Chapter Three
Actually getting onto the train was relatively uneventful. Twilight made sure to purchase them a car all to themselves, in the back of the train to make sure that whatever phenomena was going on with Anon wouldn’t cause problems with any magical components of the train itself.
At least that was her reasoning as explained to him. Personally, he was pretty sure it might also partially be so that he didn’t freak any of the other little ponies out too much. Not that he minded. Not having to share a train car with a bunch of loud-ass little pastel ponies who would probably be whispering about him the whole time sounded pretty good.
They boarded and took their seats, giving each other a wide berth and sitting about twenty feet away from one another.
As the train began to move, it was not long before Anon found himself a bit bored, deciding to bother Twilight for a bit. “So uh….Twilight, right? You seem to have gotten what you wanted from me, so mind if I ask you a few questions of my own?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, Anon.” She said as she sat up a bit, looking a bit perked up at the prospect of getting to teach someone.
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice you seem to use a lot of nonferrous alloys and metals in your machinery. I saw what looked like a lot of brass and even a bit of aluminum. Is brass really a good choice for uh...stuff like this? I mean last I checked brass was pretty malleable and had a low melting point. What am I missing here?”
She smiled and shook her head “You are pretty close to the answer already really. Yes, normally brass would be an awful choice for something like building trains or railroads, but this is not regular brass. Ponies have developed a method of using specialized alchemical transformations to alter the properties of alloys like brass and bronze to make them substantially more resistant to corrosion, oxidation, and also greatly increase the amount of pressure they can bear before deforming. Alchemical brass is actually a fairly common material used for day-to-day industrial purposes, and aluminum is generally used for constructing appliances or reducing weight in what would otherwise be fairly heavy machines, like this train!”
He nodded slowly and rubbed his chin “That makes sense I suppose. But wouldn’t it make more sense to use a more commonly available and naturally well-suited metal, like iron? Or steel if you know how to make that?”
Her brow furrowed in slight confusion as she tilted her head “I think you have that backward. Aluminum. copper, tin, and zinc are all way more common than any sort of iron ore in Equestria. Iron is mostly found in incredibly small trace amounts in the soil, and then only in certain regions, like the Everfree. And even if we had enough of it to smelt into a usable amount of metal, it would be basically useless in day-to-day construction or industry. Iron negates magic, and as I think you are able to guess by now, magic is sort of important here.”
His eyes widened slightly as he felt a spark of realization “so twilight, how much iron does it take to effect magic?”
“Typically, a tenth of a gram per cubic meter is enough to cause disruption locally. The Everfree is actually about in the ballpark for moderate magical disruption. That’s the forest next to Ponyville where Zecora lives. The concentration is low enough at the outskirts for magic to permeate the outer area of the forest, which allows certain species of mightly magical plants to still grow without being totally neutralized, which is where Zecora gets most of her potion ingredients. But the inner part of the forest is almost totally non-arcane in nature and full of all sorts of terrifying ungovernable flora and fauna. The weather even generally operates outside of Pony control, because pegasi have a hard time getting back off the ground if they land too far into the forest.” she explained, starting to on a tangent as he simply stared at her with mild concern. He let her prattle on a bit longer before deciding he should probably interject.
“Twilight, how does your blood carry oxygen if iron in such small concentrations negates magic?” he asked, seeming quite incredulous at the idea. “I mean, how do you make hemoglobin?”
“Don’t you mean hemocyanin, anon? Ponies don’t have iron in our bloodstreams, that would be ridiculous! Almost all animals use copper as the oxygen-binding agent.” Twilight gave a soft little laugh at the thought. “Can you imagine if we had iron in our blood? at the required concentration to carry sufficient oxygen, a unicorn would...pass...out…” Horrorified realization filled her eyes as she looked over at anon again, mixed with disbelief. “Anon, are you...you aren’t being serious are you?”
