April 9
Miss Parker offered to take us back to the horse show or wherever we wanted to go in their van, but I thought that being outside might clear my head, and Aquamarine thought so, too, so we thanked her for her offer and then went outside on hoof (or feet for Jenny). Since we had lots of time, we first went to the greenhouses.
That was a big change from being outside. They were hot and humid inside, and she explained how there were certain greenhouses she wasn't allowed in because earth pony magic had had some unintended effects, like healing plants which were part of a study on sick plants. She said that professors got mad when their studies were skewed.
Then she opened a little door and showed us her experiment, which was a bunch of ordinary-looking ferns. She was to care for them like she would care for a plant back in Equestria, and meanwhile there was another group of ferns that she wasn't allowed anywhere near, and I guess the purpose of the test was to see how much bigger and better her ferns were compared to the normal ones.
It wasn't a proper experiment, she said, because there was only her and her professor involved, but it was going to give them an idea how much of an effect earth pony magic had on plants. They had done the same thing with every other earth pony who had been at the university, and they said that in time it would provide a useful baseline for other experiments.
Aquamarine told us about some of the short term experiments that had been done, and while she was talking she was also caring for her plants, and when she got done showing them off, she wrote in a little journal when she'd come and what she'd done. She also had to report if she had seen any parasites on her plants or any other signs of damage.
Then we went into another room, which was where there was another experiment she was working on. In this one, each of the plants was in a little box all to itself—it was a clear box so that the plant got all the sunlight it could want. She called it the plant hospital, because those were small plants that were sick or injured. She gave them all a quick look and they all looked ok. She said that she had come in one time and the cucumber vine had had all its leaves torn off by something, and that was too much damage for her to fix, but she tried.
While we were on our way out, we ran into her professor who was named Doctor Krelborn. Aquamarine introduced us, and he was happy to see me and when he stuck out his hand to shake my hoof, I noticed that there was a lot of dirt on it which I suppose was the mark of a good plant professor.
He asked if I had any kind of plant magic, and I told him that I didn't, so he said that I ought to see one of his projects that Aquamarine wasn't allowed anywhere near, and so he took me into a little room and showed me a tiny tree in a pot. He said it was called a Bonsai tree, and explained how the art of the Bonsai was to make it small and visually pleasing, and he couldn't show it to Aquamarine because if he did pretty soon it would be ten meters tall and that wasn't what he wanted.
I thought it was kind of silly to spend a lot of time making sure a tree didn't grow up, but I didn't tell him that. And I thought maybe he ought to ask the tree what it wanted.
It was a bit of a shock leaving the greenhouses and going back outside. Especially because it was snowing again. If earth had weatherponies, they would have all been fired by now.
We walked south of the Pavilion, and came around to some big fields surrounded by fences. Aquamarine said that this was where the free horses were kept. She said that she had spent some time with them and that was why she was more used to seeing them than I had been.
Of course it was a big field and we weren't supposed to go over the fence, so we walked around towards the car entrance until we got close to the herd, who was grazing a little way back from the fence. She tilted her head back and whinnied, and I saw a couple of heads perk up and pretty soon some of the horses were trotting towards the fence to greet us.
I put my hooves up on the fence and that was when I discovered that one of the fence-wires had electricity in it. I hadn't been expecting that. I guess that was a way to keep the horses from trying to knock over the fence and go free, but I thought it was kind of mean, too. They wouldn't know until they'd gotten zapped in the muzzle a few times.
Even with that, it was still nice to see them, and it did help me feel a little bit more comfortable around horses.
We stayed there until all of them who wanted to come over and meet us had, and then we went along the fence line and across the driveway where there were some more horses kept in individual pastures. There was one stallion right near the gate and as soon as we got close he tilted his head up and pulled his nose back and I looked over at Aquamarine and she blushed and said that her heat wasn't quite over yet.
Jenny said that he was dropping, and I couldn't help but look at him. I told Jenny that he wasn't just dropping, he was getting erect and he was huge, and then we decided that we probably ought to get out of there before he figured out that if he really wanted to get some, the fence wasn't going to stop him. Even if it was mean to tease a stallion and leave him hanging like that.
