Yeah its not coming till Monday, lets just admit it, meanwhile, some musings. · 10:51pm Apr 15th, 2015
No spoilers I promise, just some clarifications because I feel like I should give you guys SOMETHING this week.
The nobility tree is not hard and fast rules as it is more a guideline to the kind of relationships that exist in a monarchical structure, not everything is interchangeable and can differ from culture to culture as was the case in real life.
[22:14:00] Galloglasses: evening
[22:14:14] Galloglasses: here's an old thing I found I made for something else
[22:14:57] Galloglasses: gives a pretty good perspective of how low on the totem pole Handy really is when you take away his friendship with Johan and his title as sword
[22:15:14] JBL: You should link this in the next blog you do
[22:15:26] Galloglasses: aye
[22:15:35] Galloglasses: thing I noticed in alot of stories
[22:15:45] Galloglasses: nobody has any idea how to nobility
[22:16:11] Galloglasses: I sigh every time someone asks: "if celestia rules, why isnt she a queen?'
[22:16:23] Galloglasses: shit dont work like that everywhere son
[22:16:57] JBL: It's almost as though they're taking ideals from Earth.... and applying it to a totally different planet and country and culture O_O
[22:17:13] Galloglasses: hehehe yeah
[22:17:36] JBL: Wait, so a Prince is lower than an Archduke?
[22:17:45] Galloglasses: on this scale yes
[22:17:53] Galloglasses: prince in the slavic use of the term
[22:18:04] Galloglasses: is pretty indistinguishable from duke in western understanding
[22:18:10] Galloglasses: with a grand prince being closer to a king
[22:18:26] JBL: so a term like "Princeling" might be better then?
[22:18:42] Galloglasses: indeed, I have Handy refer to Blueblood as such a few times
[22:19:02] Galloglasses: on this scale, assuming Princess celestia is on the imperial tier (red), he'd be about green tier
[22:19:35] Galloglasses: not super duper important but very notable
[22:19:59] JBL: I'm assuming, then, that Shiny would be a Grand Prince level
[22:20:21] Galloglasses: actually given the prominence and relative autonomy, he and cadence are actually king tier
[22:20:36] Galloglasses: probably the only ones in the entirety of equestria that have that level
[22:21:07] Galloglasses: twilight is 'technically' between archduke and grand prince in scale but has nearly no power projection or land holdings to justify it
[22:21:40] JBL: so she doesn't have Ponyville and her castle?
[22:21:47] Galloglasses: oh she does
[22:21:51] Galloglasses: the thing is, thats fuck all
[22:22:09] Galloglasses: "congrats princess twilight, you rule a small barony"
[22:22:25] JBL: You know, I think that would be something deliberately done by Celestia
[22:22:40] JBL: not totally throwing Twilight to the wolves
[22:22:46] Galloglasses: oh yeah
[22:23:16] Galloglasses: also I ruled that the more countryside nobility surrounding that area would be the more sedantary and easy going variety, rather than the plutocratic canterlotian urban nobility
[22:23:26] Galloglasses: ease her into the role
[22:23:35] Galloglasses: *not ruled, headcanoned
[22:23:41] JBL: yeah, I remember you meantioning something like that
[22:23:58] JBL: so Celestia and Luna would be Red level?
[22:24:08] Galloglasses: yeah
[22:24:16] Galloglasses: on paper at least
[22:24:58] Galloglasses: Luna in this is definitely more independent of tia and more powerful than most fics present her, closer to a true co-ruler
[22:25:15] Galloglasses: largely because I almost never see that
[22:25:47] JBL: can't remember if we discussed this, but does the bat folk have a piece of Equestria for themselves?
