In order to make sure her class knows a little more about the world, Cheerilee has them exchanging letters with children in other nations. This allows her students to learn about truly foreign concepts, like 'snow day'. And the mere concept of having a random storm grant an unexpected holiday has taught the Crusaders something big: that Equestria is the worst place in the whole world, because the weather schedule means that's never gonna happen.
Surely there has to be a way to get a snow day of their very own. Surely...
...so what's the fastest way to summon a windigo?
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Cover art from an image created by LunaticDawn.
Chapters (1)
"Maybe jus' a windigo foal, t' take care of one town!"
Heck, for that, all you need is a bag of Nutty OatyOat bars, and Nightmare Night. OOoOOOoooOOoooo.
"She would purchase a couch," the stallion murmured, "if she could put it away when she wasn't using it. If it just... folded up into the wall..."
Canon. Davenport's first name is herefore Murphy.
That was pretty heartwarming
Have Truffle and Fleur make a Griffon Pony meal for the class, Cheerilee! It’s obvious! ;)
Touring colt bands existing in this Equestria raise the question of how many of them got eaten in wild zones. And how many concerts carried on regardless.
Ah yes, the utter betrayal that is your family introducing you to the snow shovel for the first time. Truly a rite of passage as much as any other.
It takes a lot for a lesson to stick with Dash, but when it does, it's never coming unstuck. Though I'm not sure what it'll take for the benefits of preorders to adhere. First, she'd have to appreciate the value of not spending literally every bit she earns...
Apple Bloom, the goal is to rile up the town a little, not juggle live grenades.
... and then Sweetie primed a reactor to blow. "Warp core" might be more appropriate. The potential for evil really does run in that family.
For reference, Estee's Scootaloo is just a late bloomer. And has demonstrated substantial pegasus magic output while still on the ground (in Monsoon Season).
I feel like this portion of the story only happened because of the most recent World Series.
Ah, the phlegm and tonic. But where did Berry get the cilantro?
They are always so awful at reaching their goals. Everything they try to achieve fail spectacularly do them trying to be bad end up creating miracles!
Just think what would happen if they ever tried their hoofs at being evil villains?
I kind of wish this one-shot was canon to the mainverse so all the good stuff that happened stayed.
And wouldn't it had been fun if that kid conspiracy took off, and the collective belief generated would have created the only good weindigo in existence, a foal who only reason to be is to bring snow day miracles. Jack Frost, would be his name.
P.S. I wonder why they didn't try with Rarity. In the verse, she is HORRIBLE with weather spells after all so a snowstorm should be in her cord.
Well, I was not expecting it to go the way it did. It was a surprisingly sweet story. It was really nice to the the Flower Trio have their eyes open. From the mouths of babes, right? I expected a train wreck and got several quite heartwarming little vignettes. Had a bit of Diamond at the end too and after Confederacy, I like seeing her show up. Enjoyed it a lot.
This story reminds me a bit of Calvin and Hobbes comic:
If anyone reading does not already know what this refers to, it certainly is worth a look. Rather clever!
I agree with Rainbow Dash, totally worth it. I bet Celestia and Luna would agree as well.
snrrk! ok, that's clever
I can guess a certain fashionista goes through those quite a bit
11043686
If only, FoME. If only. The day the Continuum Flower Trio learn that lesson, and it sticks, is the day Trixie loses her ego.
This was quite enjoyable and entertaining. Thank you for this story.
The problem is that they themselves don't really learn much. It's ponies like them who end up leading to ponies like Sprout.
11043923 Ah, but the CMC do learn things ... they learned that if they do the "right" thing and report being bullied to their teacher and primary adult figures, absolutely nothing will happen.
In Triptych!Cannon they learned that that if they try and acquire a cutie mark so that their bully will leave them alone, then every mistake and accident will be remembered by everyone until they become the town's scapegoats and pariahs among many of the adults
They learned (again, core Triptych) that the town as a general whole (including their teacher and primary adult figures) just wants them to sit down, shut up, and be a good little victim.
