• Member Since 14th Jul, 2012
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Georg


Nothing special here, move along, nothing to see, just ignore the lump under the sheet and the red stuff...

E

With the opening of the Equestrian embassy in Kansas City comes a new age of interspecies cooperation. Naturally, the first pony tourists want to explore the most exciting of all places in the US Midwest: Wamego Kansas on the Fourth of July

Editing assistance by Tek and Admiral Biscuit

Picture schleped together out of some public domain clip art and scribbles

Chapters (2)
Comments ( 50 )

Welcome to a two-day trip of some tourist pegasi as they wander around the US Midwest on their accumulated vacation days. This weekend they are visiting the small town of Wamego Kansas for their 4th of July celebration, both as participants and observers, and ending in the largest fireworks display in this part of the country. So sit back, put on some sunscreen and bug spray, and relax with Knight and Dei on their vacation back when you could go outside without fifteen layers of wool. (brr!!)

Written more or less for Admiral Biscuit's Not-a-Contest, which of course is not a contest but a collection of some of the niftiest stories about ponies working on Earth. Well, I decided that all work and no play makes a dull pegasi, so here we have a couple employees of the KC Embassy out enjoying themselves with their newborn son. And of course since pegasi have problems driving, it includes one human as a combination driver/au pair/foalsitter/cultural attaché/guitar player. Talk about your dream summer job.

Worth remembering that this is crossing state lines; the Kansas City that matters is actually in neighboring Missouri.

Is it at all weird that I read the story description and immediately thought "Hey, this sounds like something Admiral Biscuit would do." And only after that noticed the edit credit?

probably changed other than the tulips having gone away after Tulip Festival was over

Yeah, I bet they did :)

I just try not to think about Knight and Dei taking that velvet painting of Elvis back home and explaining it.

Elvis is an attraction whichever dimension you're in

11106103 The Wamego Tulip Festival is an erratic Spring thing around here. Tulips have a short blooming life, so frequently the festival happens while they're still budding, or after all the petals have fallen off. The town is part Dutch (windmill and flowers), part East Coast (the Oz Museum and the Columbian theatre), and part West Coast (Toto's TacOZ, and the OZ winery). And although I've never actually found an affordable velvet painting of Elvis, I do have a blacklight painting of a unicorn on velvet in our bedroom.
11106097 I blame the Admiral. Also determined to make a Fimfic Authors are in Your Bed chapter sometime soon. (in geologic terms of 'soon')

I guess it's slice of life?

It's well written of course, as expected, but the story meandered around like the broad curves of the Mississippi without really going anywhere; no jeopardy, character growth or arc. I'm a bit confused as to what the purpose of this story is.

11106326
It's slice-of-life like the tag says. Not every story has to have a purpose or arc or character growth. We're just going along with these ponies on vacation, that's all it is.

Well that was perfectly lovely.

I kept mentally pronouncing "Dei" as the two-syllable Latin word for "gods" until she actually showed up in the scene and the pun finally clicked. I don't know if I blame you or me more for that.

In any case, delightful slice of life. Thank you for a great Bruener-grade bit of pony tourism.

11106326 If you're looking for long, lazy curves of a river with jeopardy, character growth, and an arc, feel free to read through The One Who Got Away / Drifting Down the Lazy River where two ponies discover something wonderful while on the River Fen.

11106447 True, and in Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies, I get both vacationing and character arcs. (I love the self-writing story plugs I get from some commenters)

11106759 The internet is everywhere, and there's actually a totally unrelated website with roughly the same name that I had no idea existed until I was practically done with the story. Kind of an odd place, but to each their own.

11106103
Naturally, some pony in Equestria will wonder, "oh, you've got an Elkvis, too?"

The world is a pretty closed in place right now, but at least I can still visit it with ponies. Thanks!

This is a surprisingly sweet story.

Twilight would be an American citizen if his parents are just embassy staff rather than Ambassador Officers.

There we go, all tied up in an explosive bow. Come over and visit sometime. And bring your ponies.

I’ve never been able to hear the song without thinking about Airplane!, a movie which perplexed my employers greatly when we first watched it.

Seeing a parody without any of the context behind it will do that.

Thankfully, the lovebirds did not lick each other’s faces clean like I feared, but vanished into a bathroom to take care of the cleanup while I stayed at the table with Twilight and tried not to look embarrassed.

Mind you, there's no way of knowing if they didn't lick each other clean once thy were in the bathroom.

... if George Washington had been an immortal alicorn, it was quite possible our countries would have looked even more alike in the political arena.

They offered Washington presidency for life. He refused to become a king by another name. If he were immortal, he probably wouldn't have taken the position to begin with.

