles, and even a tiny crack quickly growing from water freezing in it. Then from the moment things thaw in April, all the way into November, it's nothing but lane closures, road closures and detours. This summer, literally every main road out of my neighborhood was blocked. County Road I, County Highway 10, Interstate 35W, Highway 65...

If Maud Pie and a team of her fellow roctorate earth ponies were to come help Humans invent better types of asphalt and concrete, it would be a tremendous boon.

I have to agree with everyone else here: this is realistic for a first contact scenario between Earth and Equestria, even though it doesn't feel realistic at first—perhaps it's because I'm so used to high-octane, high-action first contact stuff where drama and stakes are high that reality becomes a little unrealistic for me. That slow, creeping feeling of change just catching up on you without much fanfare—you got that one nailed down for this fic!

Thank you for this story!

The King of Slice of Life strikes again!

It's like "Alien Nation", except ponies don't dissolve when you throw them in the ocean.

Concentrated lye or mineral acid WILL dissolve them, however!

I proved this with many MANY tests! :pinkiecrazy::fluttershbad:

The world was changing, and I was okay with it.

This. This all day every day. This to literally half the planet.

9813031
I was talking about the relative priorities shown by US governments vis a vis transportation. Priority number one is shoving as many cars down the road as possible. Everything else is secondary if it gets considered at all.

See this one is cheating because it takes advantage of the fact that anything specifically mentioning Michigan is going to get a thumb from me.

This is by far my favorite story of the four you put up over the weekend. Love the feeling of epiphany gradually sinking in, until the end.

It was no different than arguing that playing Magic summoned demons or how playing video games was a gateway pastime to committing mass murder.

And just as those people ignore the angels and weddings, so to do the ignore anything about ponies that conflicts with their preconceived notions.

Brilliant work in capturing the transition from novelty to normalcy. This is like the literary equivalent of a Norman Rockwell painting, gorgeously capturing an everyday moment. (And now I'm imagining Rockwell doing pony art. Or art of people on smartphones. Or ponies on smartphones. :derpyderp1:) Thank you for this.

This was lovely. I loved this whole little series (though I am kind of partial SoLs). The gradual noticing of everything, I could see it all in my head, and that's one of the marks of a great writer. I've never doubted that from you. Just one other thing:

There's always a Karen. Always. And they are not gradual. They always seem to pop up out of nowhere. I've never heard of anyone that grew up with a Karen.

Ever.
:rainbowlaugh:

My Mother actually works as a driver for Shipt. She's not too big on ponies though. Still this gets an upvote for reminding me of her.

and child-scaled ones at Polly’s with a flag that said “customer in training” for older kids to push.

When I was a kid, a local grocery store did that, too. I don't know why they stopped. It was also the first place in town to have doors that open automatically. As a kid, I found it fascinating even after I figured out they were activated by pressure switches beneath the doormats.

Just like with most fics like these, I would like to say one thing: more please!

but things mostly died down until a pony bought a horse farm and that was newsworthy; that was worth a week in the local news, that was worth dozens of photographs of her caring for animals which were like her but not like her.

- ah, was thinking about something similar, mostly in context of 'will I worry about literal horses as much if I will be myself a bit like horse?" and resolved this with yes, because I care about my dog Grey for example, even if he doesn't talk 'as human'...

Like most guys, I don’t often notice the little details, but I had noticed the smoothly-brushed fur on her leg, the shine of her hoof, and the glint of her steel shoe.

- huh, pony in boots, for extra kick! (well, real horses probably better with something more horse-friendly, magical earthponies probably can do things differently, and their hooves may react differently to anything attached/glued to them ... This is actually quite a big question for me - because I know real-world horses/ponies and nearly all other beings have their own small but vital needs, I can only guess what exactly may magical ponies need? And what may happen if they not get it enough ... :/ You see, I tend to look at grim end of possibilities, may be because nearly everyone else focused on bright side of things)

how it would cause the collapse of civilization as we knew it.

I would think thousands or millions of alien magic ponies just showing up out of the blue would collapse WORLD civilization instantly.

The chaos would be staggering... and thus I know Discord would be behind the ponies being here in the first place.

9815386 And so too do people ignore that this is fantasy trying to make the case for something actually taking place in reality, and thereby glossing over everything that doesn't nicely fit into the theme.

Magical aliens appearing out of the blue would cause global devastation immediately, and you know it. Humans can still barely manage to get along with each other, and I suspect mainly out of the fear of M.A.D. if they get too riled up. Throw in REAL aliens... with REAL magic... a new form of power to exploit... the term 'apocalyptic' jumps to mind.

9811434

A delivery mare, Biscuit I love you so much. :twilightsmile:

:heart:
Legit as soon as I figured out what Shipt was, I thought it was the perfect thing for a pony to do.

9811446

I thought for a moment it was going to be about the coffee thrower.

Who’s the coffee thrower? I feel like I’m missing something.

Or are we talking about the angry man in Silver Glow’s Journal?

9811590

Me too!
Specially the way he compared ponies with animals at the beginning. I suspect that may have been ab intention.

Hmm, I assume you’re talking about the angry man in Silver Glow’s Journal . . . I hadn’t intended the story to be from that perspective, honestly. Legit, it’s sort of a self-insert, in a vague kind of way.