We went back the way we'd come, and the horses came back over to the fence and sniffed at us again and I could tell that they were all friends with Aquamarine and they liked me, too. They weren't as interested in Jenny, but one of the mares stuck her nose over the fence and let Jenny pet her, then she mouthed Jenny's coat a little bit and covered one shoulder with drool. I put my head down and ate some of the grass and thought about how I might feel if I were one of them, but I couldn't imagine what it would be like to not be fully aware. Since it was off-season, the grass didn’t taste very good, and my nose and mouth got cold ‘cause of the little bit of snow that was sticking to it.
When we were a little ways off and they had gone back to grazing, I just stopped along the fence and put my hooves up and watched them for a while. They were happy . . . or at least they were content. But they didn't know any better, and that still made me a bit sad.
Once we were back at the Pavilion, we had a snack—the only two things that weren't some kind of meat were popcorn and French Fries, and neither of them made for a good meal. Aquamarine said that we could probably get some oats or alfalfa cubes in back, then Jenny said that we could order Jimmy Johns which had subs so fast we'd freak. She had their whole menu memorized and said that she could recite it off for us, and Aquamarine told her that we would have two number thirteens and a pickle.
It wasn't super-fast, but it was only about ten minutes before a man showed up and gave us our food, and we went back into the grandstands to watch the pull.
They had to pull a whole truck, which had weights on it which they'd lift while they were pulling. The truck had to go twenty-seven and a half feet (which was a very specific number) and they could make three attempts. There was a time limit, as well.
It was really interesting to watch. The doubletree was hooked over the back of the truck and there were a couple of people that helped hook it, and as soon as the horses felt it drop they started pulling. That went pretty well until the fourth team came up, and the helpers missed the hook and the horses took off anyway, with their leader holding the reins and scrambling to keep up.
They weren't very good at backing up, and they kept their hooves high in strange, prancing steps. You could tell that they were all eager to pull the weight and show how strong they were, and even from where we were you could hear the leader calling out encouragement to them.
As the weights got heavier, teams started to be disqualified, because they couldn't pull the truck far enough. Once they were over four thousand pounds, it started to go quicker because almost everypony had been disqualified. They finally got to 4,600 pounds of weight and that was what it took to crown the champions who were called Mike and Roger. The announcer said that they were the current world record holders, so me and Aquamarine decided that we had to meet them.
Around the arena there was a tall wooden fence that people could see over but ponies couldn't. We gathered by the gate with everyone else and when they came out there were lots of people congratulating them on the win (well, they were congratulating the driver, but he hadn't done any more work than hold the reins), and the crowd helped us get to the front to let the horses greet us, and that was actually a lot of fun. I'd never met the world champions at anything, and they were really calm and leaned down to sniff at us and I stood still as Mike got my scent and lifted his head and took a little step back to think about it, then leaned down again and brushed his nose against mine.
After they were led off into the stable area, we went back to the dorm, because it was late and there would be more to see tomorrow.
I was glad that Aquamarine was with me, 'cause I was still stressed out some with all we'd seen and all I'd been thinking about and I couldn't fully escape it even here because the scents clung to us, so I could still smell Mike and Roger and all the other horses we'd met on her and on me, and I still hadn't quite figured out what to make of it all.
That feeling when something labelled 'evening' comes out at 9 AM local time.
And if Earth had a capitalized name, maybe it wouldn't need all those capital cities.
D'aww... She got nuzzled by a world champ.
Meanwhile Aqua had to run away before she got a champ of her own.
"Leave him hanging".
I... I'm not even gonna comment on that. It just doesn't even need it.
It's like planet of the apes only with horses.
a vary interesting chapter and a good chapter.
I still remember watching a world record pull in Ohio years back a shire team and the driver hade to be 80 he walked out him self dropped the hook stepped up to the seat and never touched the rains he just talked to the team I think the weight that day was around 46 or 48 k not sure it was way to long ago.
turns out he plowed every day with that team they knew there job and did not mess around at all.
just amassing to watch.