[22:26:11] Galloglasses: we discussed their populations but I dont know
[22:26:21] Galloglasses: if they didnt before they definitely did now
[22:26:56] Galloglasses: I cant imagine Luna NOT making a few nobles out of them, which would happen anyway given the warrior-aristocrat tradition of the royal guards themselves
[22:27:02] Galloglasses: probably out of her personal lands as well
[22:28:48] JBL: I imagine the thestrals, having had a somewhat autonomous area for themselves, would have their own internal nobility so that, besides being the Princess of Equestria, Luna could probably hold the title of Queen of the thestrals as well
[22:29:09] Galloglasses: thats definitely a thing she could hold
[22:29:16] Galloglasses: actually I like that idea, I'll do that
[22:32:26] JBL: [22:20] Galloglasses:<<< actually given the prominence and relative autonomy, he and cadence are actually king tier
I can agree with Cadance being King tier, but I'm still a bit doubtful about Shining, mostly because he married into power. Sure, he's probably the second most powerful noble in the Crystal Empire, from marriage as well as birth (his family is a noble house, right?), but if their marriage goes south, he would lose that power. That's why I'd put him at a Grand Prince level.
[22:33:41] Galloglasses: Ehhhh
[22:33:44] Galloglasses: yes and no
[22:34:36] Galloglasses: Shining is a complicated case, his house was lower nobility, urban based intellectuals actually, very un-noteworthy, around about baronet level, slightly lower
[22:35:50] Galloglasses: THEN he married into royalty, which made him prince-consort (like the current husband of the Queen of Britain, not a 'king' himself since the royalty and authority belongs to his wife and he was not a king of anything himself, very VERY rarely were king and queens co-rulers without both having significent justifications to use royal titles on their own)
[22:36:10] Galloglasses: Kinda of elevated his house's prestige but not in itself, still unnoteworthy
[22:36:24] Galloglasses: then twilight ascended, which basically made her entire household royalty by default
[22:36:38] Galloglasses: retroactively making shining a prince by birth by default due to being her brother
[22:37:00] Galloglasses: but despite that massive change in stature, he's still only prince-consort by law with no power or authority in his own right
[22:37:06] Galloglasses: but technically speaking
[22:37:17] Galloglasses: he is the single most influential pony in the entirety of Equestria
[22:37:23] Galloglasses: hilariously he doesn't even know it
[22:39:49] Galloglasses: welcome to Handyman chat, where the sad lonely author reveils that yes, he does indeed to think about things way too much
[23:07:49] JBL: heh, back. Hold on, lemme read this essay
[23:07:59] Galloglasses: kk
[23:09:34] JBL: [22:37] Galloglasses:<<< he is the single most influential pony in the entirety of Equestria
hilariously he doesn't even know it
Wait, what?
[23:09:36] JBL: How
[23:12:53] Galloglasses: He is the brother of the newly ascended Princess Twilight who is slowly but surely becoming an ascendant power within Equestria one way or another, he is the wife of Princess Cadence and the leader of her military forces, quite rightly making him the second most powerful noble in the entirety of the empire and the one the nobles of the crystal empire will answer to first (Cadence not withstanding) before anyone else, (being the most autonomous region of Equestria, they dont feel they need to answer to Celestia or Luna, the commoners are likewise, feudalism can be like that if the vassals are autonomous enough), he was the former captain of the entirety of the royal guard of Equestria, the most elite military force and the personal bodyguard soldiers of Princess Celestia, meaning even if he does not have a head for politcking, he is evidently skilled and has the princesses' ear
[23:13:28] Galloglasses: AND, crucially, the new and politically vulnerable twilight will always either go to tia, cadence or him for advice or help while she is growing into her role
[23:13:37] Galloglasses: Shining is in a VERY powerful position in terms of influence
[23:13:43] Galloglasses: but the idiot doesn't even know it
[23:14:26] Galloglasses: if he had the mind of, say, Fancy Pants, he could do great things for the entire country
[23:14:42] Galloglasses: or if he had Blueblood's, pre tournament mindset, terrible things
[23:14:50] Galloglasses: he is neither, for he is shiny and a bit of a loveable derp
[23:15:27] Galloglasses: because of the potential influence he holds, that means practically everyone at the very least listens to him
[23:16:07] JBL: There should be a tier just below red reserved specially for Shiny
[23:16:19] Galloglasses: the shiny tier?