He shook his head, looking apologetic. “The average human male has about 4 grams of iron in his body at any given time. It’s how our body transfers oxygen. Twilight, I think we may have a possible lead on why exactly my presence is so anathematic to you ponies.”
“Anon, Anon I know you aren’t informed about these things so I can’t blame you for being calm but you are an actual walking arcanohazard,” she said, smacking the bottom of her hoof on the armrest of her seat. “Your presence is physically disruptive to Pony anatomy. Several of our physical bodily processes are aided and enhanced by magic, like cognitive and circulatory function,” she said, hovering a paper and pencil out of her bag, scribbling furiously again. “That actually makes perfect sense based on the symptoms I experienced from close proximity. Feelings of lightheadedness, dizziness, impairment of cognition leading to significantly enhanced feelings of paranoia and a heightened fight or flight response. I even ended up simply passing out once my heart rate got too high….”
“Wait wait, so you’re saying that I could kill someone just by getting close to them?” he asked, scooting out of his seat and sitting back down another few rows down from her, seeming quite alarmed at the prospect.
“No, you should be able to be near most ponies just fine. I just have an exceptionally high level of magic in my body at any given time because I am a very powerful unicorn. Since my body has so much natural ambient magic, my internal systems lean on it more because it is more efficient than allowing my physical processes to take place the mundane way,” she explained gently, trying to reassure him. “The worst you’ll do to anyone who isn’t a unicorn is give them a good scare, maybe make them feel a bit scrambled, but other races should simply feel uncomfortable and mildly confused in your immediate proximity. Creatures with natural Anti-magical adaptations like dragons should be just fine. Even a normal, healthy young unicorn should only become extremely cognitively impaired and panicked. The only things you would need to worry about are creatures that entirely require magic to sustain themselves, like timberwolves, or other ponies that have very high levels of magical...power…”
Her face fell slowly, and a very long string of soft “oh no”s crossed her lips as she looked over at him, then back down at her notes, then towards the large mountainside city looming over them in the distance out of the window. “Anon, we have to make sure you do not get too close to the princesses. The results could be utterly catastrophic.”
He raised his hands up defensively, waving them in front of him “Alright, I got it, no need to panic! I’m assuming these princesses of yours are very powerful? Magically I mean, not like the political kind.” He said, quickly correcting himself just to make sure that she understood him correctly.
She nodded and gave a small exasperated sigh, putting a hoof on her chest as she tried to slow her breathing, clearly agitated. “Y-yes, the Princesses are both extremely powerful. They are responsible for raising the sun and the moon, and if something were to happen to them, the results could be incredibly catastrophic. “ she said as she seemed to get a grip on herself again.
Anon, however, was just beginning to have his own little moment. “I...I’m sorry. Did you just say that they “move the sun and the moon?”
She looked over at him and raised her eyebrow slowly, nodding “Yes, Celestia raises the sun in the mornings and lowers it at night, and Luna does the opposite for the moon. Sometimes they even do it at the same time.”
He slumped slightly at this, rubbing the bridge of his nose and grumbling softly “dear fucking lord Plato would have a fucking field day with you people. That motherfucker would be cumming in his fucking bedsheet dress if he knew about this place…”
“What? Who’s Plato? A friend of yours?” She asked with a curious tone, the notepad and pencil coming back up as her ears perked a bit.
“Hah. No, not a friend of mine. A teacher. A teacher who lived a really long time ago. He was one of the first people in my race’s recorded history to meaningfully ponder the big questions about life. Some people call him the first proper philosopher, but I feel like that might be a bit much personally.”
“Oh! Are you a philosopher of some sort? I heard what you were reading to Applebloom when we got back, it sounded kind of strange, but meaningful.” She said as she wrote down something in her pad, presumably about what he had just told her “I would really like to get to know more about the way your species thinks, both in a psychological sense, and a cultural sense, and since we are going to be here for a while, this seems like a good time if you don’t mind?”