They learned that the primary authority figures in their lives do not have their backs unless it is something the "adults" consider "important" (which obviously does not include being bullied and harassed regularly).
I'd say that the CMC learned plenty.
Perhaps it's my tendency to see allusions where they might not be, but if that's not a Hitchhiker's nod, I'll... well, I'll be sad, I guess, and maybe eat my hat.
"and damp, but not longer quite so clear."
"and damp, but no longer quite so clear."?
"Having a plan was at the heart of so much for what they tried"
"Having a plan was at the heart of so much of what they tried"?
"which the old-timers got away would be grounds"
"which the old-timers got away with would be grounds"?
Hah. :D
Thank you for writing. :)
(...I am still wondering what Out is, though, of the Get and Out pair...)
Beautiful Estee, just, beautiful. I hope Celestia and Luna hear about this and decide to try out one "random" snow day a year. Those memories can really be magical.
11043950
And they'll learn something else when what happened to Scootaloo's parents comes to light: what 'cramming to get into Heaven' looks like.
Oh my God, that was a freaking delight. And of course, the one time the Crusaders set out to actually cause trouble, they end up helping everypony.
Agreed, this was a pure delight.
Ha… this was a charming one. Who doesn’t love a good snow day as a child? I give them credit for being proactive, if not quick on the uptake or very observant (with the exception of maybe Sweetie.)
I loved the various eureka moments (including Davenport’s literal one.). I especially liked Dash’s nefarious plan even if it bore no fruit. I thought Davenport was about to invent the sofa-bed when Apple Bloom pointed out that few rooms had space for one of each…. Is there such a thing as a folding sofa, Murphy-bed style?
"Four days in which the Flower Trio failed to relapse" in or adjacent to the Continuum is a minor miracle in and of itself.
11043748
It actually is.
Many people remember (or have heard of) the infamous "brown M&M clause", but many don't know that there was an actual reason for it beyond "egotistical rock stars making outrageous demands to be outrageous."
For those who don't know: Van Halen was one of the first bands to try bringing a large, lavish "arena rock"-style shows to smaller secondary and tertiary markets, and they were constantly running into problems with the local venues and promoters not taking the "technical rider" portion of the contract seriously, or even reading it at all. The promoters just assumed that the band would make do with whatever was available, and Van Halen's road crew would find themselves trying to set up in a venue which didn't have enough electrical outlets, or where the stage and overhead beams couldn't support the weight of the lighting rigs, and so on. So, while the bowl of M&Ms was specified in the usual "refreshments to be provided backstage" portion of the contract, the infamous "no brown M&Ms" clause was slipped into the middle of the technical rider as a way of seeing whether or not the promoter and venue had even read the contract. If the band and their road crew showed up and found brown M&Ms still in the bowl, that was a red flag to double- and triple-check tne entire production to see what other parts of the technical rider the venue hadn't bothered to pay attention to.
11044277
Or if the venue asked about it first. That probably would have been an acceptable response as well.
Estee, if anyone ever accuses your writing of being too dark, I want you to point them to this story. Funny, cute, fluffy, filled with little references and in-jokes for your universe, and an absolute delight to read. On a day when I was feeling a bit bleh, this was exactly what I needed to pick me back up.
Beautiful. Thank you.
11044277
ICR which band had a clause that they got all the brown M&Ms from the main band's stash.
11043748
oh, i was thinking of a different Calvin and Hobbes comic:
Calvin is standing by the side of the road, waiting for the school bus.
"i wish it would show a foot in the next minute so they'd cancel school.
Cmon, snow! snowsnowsnowsnowsnowsnowsnowsnowsnowsnow!"
it starts to RAIN.
"so close, and yet so far."
This was just pure simple and sweet.
WOW! So good!!!!
I for one, hope this happens late in the continuum so the changes can stick!
And I wonder how many other towns are gonna start up letter exchanges... How much innovation comes from Ponyville, I wonder...