[23:16:44] Galloglasses: I mean, if cadence dies and someone else takes over the empire, Shiny would be a landless prince, green tier
[23:17:06] Galloglasses: because of his status as prince consort, he is somewhere in the orange tier
[23:17:18] Galloglasses: his influence extends far beyond his ability to be politically schemey
[23:18:10] JBL: Due to his ability to be pretty down to earth for a Canterlot noble.
[23:18:27] JBL: Shining Armor, the Executive Prince!
[23:18:36] Galloglasses: pfft
[23:18:50] JBL: Shining Armor, the Supre Ulra Grand Prince
[23:19:45] Galloglasses: man I feel sorry for the guy
[23:19:51] Galloglasses: he is basically the worf of MLP
[23:20:05] Galloglasses: big tough guy who's only there tohave the shit beaten out of him and to fail
[23:20:45] Galloglasses: I mean dont get me wrong, I don't go easy on him either when the story gets to the empire, but thats only because I kinda have to be harsh on the dude based on the evidence of the show
[23:21:15] Galloglasses: oh interesting tidbit, I dont think I ever mentioned the everage wingspan of pegasi and such in BM are actually much larger than on the show
[23:21:29] Galloglasses: because I think the small wings are silly
[23:21:49] JBL: magic
[23:22:04] JBL: maaaaaaaaaagice
[23:22:07] Galloglasses: partly yes, thats how they fly so well
[23:22:10] Galloglasses: but fuck that noise
[23:22:15] Galloglasses: YOU get a wing upgrade
[23:22:19] Galloglasses: and YOU get a wing upgrade
[23:22:23] Galloglasses: EVERYBODY GETS A WING UPGRADE
[23:22:40] Galloglasses: Unfortunately that also includes Shortbeak, who's own wingspan is much larger than average
Kinda roughly around that size in average really, seems pretty reasonable. Or at least more so than on the show with their itty bitty wingy dingies.
[23:27:39] JBL: [23:12] Galloglasses:
<<< quite rightly making him the second most powerful noble in the entirety of the empire and the one the nobles of the crystal empire will answer to first (Cadence not withstanding) before anyone else, (being the most autonomous region of Equestria, they dont feel they need to answer to Celestia or Luna, the commoners are likewise, feudalism can be like that if the vassals are autonomous enough)
So it's something akin to the relationship between Henry the Lion and Frederick Barbarossa?
[23:31:29] Galloglasses: I'm impressed you know that, but yes. Only of course MUCH friendlier. Also much more odd. Because although while still ultimately feudal in nature, the vassal-liegelord ties are much tighter in Equestria than they are in say, Griffonia, which has much looser ties. The Crystal Empire is an anomaly in Equestrian culture and politics given the autonomy and power it has despite literally bordering DUKES with more power, wealth and territory but less autonomy. It is viewed as a part of Equestria yet different due to the thousand or so years of displacement, very similar to the relationship Brittany had (celtic Brythonic) with the rest of the kingdom of France up until the revolution, whose nobles were considered exotic yet familiar
[23:32:58] Galloglasses: also spoke its own language completely divorced from the variety of french romance langauges in the kingdom but details details
[23:35:35] JBL: Well, Cadance isn't about to betray Celestia as Henry did.................... yet
[23:35:49] Galloglasses: Hahaha
[23:36:46] JBL: I imagine if Celestia tried poking her nose into their business, the Empire would not react kindly?
[23:37:14] Galloglasses: they already grumble about Equestrian influence
[23:38:05] Galloglasses: that was kinda the whole point behidn Masquerade taking it upon herself to go to the tournament to see if she could get Handy to serve the empire to give Cadence an actual chip to play in the great game of politics, even though she did this without cadence knowing nor approving
[23:38:43] Galloglasses: but because their Princess is fine with Celestia's influence and because Tia, rather wisely, doesn't throw her weight around needlessly, they don't have sufficient cause to raise that much of a stink
[23:39:02] Galloglasses: after all Cadence and her husband did save them from Sombra... admittedly in the most hilarious way possible
[23:40:29] JBL: [23:37] Galloglasses:<<< they already grumble about Equestrian influence
Does that mean that, pre-thousand-years-disappearance, Equestria and the Empire were even more autonomous? As in 'call me crazy, but I think we could probably stand alone as our own country' autonomous?