He gave her a long, unsure look, and seemed to actually think about this rather hard before giving a small, resigned sigh and shrugging. “alright, but I don’t think you are going to enjoy this very much, as a disclaimer. I am going to need you to understand that nothing I am about to say or do is personal, and is simply my best attempt to fulfill your request, are we clear?”
She nods and smiles a bit wider over towards him, seeming quite eager even with that disclaimer in mind “Of course! This is all purely academic. I am more than capable of separating my personal feelings from the subject at hand in order to record accurate data.
“Very good….” he said as he leaned forward a bit in his seat. “let me start where I started with Applebloom. What are those marks for on your flanks? The uh...Cutie Marks, right? She explained, but I think it might make more sense if someone who is a bit more knowledgeable and mature tried to explain it to me.”
“Those are my Cutie Marks, yes,” she said with a small smile as she looked down at her own flank with a hint of pride. “When a young colt or filly discovers what they were meant to do, they appear on their flanks to represent their special talent. Mine is supposed to represent that I am a magic generalist. I am talented at all forms of magic” she explained carefully to him.
He nodded and rummaged through his bag, taking out a hardcover notebook and a pen, uncapping the latter, and opening the former as he started to take some notes of his own. “Mhmm...I notice that you used the phrasing ‘what they were meant to do.’ To me, that implies that your definition of what a cutie mark is involves some level of pre-ordained fate or destiny, is that a correct assumption?”
“Well, I suppose that it would be, yes? Why do you ask?” she inquired, tilting her head slightly as she gave him a questioning look.
“Alright, now, is a Cutie Mark something that is set in stone as soon as a pony is born, or does a pony have some amount of leeway in what they will become talented in? Does environment and rearing have any effect on the development of a cutie mark?” He asked as the pen danced across the paper in front of him.
“That is a very complicated question, Anon. I am not sure how one would be able to ascertain whether or not a pony would have gotten a cutie mark for something aside from them actually getting it...” She said, thinking about it now and seeming a bit unsure judging by her expression.
“Mmm...hmm...alright, let me ask a different question in the same vein. Let us say a pony was to get a cutie mark in drawing. If the pony had instead, decided to dedicate themselves to say, baking, and genuinely was fulfilled by doing so, could they have instead gained a cutie mark in baking, or would they have inevitably say, doodled on a paper one day and gotten their cutie mark from that experience no matter how much they wanted to become a baker?”
She gave a vexed look to him and shook her head “but that makes no sense, why would they want to be a baker if they are naturally good at drawing!?”
He smirked softly “That question was actually helpful, thank you, Twilight. As for why? Perhaps baking is a family profession? Or maybe they wish to pursue baking because doing so presents incentives outside of initial satisfaction, like baking being a more sustainable profession in their town than art. Anyway, another question. Is a pony satisfied by what they are allegedly destined to do, and therefore gain a cutie mark in it, or, because as you have stated is likely the case, cutie marks are to some extent pre-ordained by fate, does the magic behind the cutie mark enforce satisfaction onto the pony it manifests onto?”
She almost seemed a bit offended by the question, scowling softly. “Why of course a pony isn’t forced to enjoy what their cutie mark is for, it simply always coincides with their special talent! Why would you think they are compelled to enjoy it?”
He gave a small patient sigh “Because if they are not only pre-ordained but also always in line with what the pony is allegedly destined to enjoy, that means, as far as I am able to tell, that the pony has no choice in being inclined to enjoy the task that they are essentially assigned by the marks on their flanks. As you said yourself, why would they want to be a baker if they are naturally inclined to draw! Even if you do not want to think of it that way, your own thoughts on the matter betray that at some level you do think that cutie marks are enforced, rather than simply the culmination of a ponies genuine interests. According to your understanding of how these marks work, ponies are essentially bound to a certain line of work unless they want to suffer reduced satisfaction, and judging by your reaction to the concept of a pony going against their destiny, social ostracization. I can certainly imagine that a pony who does not have a cutie mark, whether through the inability to access the materials or circumstances they need to learn their special talent or from a desire to pursue a different calling, would be looked down on as lesser by certain elements of society.”