Okay, now I want to read a spin-off with Aquamarine.
So earth ponies have no control over their magic?
7283275 In a controlled environment like this experiment, even the slightest level of subconscious magic could upset the balance. Think of it more as background radiation than power incontinence.
7283275 It could also be that they never had to learn how stop magic leakage. No harmful side effects to encourage the earth ponies to learn. Unicorns however can have undesirable effects so they all learn how to control it.
I think you mean Jimmy John's, unless you like pizza slavery. (that last bit was hyperbole. Slight hyperbole, but still.)
7283387 Jimmy Johns' sandwich slavery is even worse. Papa Johns, at least, doesn't try to prevent ex-workers from making a pizza for five years after leaving...
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2nd !
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i was thinking the same ...
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Yeah, that's fast food for ya. But I meant that Papa John's don't do sammiches.
Also, the pizza joint doesn't have an express pain train to Suplex City if you cross them. With Brock lesnar, jimmy John's does!
... get it?
Aquamarine gets all the stallions. ALL of them.
I bet Cayenne's jealous.
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It probably doesn't help either that a full-grown horse would likely be, ahemm, longer than a pony's leg.
Observation: I realize these are separate chapters, but you already have her saying this to Silver in the prior chapter, which was the morning.
This chapter brings up something I thought of before but didn't comment on: why are humans doing these sorts of experiments with ponies/magic? Surely somepony back in Equestria has already done many of these experiments before, and developed (for example) scales and measures of magical power/energy.
Given the new nature of magic, it would probably be easier to just take these set measurements and induct them into the SI units system,
7283994
I don't remember the chapter, but Silver did say that humans do more measuring than ponies. Maybe earth ponies just haven't needed to precisely quantify this stuff. You can know roughly how many earth ponies are needed to grow food for a town without measuring exactly how much bigger a single earth pony causes a fern to grow.
7283994
If I recall, in this story, magic is slightly weaker in our world than in Equestria, so you'd have to take the measurements again anyway - at least until there were formulas to calculate exactly how much weaker the magic would be, and under what circumstances.
It's also possible that magic affects plant species differently, so you'd want to compare and contrast - especially with species that might not exist in Equestria.
Awww, he likes her.
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Admiral has repeatedly characterized unicorns as intellectuals who's whole thing is research, apparently, even research with no practical applications. It seems implausible to me that they wouldn't have measured this stuff and came up with scales and similar, as well as characterized the strength of magic for other tribes, even if those tribes themselves don't particularly care.
7284345
If so, than it seems even weirder that the Equestrians haven't already carried out this research: if the magic's weaker, it might be hazardous to the health of ponies, which means an exchange program like this couldn't go ahead.
For example, the body of a pony might require a certain amount of magic to function properly. Even if the body can handle the stress of less magic in the short term, it might be damaging in the long term. Take scurvy for example--it isn't instantly fatal, but the lack of vitamin c will eventually make you sick and kill you. They'd have to know how much of a drop there is between Equestria and Earth and whether it should be concerning or not.
The puns they burn.
7285326 Best of luck with work then.:\
7285326
But that's the thing, the evidence for a "matriarchal society" is pretty weak, at least it is these days. The alicorns, at the very top, are all female, this is absolutely clear, even if for most of Equestrian history there was only one of them around. We know before then two of the three tribes were led by stallions at different times (Hurricane, King Bullion), and right before the Princesses took the crown all three tribes were led by a stallion (Starswirl). Maybe there was a long period of history where things became much more matriarchal in between, but in season 4 and 5 we got a pretty good luck at who the elite of Equestria right below the Princesses are, at the luxury box seats of the Equestrian games and the leaders/delegates of the Grand Pony Summit. They're half stallion, including the leaders of two of the most important cities, Canterlot and Manehatten. We've also seen that stallions make up a lot of the big business leaders in Equestria, from retail chain owners to Oat Street Financiers. I could see Equestria being subtly culturally matriarchal in those circumstances, but with all the evidence we've seen in recent seasons of political and economic parity between the genders (below the level of alicorn), it's hard to see such a profound imbalance as mono-gendered property succession.