[23:40:47] Galloglasses: the other way around
[23:40:52] Galloglasses: equestria used to be a part of the empire
[23:41:04] JBL: oh wow
[23:41:07] Galloglasses: yeah
[23:41:39] Galloglasses: read up on Masquerade's worldbuilding, it briefly covers that area of history
[23:41:55] Galloglasses: although I am leaving that entire section of worldbuilding largely until BM's prequel
[23:42:30] Galloglasses: because that is a whole other kettle of boiled fish
[23:43:43] JBL: also[23:38] Galloglasses:
<<< to see if she could get Handy to serve the empire
She must have really not known a lot about Handy and his recent past if she thought he'd willingly go to serve ponies
[23:44:10] Galloglasses: she knew it'd be difficult but it was worth a shot
[23:44:41] Galloglasses: kinda counting on Griffons being incompetent and undesireable to work for based on old school racism from a thousand years ago
[23:45:03] JBL: that wasnt the only reason she was in the tournament though?
[23:45:49] Galloglasses: the other reason was to try to mitigate any danger, if any, he posed to Cadence due to rumours of his relationship to Changelings
[23:46:09] Galloglasses: also this happened during her effective leave of absence
[23:46:17] Galloglasses: so technically she could do whatever the hell she wanted
[23:46:42] Galloglasses: although much like her counterpart from Concordia who had the same idea, she kinda got into trouble for it
[23:46:54] Galloglasses: but thats all spoilers
[23:47:12] JBL: Hope she's competent. Doubt the griffons would... appreciate the Empire killing a knight
[23:47:58] Galloglasses: oh she was, in fact I remember you had a positive first impression of her back when you edited the chapter
[23:48:20] JBL: eons ago xD
[23:48:31] JBL: and so much crap has happened since then
[23:48:36] JBL: so... so much....
[23:48:59] Galloglasses: and the best part is we aren't even a year into the story!
I can see I wasn't included in this conversation. I'm Ultron, for goodness sake!
Thanks for the little tadbit
... Can i have a wing upgrade?
2988007 Sure!
2987981 You're welcome.
2987981
i.imgur.com/0R3MLtb.gif
troll.me/images/dramatic-soap-opera-cat/how-could-you-thumb.jpg
2988007 i.imgur.com/tKVf2QF.gif
That was a pretty awesome (and informative) read.
That's not true. You use gun. And if that don't work, you use more gun.
2988132 No, that's how you Bolshevik.
2988142 Exactly! That gets the nobility all sorted out and resolves all your hierarchical confusion in one easy step.
I've taken the freedom of creating a version that corrects the omission of a very important (and of personal interest to the average user) social class. Relative sizes are proportionate to the expected distribution of the population, hopefully edifying the interested viewer by explaining the social structures involved in visible terms.
i.imgur.com/hyGDBHt.png
2988156 Sorry, but commoners were unplayable in the game the chart was designed for, hence their abvsence
2988930
I ended up getting to use an insult I really don't see a lot of workable opportunities to troll people with either way, so that's alright, too.
Interesting read Handy but TILL MONDAY?
acidcow.com/pics/20130403/kill_me_now_05.jpg
Hope you get whatever you need from your job.
If you showed that picture to a guy who reads Homestuck, you might rustle his jimmies.
The color/caste system is reversed, in that purple is royalty and red is garbage.
The Line of Relevance is spot on, though.
What's your idea on how the ponies appear aside from the wings? I know you stated at the beginning of the story that they weren't like the cartoon version, (which is good because something like that is basically a ball of meat for any hungry predators, magic be damned.)
I personally can't help but think of them as sort of a cross between cats, hunting dogs, and horses. You've already demonstrated that they can hold their own in a duel which requires a form more light and agile than that of a horse. What's your headcannon for the ponies' physical appearance?