She gave a grimace as she realized he had a point. Ponies who didn’t have their cutie mark often got a lot of flak from certain kinds of ponies. Ponies about who she felt she felt that the world would be better off if they did not act that way, but they did exist nonetheless.
But still, she felt obligated to play Tirek’s Advocate. “Such a thing is very rare! I only know of one or two ponies past adult age who don’t have a cutie mark in all of Equestria. They usually get case studies done about them due to the rarity! And even so, the benefits far outweigh the potential downsides, if you could even call them that.”
“And there I think we have one of the fundamental differences in thought between Equestrian culture, and at least, modern human culture” Perhaps post-modern was a better moniker, but he did not want to confuse herewith things they had yet to even crack properly yet. “Personally, I subscribe to a worldview where there is no pre-ordained fate, and people or in this case, ponies, are free to choose their destiny as they will, shaping it entirely through their actions and of course, involuntary exposure
To events outside of their control, brought about by other people or ponies doing the same and the natural processes of the world around us.”
Her face looked honestly fairly horrified at the prospect, and he noted this and continued to speak “I suppose that in the context of a world where magic exists, there may be some underlying force dictating the fate of those ensnared by it. Fortunately for myself, as far as I am able to ascertain by my own observation, no such force held sway over me before I arrived, and I seem to be immune to the forces that would do so in this world that I am aware of that did not exist in my own.”
Come to think of it, he if was immune to the effects of magic, how did he get here in the first place? What sort of phenomenon would have allowed him to be transported here? Thoughts for another time. He had other matters on his mind for now.
Matters such as the very anxious little unicorn now scrambling for a good answer to what he had said. “Well, what is wrong with having a fixed destiny!? That does not make the journey of experiencing it any less, meaningful unless you decide that it does!”
“That is just the thing, you do not get to actually decide if it does if it is preordained whether or not you will make that choice. The choice you think that you are making is an illusion, a fake. The outcome is already decided and the only reason you would or would not find meaning in it is due to the fact that you would have already. Without the freedom of true self-determination, any peace or harmony that might be derived from such a system is fundamentally meaningless, the same way there is no meaning in the side a coin lands on when flipped because it’s path was pre-determined by the forces previously applied to it.”
Twilight appears to be getting a bit upset now, despite herself, she frowns at him firmly as she speaks again. “That seems like an awfully cynical way to look at things, Anon. I do not think you are going to make a lot of friends with that sort of attitude.”
He shrugged and gave her a cool, noncommittal look. “Hey, I’m just doing what you wanted me to. You wanted to pick my brain, right? It is in no way my fault that you didn’t like what came out when you rummaged around. If you want we can drop it for now and talk about something a little less depressing for you?”
Seeing that he did not mean any harm, her expression softened and she gave a small nod, rubbing her hoof against her forehead just under her horn. “That would be nice, yes thank you,” she said, putting away her notepad and looking over at him with a small smile.
“Excellent,” he said, clapping his hands together and smiling over at her in return. “How about something a bit lighter, tell me how you got your cutie mark, I am sure it was a very interesting story...”
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I agree with anon cutiemarks are a load of bs
Anon: "twilight dont get mad."
Twiggles: "i wont get mad"
Anon: "cutie marks are bullshit cause its pre-destined and thats wrong"
book horse: -foaming out the mouth-
I'm pretty sure either Socrates or Plato had talked about on this. But I forgot who exactly did. Something about a man prosecuting his father and why he was exactly doing that.
I have to say that I love the way you basically tell "Twilight" that ponies are slaves of fate, I love how the conversation flowed, I really hope that instead of making this fic short, you make it long because it's amazing .
If only Twilight knew how much Anon is into the matter of cutie marks when it comes to the CMC. They were bullied by DT and SS for being "blank flanks." And while the fandom had so many head canons about the individual cuties marks of the Crusaders, I did not see anyone guessing correctly that they would go "meta"; i.e. getting cutie marks about cutie marks.It seems like they fought fate and were semi-successful. Their eventual marks seem to be a hybrid of their pre-destined marks and the badge of cutie mark counselors. Perhaps in this AU, Anon's influence will alter the CMC's (future) cutie marks even more.