Yeah, we're kind of groping in the dark there, I agree with you. My theory is that cutie marks take the place of last names as an identifier (we've seen Twilight use them that way in lists), so your last name is the equivalent of your social security number, it's really only used for a handful of official documents. Or maybe only earth ponies still have them at all, they're the only ones who seem to care.
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I bet in Equestria "The Grasshopper and the Ant" is titled "The Pegasi and the Earth Pony."
7285458 THe first world war was just an absurd waste. From the start, many of the reason for the conflict were more or less pointless and the same event in a fiction would be called ass-pull.
Seriously, the arch-duke Ferdinand get lost in Sarajevo and happend to stop is car right in front of the only assassin who did not get caught earlier that was just eating outside a small cafe...
And so much more.
And then all these oudated tactic pushed over by old officiers, the mass execution of soldier for cowardice, the awfull condition in the trench (especially the French's one, the higher-up didn't let the men install themselves propely, for they feared the men wouldn't wan't to leave the trench to attack and regain the lost territory).
Just a big absurd waste...
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I want to make it clear that I'm not taking the extreme that stallions can't inherit, just that the default in law is that if there are female heirs, they'll inherit first, assuming that there is no will which says otherwise. I'm also assuming that it is standard practice for the stallion to move in with the mare and not the other way around, but again, that isn't a law, just the way it's usually done.
I don't know how much credence you can put on who you see together at a fancy shindig: it could be that the stallions are eye candy for the mares, and not the other way around. Just flip old rich guys with their twenty-year-old blonde wives.
And the other thing that might confuse matters is that if the three tribes once had separate practices, they've now blended together for a thousand years, so there might not be any rhyme or reason any more. Only the purists keep track of that stuff and the rest of them don't care. So Blueblood probably has his lineage all the way back to Princess Platinum or whatever, while Dinky doesn't know (or care) who her father is.
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...Well. That's certainly going to get a reaction once her industrialized-nation humans with their expectation of near 100% literacy rates hear about this.
(Yes, I'm aware that there are certain places on the Internet that seem to contradict this, but we still expect that those people who have apparently never heard of spellcheck and grammar and seem to be mostly mashing the keyboard in the general vicinity of the correct letters can read our replies.)
(For those interested: I decided to try looking this up. Apparently 96% of Americans can read, and 13% can read but not at a particularly high level.)
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You're absolutely right about that for fancy parties, galas and such, it's why I didn't bring it up how stallions and mares made up half the composite group each at the Grand Galas, all the events we saw in Sweet and Elite, etc.
I was referring to the two official functions where we can rule that out. The Elite Box below the Princesses has several stallions like Blueblood and Fancy Pants next to other stallions, or mares like Cherry Jubilee we know live across the country, so we can rule out those stallions being in the boxes as arm candy, there are several couples who are indicated by similar outfits, especially amongst the foreign diplomats, but everyone else is sitting alone.
And the Grand Summit Meeting is the equivalent of a session of Congress or Parliament, I doubt they let spouses stand on the floor for that.
You also make a really good point about how the customs of the three tribes probably combined in unpredictable ways.
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The possibility that it's just an alphabet is something that never occurred to me. I was approaching it from a different direction, but I still think it would only work with incantations. Again, I'm going to use math because it's an excellent example. the problem with using english for math isn't a matter of to too and two, it's concisely and accurately stating complex relationships. For example greens theorem is stated mathematically as follows (first one).
vias.org/calculus/img/13_vector_calculus-199.gif
in English: the integral over a closed path c existing in domain D of P times the differential change in x plus Q times the differential change in y is equal to the double integral of the partial derivative of Q with respect to x minus the partial derivative of P with respect to y over the area enclosed by curve C
My point is that this that no matter what language I use, phonetic or not, it's going to be clunky until I use a language designed to express things like that. You need to substitute clunky sentences for short, accurate symbols or phrases.