I thought the story was done last chapter, so getting another dose of delightful pegasus-peppered Americana was a wonderful surprise. Thank you for it. :twilightsmile:

Dan

Equestria needs to send representatives to the Edinburgh Tattoo. It's the Carnegie Hall of Marching Bands and Ceremonial Units.

I'm sure Knight could nail Loch Lomond or Heart of Oak.

11106864
Don't get me wrong, you're one of my favourite authors on the site and I own the deadtree compendium of the Fen River stories. Just couldn't quite get my head round where this one was going.

One of the great things, for me, in this story is that I know where some of these locales are. Being an OTR flatbed driver, I've hauled my share of Cat buckets out of Wamego. Well done, Georg. Hopefully we'll get to see more of this group in the future.

Edit: As a Navy vet, I concur with the statement about the Eternal Father hymn (aka the US Navy hymn).

I remember when child-leashes just started hitting big, there were a lot of older women grumbling about them. Mostly about how they wished that they'd had them.

Alright kids knowledge time. This right here is how you do Slice of Life! Stories! Also George you kind of win at this.

One of these days one of those pegasi will get one of those women to stick.

After all, this was a vacation , just the happy couple, their newborn son, and their human au pair . We didn’t need any extra stress or drama.

FOOL. Y U SAY THOSE WORDS?

But this is some nice iyashikei style story so far.

This story is so much better than I expected going into it.

Simply out-friggin'-standing, as usual. Thank you!

Nice story, but really bizarre to imagine a shared religion between dimensions.

11120394 Not so much shared as tourism. Think of a bunch of Methodists and Lutherans visiting a Buddhist temple.
11109328 Hm, maybe pegasi are sticky due to static cling?
11108035 Thought I might be a little heavy handed on the local scene, much like it was sponsored by our local tourism bureau, but...
11107895 The disad of being in the middle of Kansas is my whole experience of Navy process and such is from the History Channel. Still, Semper Fi. Oh, and Go Army, Beat Navy (since my son is in the Army)

11120645

So... If one of the pegasi wants one of these women to stick to Carl they need to rub Carl on some carpet really quick and then toss him at their prospective female-type humans?

Pegasi customs sure are weird.

I grew up in small town/rural Pennsylvania. They're lucky it ain't Hunting Season or some moronic drunk would take a shot at them.

Some livestock & pets get shot that way every year. Occasionally people do too.

Also based on experience, dogs tend to chase horses.

... right up to the point where one of the Equestrian pegasi with no connection to their embassy had made a flyover during a human event, towing a ‘Free Tibet’ banner.

I love you Fluttershy.

“John Pinette,” I responded. “Hell of a comic. Oops, sorry.”

Awwww. That's a sweet shout out. RIP.

11107140 True, his parents are not on the 'Blue List' of recognized diplomatic personnel, and Twilight was born at KU Med, so he's a 'legal permanent resident with the option of applying for citizenship and automatically receiving it' The US is one of 33 countries with unlimited birthright citizenship to anybody born inside the country. (and I'm stopping there because it's a giant can of worms after this point)
11107985 I used to be one of those until I had kids. With our twins, they used to run in *opposite* directions so we bought two leashes and tied the handles together. Worked just fine, and those stuck-up twits who objected could eat it.
11124375 Dogs chase horses because they run. Dogs chasing ponies will either wind up with a horn in the face, or looking up into the sky. (or waking up with a whole new respect for a tiny horse's rear hooves)
11107037 Uh, huh. Uh, huh.

11130728
True, our family dogs only saw the occasional horse drawn Amish buggy and the horse could only kick in a very limited space.. The dogs would bark & chase but not much past our property line. We'd stop them when we saw it, but the dogs were allowed out when they wanted.

One dog got hit with the driver's whip. He stopped chasing buggies. IDK if Amish drivers use buggy whips. Perhaps this one just used it to discourage dogs.

Very nice! This was a lot more meandering than most of the fic i read (tho i guess that comes with the territory of a not-a-contest entry), but i really liked it. The mix of very down-to-earth realism with colorful flying ponies is quite something.

Yet again Georg works his magic and produces something amazing to read. At this point, I think I'd be more shocked if he wrote something that sucked. You gotta up your game, man. :pinkiecrazy:

I enjoyed that. Nice little slice-of-life story.

Great writing skills. Love it

Princess Powerpoint

I kinda want to be offended by the Product Placement this is doing, but then again, yeah this describes her spot on. Damn, now I kinda want to see more stories where she's characterized (or at least referred to) like this.

The Equestrians love to visit churches, although I think they view them more as choral practice interrupted by occasional Earth biblical history lessons.

That had to a fun first discussion.