I'm sure Anon will have a field day when he learns the stories of the Mane 6's cutie marks. Especially Pinkie vis a vis her family upbringing.
"No one can escape the fate that was chosen for them. All that remains is the end, where you all will perish. Eternal greatness exists only within myself. Sing a song of sorrow in a world where magic has vanished." ~ anon
10682814
my dude really be out here quoting golden wind, good shit.
10682817
Seems to be the vibe he's giving at the moment. I don't know if you plan to flesh it out further, but anon's magic resistance altering/counteracting fate would be a good addition to the story. He seems like he'd be happy about it anyways.
10682821
That does make sense. if fate is dictated by a magical force, being immune to magic would also render his individual choices resistant to fate's machinations.
Who is to say that even ponies who are affected by his anomalous properties have not had their fate altered by being cut off temporarily ^^
I love fics with logic, that'll teach purple smart to use horse logic.
10682831
Chad Human DESTROYS Purple Smart with FACTS and LOGIC
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10682793
indeed
anon be like
Anon way to smort for me
10682854
lol
Anon had apparently never heard of hard determinism before where there’s no such thing as true free will. Where you’re just a collection of atoms amoungst other atoms and every move you make next can be calculated, even before you were born. It’s basic chemistry and physics. Also, a special talent is where you just find something you’d like to do the rest of your life and sort of max out your potential for proficiency in that thing. Like if a human would’ve been born talented at something and then spent the rest of their entire lives gaining experience and all that talent was turned into a magic tattoo that appeared on someone and they gained all that ability in that skill in the form of natural/instinctual talent. It really isn’t that different from human life if you have a cutie mark. We’re already limited not by what we would like to do but rather what is useful to society. Doesn’t matter how skilled you are at something if your skill isn’t really needed where you live so you end up having to do something else. Also I remember someone who saw the previous gems of mlp tell me if a pony loses a cutie mark they suck at literally everything. I think actual Grogar did that at one point or something. So a cutie mark is like if one day you get a magic tattoo that maxes your potential for something you wanted to do.
Everyone focused on the cutie mark destiny debate and I'm here, facing the dread currently inevitable fate Anon will suffer, slowly dying asphyxiated due to lack of iron in available food for him to replenish his haemoglobin, wasting away over weeks once what he currently has runs out and he oh so slowly looses his capacity to oxygenate his blood and body...
10682892
Anon has heard of it but feels that due to things like quantum uncertainty and chaos theory render determinism a woeful oversimplification of incredibly complex systems that we still do not fully understand. essentially, it could be argued that the way that the chemical reactions in our brains play out have an element of randomness and could play out differently on subsequent repeats under the same conditions with different methods or measures of observation, and true determinism could only occur where such microvariances are accounted for and corrected deliberately by some method. under my interpretation, you could pick vanilla ice cream one time, rewind time, then in the same scenario decide you want chocolate instead for instance due to the potential variance, because it is not making the same choice twice persay, but rather, making two identical hoices with outcomes that are unknown until you actually make them.
this guy has a pretty interesting video on it that I watched a while back when I was asking some questions about the matter. I don't agree with everything he says but he makes some interesting points ^^
10682900
keep in mind that even if he cannot find a way to replenish his iron, as it depletes, his immunity to magic will gradually dissipate, meaning that ambient magic will supplement his physical processes the same as the ponies, unless human biology has some quirk which prevents it ^^
Anon vs Discord, who wins?
10682900
I'm sure the Everfree, having a relatively higher iron concentration than the rest of the world, could provide some opportunities. If magic is really anathema to lifeforms in this world, it would make sense from an evolutionary point of view for some plants native to the Everfree to evolve fruits/leaves/ect with high iron concentration to ward away pests. Maybe iron is a poison? So there could be some animal that would inject its victims with iron to either kill/paralyse them for consumption?