So as I understand it, they're still using two languages. They have a language that is more precise than what earth ponies and pegasi use, and a language similar to our mathematical language for magic. So why do they have a separate language if it isn't precise enough for magic?
As to pony names, I remember reading that during the Middle Ages Jews had last names imposed on them for tax purposes. They used "son of" & their father's name. Maybe ponies do the same.
Pegasi probably have some words for flying that the other tribes never use & maybe some for weather.
I see what you did there.
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Which based on my publishing schedule puts you somewhere out in the Atlantic.
(correction made, thank you!)
7283179
I think that's something we should all aspire to.
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Yes, it is.
A ponified Planet of the Apes would be the most horrifying adorable thing ever.
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There's something to be said about a man who knows his horses that well. At the pull I watched, some of the guys had trouble controlling the horses, 'cause they just wanted to go, and others had the magic touch, so to speak. I've actually been watching a series of videos on YouTube with a guy who's kind of a horse whisperer and it's really neat to see how good he is at getting them to do what he wants just by thinking like a horse.
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Aquamarine's adventures in botany and semi-feral horses.
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With practice, they can probably turn it off, but there's no reason for them to ever do so in Equestria, so very few would know how.
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That's a good way to put it.
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Yeah, that's fairly accurate. And for a good experiment, the professor will want to make sure that there's no possibility of unintentional magic skewing his results.
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I did indeed. Correction made!
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It's that good old Earth pony magnetism.
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Yes, it would be.
7283994
Unicorns surely have. But their measurements may only apply in Equestria, might not be 'scientific' (by modern human standards), and might behave differently when presented with different materials. Plus, what physicist worth his salt isn't going to find an excuse to measure a unicorn's power output?
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They probably don't. If the crop isn't turning out like you want, get more earth ponies.
7284345
Yeah, and the measuring system in Equestria is probably based upon something that's not even known on Earth. They might measure power output in dragonpower or something.
It would. Cutie marks alone would skew the results: AJ can do anything with apples, but don't give her a pear.
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Who doesn't like Silver Glow?
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They almost certainly have, but Earth is a new variable and who can say for sure how it matches up with their measurement systems without testing? To take another example, my brother works in flight testing, and they design the airplane on a computer, and then do test flights to see if the real airplane behaves like the paper airplane.
That they would have done beforehand. And the 'helpers' are almost certainly trained to recognize the signs of magic deprivation in a pony, and do have specialists on call, in case they're needed.
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Yeah, it probably is. Starring RD and AJ.
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It was a terrible, horrifying, pointless war.
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Although it wasn't that long ago that that wasn't the case, especially among rural populations and minorities, and I think that's something that we forget these days.
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I personally don't think that we can say absolutely that the presence of stallions in ruling positions means it isn't a matriarchial society. It's possible that one of the roles that they might see as being fit for a stallion is leader--maybe not all the way at the top, but in an intermediate level. We do know that the Guard appears to be all stallions. I have this vague sense that a lot of times they like stallions for the 'protector' role, such as Sheriff Silverstar.
It's not that uncommon on Earth (in fact, for an upcoming chapter I was reading up on Mardi Gras), so it would stand to reason it would be the same for the ponies.
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It probably is. They might need some symbols that aren't used in ordinary language to explain some really complex stuff, but for the most part it would be in their ordinary lexicon, since about one third of the population is a spellcaster. If one third of the American population was a mathematician, than a lot of the specialty language would be ordinary.
Just like almost everyone with a basic education is familiar with some scientific theories and mathematical formulas/values (evolution, the Pythagorean theorem, pi), any unicorn's gonna know the basics of spellcasting in simple, ordinary Equestrian. Plus the advantage of keeping the alphabet consistent through the ages, even post-unification, means that any educated unicorn can read a historical spellbook. I think that only when it comes to the really theoretical side that there starts to be vocabulary which isn't in everyday useage.
The biggest fear that unicorns (collectively) would have is that the language shifts far enough that all their accumulated spellbooks become useless. So they almost have to stick to the same alphabet and pronunciation to ensure that doesn't happen. Since their alphabet covers every phonetic sound a pony can make, they're good.