----
Typo:
adults), they
Rainbow Responsibility Dash.
Rainbow Irresponsibility Dash.
Estee writes so well but he doesnt do the three Crusaders often. But when he does write them it's pure awesome.
Thus succinctly pointing out the obvious problem in modern society that most of us don't really want to admit...we're emphasizing entirely the wrong things as the more important information to retain.
Though admittedly, this part sounds like an Equestria-specific sort of problem. I am confident it hadn't ever been the show's intention to convey this...but I had thought more than once all throughout G4 that there was something of a worrying "anything not Equestria is not important" trend to the thinking patterns of its citizens.
Though to be perfectly fair, Iron Will always did tend to be a bit on the...intense...side.
And yet again Cheerilee earns her keep as a good teacher, because only a good teacher would think to try and add that level of immersion to the learning experience.
I mean...it's not an unvalid criticism, in all fairness...
If I may be allowed a moment to diverge into it for a second, I have legit wondered this myself from time to time for the real world, because considering how very silly and frankly immature the voting practices of the adults in this day and age has been, I sometimes can't help but think the voting of the children couldn't possibly be much worse.
I know it sort of shoots this fic's whole premise in the foot, pointing this out...but despite Equestria putting such heavy emphasis on keeping its weather on a schedule, we've still seen instances of weather-related accidents in both the show and comics alike, which plenty of fans have since extrapolated upon further going off of that same logic, leading to my point--surely even Equestria still has the odd occurrences where a snowstorm was accidentally started at a time where it wasn't scheduled, especially if the weather isn't managed elsewhere in the world, because then logic dictates there'd still be instances of unmanaged weather occasionally slipping into Equestria from time to time.
Point being...surely not even Equestria is truly immune to snow days, nor that they'd be so unknown. They may be rarer, perhaps to the point of it being close to a one-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but they'd surely still happen from time to time, often enough that the concept would be readily and publicly known regardless.
Granted, its possible such snow days just haven't yet taken place within the lifetimes of these three...but I also feel the need to point out that these three live in the same town as Derpy, who I'm quite sure could accidentally mix-up rain clouds for snow clouds on more than one occasion and accidentally cause it to snow in the middle of July or something.
At the risk of inflating Rainbow's ego, I suppose that is a good counter to my earlier point--Rainbow has demonstrated in the past of being something of a miracle worker in this one regard.
Pity Pinkie Pie wasn't the one born with the wings then, eh?
Yeah, I'm sure the commute to Ponyville is just awful for Windigos.
*pictures a Windigo casually riding the train somewhere*
*decides to heartily approve of this mental image*
What, they didn't already have hide-aways in Equestria?
Only the CMC could go out with the precise goal of deliberately creating strife and turmoil within the pony populace and ultimately end up achieving the exact opposite.
Heck, if this proves to be the trend that happens with every subsequent snow day they attempt to create...would you really ever want them to stop?
11045715
Just the test by itself would exclude most of the adults you're talking about from voting. The original context of "grandfather clause" was a hamfisted way of making sure only black people had to suffer from that.
Obligatory reminder that Pinkie and Fluttershy got their tribes swapped at some point between Faust's original pitch and the show we got (extremely obvious if you've ever seen Surprise).
11046730
I was actually thinking of precisely that when I made that comment, but I didn't want to have to explain it out for those who didn't know, so...yeah.
Is that a Gunslinger cycle reference I spy?
11043619
Explains why so much in his life has gone wrong.
11044821 Rainbow is a very responsible pony. Just what she is responsible for is a matter for debate. And lawsuits.
Very well done I loved it
So nice and sweet it's a wonder you didn't save it for Christmas. (And yet still with the Estee "flavour".)
Finally got around to this one. It did not disappoint, and warmed the blackened recesses of my soul.
This is such a nice illustration of youthful fury; a four-point stomp, when one stomp just doesn't give enough emotional satisfaction.
Well this was a lovely story. Thanks Estee.
But what's with the chapter title? The horror tag is right there!