10682932
also a potential great point! I could definitely see some creatures near the middle of the forest using iron concentration in hide or fluids or fruit flesh as a deterrent against certain types of creatures from the outer edges of the forest that would otherwise predate them.
10682927
Discord sees anon
-confused screams of terror-
10682943
Yeah, so it could be possible for Anon to eat some of these fruit or animals to avoid dying from low iron content. Of course that would require going into the Everfree Forest, but it's something.
This feels like a story that would've been written around the time of season 1.
Anon: Cutie Marks prove your lives are meaningless and have no point.
Purple Pone: i2.wp.com/learn.onemonth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/1-10.png?fit=845%2C503&ssl=1
So, Anon is immune to magic because of the iron in his blood. He's also from another universe. This means he's pretty much outside the destiny everyone else in your version of Equestria is bound by. He's a wildcard. His very presence is going to mean things diverge wildly from canon isn't it? Not to mention that for now at least he can basically one shot every significant villain simply by getting near them.
A man chooses, a slave obeys. I’d say keep Twi away from golf clubs but I don’t think she could get close enough to him to have a prayer at pulling it off.
10682892
10682916
What he says, much of reality has a large amount of uncertainness "baked into it". Schooling unless you get up into higher levels actually does a real poor job of explaining this because it is really just a very difficult subject to wrap your mind around. For example, electrons don't really orbit atoms like the old solar system model, they exist as sort of a probability cloud around the nucleus. Just try explaining that to a bunch of highschoolers and see what you get and that is probably the easiest one to discuss. Physics is weird, really weird.
10682922
If his iron depletes I would expect he would suffer some serious health complications due to deficiency (anemia). His best bet would be to either look for food stuffs from the Everfree with higher iron amounts, or get it as a daily supplement (help from Zecora maybe?). This will become a very serious health concern for him otherwise although much of your iron is recycled internally there are still loses. Copper already has a biological role in humans for other enzymes so that would not help him. Other less savory and useful methods involve recycling various waste materials, but that still is only a stop gap measure.
Also, this reactivity to iron for magic just has Fae written all over it.
If you made your tear in reality large enough that the size of the "hole" exceeded his inhibition distance he could travel through it by magic means sort of indirectly. Given he didn't really notice while walking this seems most likely actually. Or it could be magical action through non-magical means (like lifting a stone by magic but letting it drop by gravity, only for dimensional rips).
If ponies have copper in their blood, does this mean they have invertebrate-like qualities??
10683040
most likely that the shared ancestor of life in the world of equestria in this setting did, and as evolution progressed, the benefits of having magic and then using it to augment bodily functions instead of having more surface efficient iron-based blood meant that they never evolved away from it.
10682900
... yeah, pones better fix that shit, like yesterday bruh!
10682922
Let's hope their are no 'quirks'. Or Anon may suffer a severe case of pony Covid!
10682922
I mean won't he also just like... die?
10683068
Nope! or at least, not for a while. The reason that ponies are able to have copper blood, which is less efficient at normal sea level surface conditions than iron is that their bodies are supplemented passively with magic. by the time he started becoming problematically anemic, his body would be able to absorb magic to the level required to bolster his failing natural functions which would keep him alive for substantially longer, this again, assuming he is unable to acquire a source of nutritional iron, as was discussed as a possibility via the life near the center of the Everfree forest.
Yep he’s gonna get Socratesed.
10683073
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10683041 It also helped that ponies didn't have apex predators living near them at the time. The only exception is an off-screen war with the griffins... and even then it's non-canon.
10682977 that is the vibe I was going for, yeah!
10683072
Speaking of blood transfusions, he's outta luck especially considering ponies lack of knowledge of blood types. But mainly the different blood. If anyone tries to donate their blood to Anon, he's just going to die, magic or not.