"So... this one old stallion went to the top of the mountain... and God told them, in essence, just to not be pricks. Not anything complicated, just basic decency, which ponies merely do as normal"

"Yup."

"Then another guy, God's own flesh and blood, came around and told people pretty much the same... and got killed for it."

"Yup."

"... Any particular reason why?"

"Because non existant spaghetti based She mother with dual dong forbid anyone be forbidden from doing as they damn well please."


11120742
Its a type of marking I guess. The feather bags used to utilize other means of stickyness but then Celestia had to ruin all the fun with things like "ick" and "not the mane!":trollestia:

“Isn’t one of them—” she lowered her voice and looked over at the laundromat door “—some sort of devil-creature?”

No, thats Celestia.

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."

It gets even better when one recalls that alicorns in the old legends were harbingers of devastation. And tell the guards to leave the Big Band at home and Luna to leave the moon alone damn it!

The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.

11357661 Alicorns are still creatures of destruction. They've just changed targets. (From The Last Nightguard)

“Is every bit of food in this pestilent era covered in sugar?” he grumbled once the bowl was empty.

Without saying a word, Luna speared a piece of some sort of pastry with a serving fork, then held it to his lips.  From the look of it, the substance needed to be chewed with the small stubs of teeth that he had begun to grow through pain and itching, but one bite and it dissolved onto his tongue, filling his entire mouth with a slimy coating that left Eb coughing until Luna gave him some water.

“What deception is this,” he managed between coughs, “that something sweeter than sweetness hath such a cloying touch that it strangles the mouth?  ‘Tis a sugar’s sugar cloaked in disguise.”

“My sister calls it cake,” said Luna, observing a second forkful of the substance with considerable skepticism.  “I call it flank padding.  And yet, if you eat a little of it with every meal, one begins to anticipate it, and eventually I presume it becomes a requirement.”

11357847
That would be something though: the Apocalypse heralded not by plague, famine, pestilence, war. Shit, that stuffs old news. You know everythings about to go snafu at full fuck force when the marshmallow cuddle horses arrive.:rainbowlaugh:

Do you think we could take one of those ground squirrels home with us?

No. God has afflicted all of man with squirrels and they desire naught but your destruction

Unless your Bob Ross

As the concert went on and we watched from the security of a balcony seat, I had to wonder just why the Equestrians were so interested in a violent country who put such store in celebrating their freedom from a monarch.

Probably the same reason they set up their portals in the states. Not to say others are bad or that folks shouldn't take pride in them, but lets face facts folks, much of the world is a far cry from us in a lot of ways. Of course we're not to far from being in a cluster schtup ourselves, so...:applejackunsure:

I mean from what I had heard, Princess Celestia was a far cry from any British king, and if George Washington had been an immortal alicorn, it was quite possible our countries would have looked even more alike in the political arena.

An interesting comparison considering that George loathed being President and tried to pass the buck as quick as he could. I imagine Celestia takes a ceremonial in most cases or at most acts in a similar manner to the supreme court here.

Of course George not only had slaves but had one of the poor bastards teeth yanked out and put into his own gob, so perhaps the comparison should end there.

The Equestrian embassy discouraged drinking in public, and so did Dei, therefore soft drinks were likely to be the most we were going to get until tomorrow.

John gets a beer:trixieshiftleft:

I still think it wouldve been intresting if Pricess Celestia and Queen Elizabeth got into a T off.:pinkiecrazy:

And I dont mean Golf.:trixieshiftright:

Aww.. No, I Vow to Thee My Country? :unsuresweetie:

I wonder just what else beside bottles of water are kept under those tall headpieces? :trixieshiftleft:

Well, Karma caught up with him in less than forty yards. Lost two teeth, multiple contusions, broke both legs, fractured arm, bitten finger. It was a real mess. ... Thankfully, Knight caught up with them at that point and pulled Dei off the creep, or I don’t know what would have happened.

I should have expected it, but it still caught me by surprise. :twilightsheepish:

Despite his crusty macho exterior, once you get him on his side and start rubbing, he purrs. It’s the darnedest thing.

I have to wonder if any author has tried to 'file the serial numbers off' of their fanfic and publish it using sentient, pony-sized felines instead.

11106326

the story meandered around like the broad curves of the Mississippi without really going anywhere

For some slice of life stories, the journey is the destination.

Were Knight and Dei characters from another story of yours? For whatever reason, something seems familiar about them...

11424290 Possibly because I teased some chapters in my blog, and maybe because Goose Down and Widget are having a fun time in an RV headed for DisneyWorld in Farmer Bruener. Face it, if you could take an RV to go drive around Equestria for a few months as vacation, you would. So why not ponies?

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