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I think that they don't bother yet: some families certainly do, but others probably don't. If there's confusion to identical names, they would just specify a location, perhaps: Applejack of Sweet Apple Acres. I have no idea how pegasi keep it straight; maybe when they fly away from home they mention their birth town or their mother's name or something like that.
Without a doubt. And unicorns have words for magic that no other tribes uses, and earth ponies for crops and healing.
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Heh, I wonder how much of an influence Earth Ponies can have on plant growth. I believe they can speed up growth and hardiness. But, can they increase the growing capacity of the plant itself? Are the effects additive? Multiplicative?
Or worse.
*ZAP* Ouch.
Good idea. Better leave before you end up on LiveLeak or something. Although, an escape sequence would be a funny side-chapter.
Well, at least Silver's getting more acclimated to the horses. They are content, but not sapient sadly.
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Although, with less of a downer ending.
¿Ask a plant and expect a reply? ¿Do plants have minds and are at least sentient? ¿How do plants feel about being eaten? ¿Does Equestria have laws about humane plant-harvesting?
How I picture this: https://imgur.com/0NQmvQ7.gifv
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I think that they can, to a point, but it comes with potential downsides--an apple tree, grown twice as tall quickly, might not be as strong, or as hardy. Otherwise, their farms would just be when they were hungry, they'd drop a seed in the ground, do some earth pony mumbo-jumbo, and ten seconds later have a fully-grown corn plant or whatever. But I think that the true benefits that earth ponies generally convey into their plants is that they're bigger and healthier than they would be otherwise, and produce more. Basically, what we do with GMOs and pesticides and so forth.
Aquamarine gets chased by a horny stallion . . . or else she becomes the ultimate horse whisperer and takes over a herd, teaching them how to overthrow their human masters.
Depends on who wrote it.
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It's again a bit of anthropomorphization, but I think that earth ponies can kind of feel the potential of their plants and guide that potential along.
I think that the ponies generally eat the plant in such a way not to kill it, unless of course it's an annual.
Plants don't feel like ponies, but at the very least, ponies and some other sapients generally respect them.
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Yeah, it was kind of like that, but with less hopping around.
Well, it's clear that Silver Glow is NO Rainbow Dash ♪♫
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*The next day*
Assistant Director Skinner: "Agents Barrow, Parker, Salvatore, and Sarkisian. You lot had just ONE job!"
I'm sure Big Mack could take them--by himself.
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Very true.
Two jobs:
1: Don't let your pony get hurt/get in trouble.
2: Don't let your pony lead an equine uprising.
As the weights got heavier, teams started to be disqualified, because they couldn't pull the truck far enough. Once they were over four thousand pounds, it started to go quicker because almost everypony had been disqualified. They finally got to 4,600 pounds of weight and that was what it took to crown the champions who were called Mike and Roger. The announcer said that they were the current world record holders, so me and Aquamarine decided that we had to meet them.
I'm less sure, even with Earth Pony Strength (TM)
orig05.deviantart.net/d2c2/f/2013/162/8/1/not_so_big_macintosh_by_that1andonly-d68duv6.png
Size does matter.
(Incidentally, while I was looking for that picture, I found this one, too.)
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Well that makes the horse a lot bigger than I'd thought. (Or the ponies smaller, what have you)
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I'm not sure if in that drawing the horses are drawn to scale compared to typical fanon size of a pony, but--draft horses are bigger than you'd think. It's hard to really appreciate until you happen to be at a draft horse show (for example) and you're like 'yeah, okay, they're big' and then you're standing right next to one and holy Celestia they're big.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/eb/a5/e3/eba5e3c422f62ac6397c80d4825ba63d.jpg
7736836 Wow. That pic makes Big Mac look as small as Azurite from the Quill & Blade stories.
Big Mac: Now available in fun sized!
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Draft horses are effing huge, some of them (did you see the pic I posted in the comment just above yours?)
April 9th is Chuggaaconroy's birthday! I love that guy! Best male LPer to date! (Lucahjin is best LPer and hottest gamer gurl)
You should read this.