2988104
2988155 All are equal comrade, some more equal than others but all equal. Go to gulag.
2988729 Obviously, but somehow they manage.
2989132 Nah, maybe later.
2990020 Thanks I hope so too. Honestly I didn't intend any meaning behind it, (although Purple is considered the Imperial colour here in the West. Because Rome.), I just wanted a nice colour change as you read upwards.
2990214 Hm, a bit hard to elaborate but I'll try.
Physically, the ponies aren't that wildly different from what we see on the show, but enough to actually matter, most of the differences are actually internal, namely their skeletal structure and musculature as well as the overall size of their eyes vis a vis the rest of their head.
Their eyes are still huge mind you, but not as prohibitively so as we see in the show where if we assume their eyes are actually orbs (like ours and most mammalian species), their eyes would extend out past their heads. I heard an interesting theory that rather than being spherical, ponies and other such species' eyes are actually 'plates', with the iris being free floating over the organ. This reconciles it with the otherwise cartoonish 'eye rolling' we see when characters are slapped silly and their eyes roll back into their heads over and over. If we assume the eye plates theory is true, then this is less a cartoonish gag and more an actual biological possibility. Depending of course on how their eyes are connected to their brains. Although personally I have not bought into this theory yet, it was worth looking into for biological plausibility, as well as giving a VERY distinctive evolutionary insight into the differences between sapient creatures and non-sapient creatures (since logically this would apply to species like griffons whose eyes are surprisingly unlike most aquiline ocular organs based on show evidence but, ironically, not to species like minotaurs who have more reasonable eyes-to-head ratio, we'll see what I decide in due time)
Additionally, their eyes are, overall, smaller and more aesthetically pleasing, even if they are uncomfortably huge in comparison to a human's. This image here of Vinyl demonstrates the more agreeable facial symmetry present on BM ponies quite well while still keeping faithful to the original design. The face itself is also a good indicator of what BM ponies look like vis a vis the muzzles, artists tend to differ on exactly how horse-like the muzzles are on ponies given that their teeth and jaws are a sane distance from one another rather than real life equines (ever see those skulls? yikes), evolutionary this is probably what let them talk, smile and emote. Griffons have similar oddities in that the substance of their claws and beaks is at once hard yet malleable, allowing them the same degree of expression and feeling, given that they have bird heads but ALSO have teeth, it also raises interesting questions about their biology, since overall their beak-to-head ratio is very different in comparison to real life avians. Yes BM griffons have teeth, so do the show's, I have been working hard to justify this evolutionally and biologically in the background (for the record, I ruled that griffons are mammalian more than they are avians, take that as you will)
Now for the actual physical appearance, ponies do have the large adorable ears you see on the show, their fur is lovely and shiny (if they take care of it and clean it that is, fuckers do NOT get a free pass for hygiene just for being ponies) and their muzzles are scrunchily adorable, but again take that in light of what I said regarding the vinyl picture previously linked. I want to strike a nice balance to the silly muzzles we see on the show and something that wouldn't be entirely horrifying to watch speak the English language BUT AT THE SAME TIME not go overboard and reduce it to meaninglessness, in which case we might as well have ponies with EQG faces and ain't nobody got time for that shit. That picture proved a useful middle ground. They are more lithe than the rather heavy set, adorably pudgy version on the show, but not by too much, the BIGGEST noticeable physical difference would actually be their legs, which are longer on the show, but only thinner by a tiny amount. They are much much thicker than earth equine legs would be and as we'll see later this is to do with pony musculature, their hooves however are slightly smaller than they are on the show but still pretty wide at the base, giving good surface contact area with the ground. A good approximation is the way Double Rainbow Dash animations on youtube draws his pony models, in particular his animation called a 'curious' device since it gives a good display of the leg-to-body ratios I have in mind regarding BM ponies, certainly much more lithe in appearance if nothing else.