Pretty nice story :D

Thanks! :heart:

9841701
Aye, that one!

P.S. October 5'th is when I resume re-reading Silver Glow. I set an alarm and everything So I don't get 2 months behind again and then binge read into the future... again.

9811699
Huh, that’s an interesting song.

Never watched that much Sponge Bob, mostly ‘cause I’m old. And don’t have a TV.

9811717

Yeah, well, my dad and I have never been good at obeying that particular bit of wisdom. ()^_^

Nor I, honestly.

Depends on the locale, really. Before moving to the middle of nowhere in Kansas I'd lived in Dearborn Heights for several decades, and they were usually pretty good about keeping their roads and sidewalks maintained from what I recall.

Being in a ritzy neighborhood or a place where people complain about it helps. Also the city having money helps, too.

That aside, I liked this story overall. It gives the reader a clue as to what things must've been like when humans and Equestria's residents started sharing the same planet over time, and that was cool.

Thank you!

That’s often a subject that’s overlooked in stories, I think. It’s kind of boring, story-wise, and yet, it’s the kind of thing that really should be discussed. I think that a lot of time, major shifts do wind up just being a collection of small things over time . . . I mean, my grandpa remembered the end of WWI, and every now and then I wondered how weird it must have seemed to him to have seen Civil War veterans marching in parades to having a black president, you know?

9811878

It's official: Ponies use phones via boops.

Yup.

Booping is the only way.

9811742

We always expect cultural shifts to be sudden and sweeping, but they rarely ever are. It's a gradual process and we rarely notice until the changes really pile up.

Yeah, each little thing isn’t much, but over time the changes add up and then you’re left in wonder about how things used to be.

In a lot of ways this story is a more grounded "Earth and Equestria meet" story, mach of the fallout wouldn't really sink in for YEARS after it happened.

Yeah, there’d be the initial shock, of course, but then for most people things would go on as normal. Most people would only see ponies on TV, probably for years, and the first casual encounter in the wild would be strange.

9811946

I got to agree the apps out today are just insane. You can shop from your grocery at home and have it delivered to your door. Or you can do curbside pickup and just go to the store and they bring it out to you.

Sadly, that’s more limited out in the country, at least as far as I know. Never tried any of those services, though, so maybe I’m wrong about that.

We do have the Schwann’s truck roving around.

On a side note I think almost all of your ponies on Earth stories take place in the same universe.

I guess they kinda are. . . .

It makes me wonder how long until we start seeing the first pony politicians?

Pony politician, you say?

Maybe Night Flower could give it a go.

9811950

This story is the definition of slice of life, and a pretty darn good one, too.

Thanks!

It also highlights the fallacy of "overnight success" or "sudden failure." If you really scrutinize anything which happens out of the blue, you'll usually find there were several little things which led up to the big event. The housing crisis of 2008 was years in the making. Ariana Grande spent years building her career at places like Nickelodeon before she became white-hot.

One of my favorite quotes--which I sadly cannot remember exactly--was “I worked hard for ten years to be an overnight success.” While there are certainly people who suddenly burst onto the scene and take the world by storm, you’re right that most of them have been working for years to get the skills and exposure and whatever to make it happen.

I wonder whether I'd be bold enough to approach a pony if they really existed here, or whether I'd react like the narrator.

That’s a tough question, isn’t it? I’m not sure I would, honestly. I’d want to, and I’d probably curse myself for not being bold enough to do it after the moment had passed.

9812110

Really enjoyed this one,

Thanks!

a very nice reflection how the aftermath of pony first contact might actually play out. Which is: very mundane and unexciting. If humans are anything, we're good at adapting to changes (give or take a varying amount of fundamentalists).

Yeah, we mostly are.

Somewhat related, back in college I read a sci-fi story where one of the characters reminisced watching television shows on his pocket television. Many years later, I re-read it, and realized that I could now do that very thing with my smartphone.

And ponies are just the same, considering the weirdness of their home planet.

Yeah, they have a different kind of weirdness to deal with, but they seem to generally take it in stride.

9812305

This really needs to transition over years as more ponies show up, until the POV character realizes how *few* humans there are, and then eventually how he is the only one.

That’s kind of creepy, TBH. Like something in the Friendship is Optimal universe.

9812451
To be fair, the United States isn't known for the good quality of its pedestrian infrastructure in general. It's not just a Michigan thing.
I fixed that for you. :derpytongue2:

But you do make a good point.

9813429

I have to agree with everyone else here: this is realistic for a first contact scenario between Earth and Equestria, even though it doesn't feel realistic at first—perhaps it's because I'm so used to high-octane, high-action first contact stuff where drama and stakes are high that reality becomes a little unrealistic for me.

Let’s be honest, there would very much be moments of first contact that were of the hair-on-fire type, but “OMG ponies” has been done to death, at least in my opinion. :P For me, the interesting part is what happens next.

That slow, creeping feeling of change just catching up on you without much fanfare—you got that one nailed down for this fic!

Thanks! :heart:

Thank you for this story!

You’re welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!

9813710

Concentrated lye or mineral acid WILL dissolve them, however!

I proved this with many MANY tests! :pinkiecrazy::fluttershbad:

Concentrated lye will dissolve you, too.

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