10682783
Booky: "Ah yes I got it when these stupidly specific circumstances occurred, and if only one tiny detail happened differently I wouldn't have gotten it!"
Le Anone: "So your cutie mark, and all actions leading up to it, were predetermined... So your cutiemark means nothing?"
Twiness Eversparkle: -INTERNAL SCREECHING-
10683080
Hemlock cannot possibly defeat Iron Man.
Resorting to ad hominem responses already, Twi? That doesn't say much about your intelectual curiosity.
By the way, shouldn't Anon be more concerned about other things than debating determinism and free will? Like, how is he going to get food with enough iron for his own survival?
10683258
Hmm. That might be an issue... the regular Earth-food sources of iron won't be all that useful. And if iron is largely antimagic (I'm getting hints of Fae magic from that), it'd be difficult to create a spell that recycled the iron in Anon's physical form and kept him topped up. Or, indeed, to supply it easily. It'd have to be mined at significant expense, refined using non-magical tools, and somehow translated into an absorbable or edible form. Ponies might be able to replicate ferrous sulfate, which is the simplest bioabsorbable iron compound I'm aware of. Or perhaps there are known magic-draining plants or... other biosources which Anon could eat?
Hmm... the setting is before Reformed Discord or the appearance of Sunset Shimmer, so chaos magic and Canterlot High are probably out as sources of iron-food. Pre-changelings, too, so the changeling throne probably isn't going to show up. Although perhaps whatever it's made of may be known about and replicable. Bonus giggles if that's just something with a high iron content, and changelings can work around it (or use a different magic system). Double-bonus if it's something human-edible.
10683290
Or he will have to venture into the deep Everfree, searching for rich iron edible plants and fruits (while trying not to be eaten back).
By the way, Anon has still to tell the ponies that the Everfree undomitable nature is more or less what in the human world is considered normal.
10683072
Not considering what Twiggles said. He'd be dead long before he reached half a gram of iron in his body, much less getting in the microgram range for him to be affectable by magic. If that was enough to let magic affect him he wouldn't project such an aura of magic negation.
Not without putting the premise of iron being extremely anti-magical in severe check, that is.
That being said 10683008's solution is likely the most logical one, greeting iron-having foodstuffs from the everfree. I wouldn't reach saying they're rich in it, very unlikely in such a world. But then it'd become a hurdle, not a death sentence.
Very curious to see how this will progress from here!
Will Anons magic immunity be permanent or will it wear off eventually? Also are the ponies going to stop being racist towards him and others? I mean actively rather than passively
Wait! A ponies blood is based on copper, not iron?!
Live long, and prosper My Little Pony.
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10683488
when he stops needing hemoglobin meaning when he is ded
Goodness, this truly is a gorgeous gemstone of a story! The transitions feel natural, the characters feel true to who they are, and the whole premise of it is just super enjoyable! I hope ya didn't mind, but I just HAD to make a reading of the first chapter! This story is just amazing so far!
Audio Linkyloos!: [Part 1] https://youtu.be/AEp6qd2q-cg
[Part 2]: https://youtu.be/J1E3SAX2TjA
(I don't mean to offend anyone with this comment in any way!)
10683635
thank you! I will happily feature this on the description, on the fridge you go!
10683072
Well, with how our blood can only transfer oxygen through the use of iron, no amount of magic would bolster his circulatory functions because of it's intrinsic need of iron and the fact that iron negates it even in small quantities. It would be like me saying "I know that we are running out of gas for this car, but once most of the gas is gone we can put some water in our gas tank to aid the gas we have left." If the only reason magic can bolster the function of circulation for ponies is because magic plays nice with copper, allowing said magic to aid the copper. But by going off the information given on the way magic works, such a thing wouldn't be possible for a human no mater how much iron they may lose due to the fact that iron is the only thing in our blood that binds to oxygen. It was said that magic was just an aid so wouldn't it do nothing to help Anon because it would not be able to aid something that isn't there and can't aid in the first place?
This is a really good story by the way.