Griffons too, are a tad different in appearance than on the show but not by too much. If we take the picture kindly drawn by Tio of Shortbeak as a jumping off point, I'll explain. In this image Tio took a animalistic realism approach to drawing the griffon body, which is why Shortbeak has such thin and short forelegs and such absurdly large leonine rear legs, this is noticeably the inverse as it is on the show, given the griffons seen in the show tend to be 'top heavy'.
This is not how I view griffons personally. Apart from having larger wings on average than seen on Gilda (and therefore larger than average in comparison to pegasi, although we shouldn't assume too much based on this, Griffons aren't that much bigger than ponies, on average an inch or so taller when standing upright and slightly more imposing in build), their forelegs are as large as their rear legs and their claws thicker than seen in this picture. Their rear legs are nowhere near as huge as they are seen here, being slightly longer than their foreleg at full extension. Their tails are much more maneuverable and prehensile (if the ponies can pull the bullshit necessary to do it, then I am letting the griffons have some fun too. At least they can justify having muscles in their tails. I'm looking at you Applejack) than actual lion tails and with that I'd say Tio got her tail spot on, most griffons have tails that long and fluffy at the end and full control over it, very much cat like rather than leonine which tend to be thick, heavy and clunky by comparison. In fact there is a good bit of difference between actual, honest-to-God lions and griffons, I'll demonstrate it later in the story at some point. More to the point griffons have a fascinatingly unique skeletal structure given the mishmash of creatures occurs around the upper torso, where the aquiline head meats the leonine body which stretches out to leonine forelegs that are much more articulate and sophisticated than actual lion legs while at the same time interacting with the huge wings, its attendant bones joints and muscles, making griffons have tremendous upper body strength physically by neccessity, the gryphonic body would effectively be a miracle of natural engineering, moreso than a pegasi would.
Speaking of ponies. Their bodies are much more naturally flexible, tough and sophisticated than an earth horse would be (and if you know anything about how sophisticated horse bodies are, thats saying something) the biggest, most obvious internal divorce, forgetting for the moment the utter miracle that is pony heads in comparison to ordinary equine physiology, is their chest. If you look up the skeleton of an ordinary horse take note of its ribcage, because of the way it's body is built its ribcage is facing downwards with nearly nothing in terms of bones protecting the 'front' of its chest (anatomically this would be the 'top' of its ribcage) sure it's sternum can reach up a part of the way, but this still leaves a nice, juicy empty spot of pure 'flesh' that is oh so lovingly on display by the royal guards on the show that is just BEGGING to have a spear shoved through it with clear, unimpeded access to the heart and other lovely vital organs.
Ponies are different, the sternum towards the top of the ribcage 'splits up' into six additional spurs/ribs that reach up and connect to the 'top' of the first ribs in the ribcage, (which as a consequence necessitates extra connections on those first 'normal ribs and thus making them tougher and more resilient, and unfortunately less flexible than all the other ribs. But then again in your primary ribs, flexibility in places which do not concern the lungs or the diaphragm is not as necessary. These additional 'ribs' that cover the top of the ribcage encourage the growth of strong muscle tissue whose only true purpose is to make these upper ribs flexible in comparison to their more static, lower brethern, while simultaneously unimpeding necessary organ traffic (oesphegus, arteries, blood vessels, etc) while giving . This provides adequate biological protection for the area in question and, luckily for ponies, turns an a potentially lethal stab wound into... a less lethal stab wound and one they are more likely to survive. Kinda.
The most important function of this new 'upper' rib sheet is actually to help facilitate pony necks. Ponies, like earth Equines have long necks. If you think about it, from our perspective as bipeds, they are effectively on all fours with their head thrown back all the fucking time. Horses can 'hang' their heads naturally for a long time, but if you were to set them 'upright' in this position for an extended period they would experience serious pain.
Now think about how many times you've seen rainbow dash floating in the air with her body just hanging below her in the show. In that position, she's not only 'upright' in a bipedal sense for an extended period, but the strong muscles and bone movements for her wings and upper torso are active the entire time, supporting her entire weight (and not all of that is due to magic). This would kill a horse. The upper ribs help support and sustain such a position, which is why she can not only do it, but might even find it comfortable. Typically in the show we see ponies seated on their haunches in a 'leaning forward' motion, there's no doubt as to why they'd find this comfortable and they do this in BM as well, but in BM they also sit 'upright'. As in ass on the chair and sitting nearly straight and looking you in the eye upright. We see Lyre doing that on the show that one time. Except she's not, she's doing something even more uncomfortable for an ordinary horse, she's slouching. BM ponies can sit upright thanks to this little dohickey in their upper bodies no matter their ethnicity/race with no additional strain on their necks or bodies and the same is true for pretty much every sapient species in BM that spends an inordinate amount of their lives, habitually on all fours. For example here's two images from Equestria prevails about the activity in question, one regarding a room full of ponies, plus one griffon, and the other with a family of griffons. Same female griffon in both in case you're wondering. Neither species is remotely bothered. It also allows them to lie on their back and have full range and control of their necks and heads unimpeded (count the number of times we've seen ponies lying down like that and looking about the place), allowing them to comfortable lie with their heads propped up, like humans do when sleeping.
Curiously, this evolutionary quirk has created the rather hilarious and unintended accident of ponies being able to lie on the backs of their necks without snapping them under their own bodyweight (to an extent of course, lets be reasonable.) the muscles and bones 'lock in place' and cause the weight to be distributed over the ribcage, increasing the overall tensile strength. Less of an evolutionary 'feature' and more of a 'bug nobody is complaining about', perhaps its even vestigial remains of some other function, no one really knows at this point. I only managed to demonstrate this once during the Forest arc after Thorax and Jacques fell down the tap floor and Jacques was lying on the back of his neck, his body propped up against a wall with Thorax's additional body weight holding him down. It wasn't really worth going into detail at the time but it was fun. The downside is that when in this position they can't move their necks at all. Also kinda necessary for support reasons as ponies, inch per inch, have wider chests than horses do with more noticeable 'shoulders' in the form of their withers, not too noticeable but they're there. Their ribcages are more 'broad' than 'long in terms of cross section, horse ribcages 'hang' low to the ground do to gravity, Ponies' cages don't do so to such an extreme, but nowhere near the broad chests of humans or minotaurs proportionally.
I decided on this little fact largely because I wanted to reconcile the absurd survivability of Rainbow Dash fucking crashing into things at fast speeds. This makes races in BM more resilient to sudden neck injuries than a human would (makes sense since their necks are much more exposed than ours are) but not necessarily to snapped necks. Come at a neck a certain way, you're going to break it just like a human's would. Although this doesn't go the full way to explaining away Rainbow Dash, I am not even going to try, that woman is full of bullshit luck.
Now musculature is where it gets interesting and noticeably different from Earth Horses. The thicker legs allow for more versatile muscles to form and to strengthen, thus allow ponies to lift and heft things as easily as it allows them to run. No pony, without magic or absurd amounts of training, is going to beat a horse at a dead sprint on land. Ever. But no horse could ever do the shit ponies can do physically and no its not all because 'magic'. For starters, lets start with pony hooves, I have gone into good effort to hint that pony hooves are really fucking odd, for starters they can 'grip' things and I have been debating exactly how they do that.
I now for a fact that actual 'foot' of a pony hoof, the hard thing you hammer nails into in order to get horseshoes to stick to them can, for starters, be manipulated by ponies, allowing them to squeeze with it and 'spread' it. Indeed it is controlability like this that allows warrior ponies to control the hoof blades on their armored horse shoes, causing them to rise or fall (and theoretically any number of mechanisms you attached to a hoof.) They manipulate the inside of the hoof, pressing against tiny levers built into the insides and squeezing others to manipulate them at will.
Its the same logic of malleability as griffon beaks and claws, although unlike griffons, they can 'shut off' feeling in this part of their legs at will, allowing them to sprint full pelt on their hooves even without horsehoes without causing too much pain although this will damage their hooves over time if they go galloping about the mountainside for example) while at the same time allowing them to feel with their hooves similar to how we do with the skin on our hands, but obviously its not as tactile as the rest of their bodies. This is how Rarity can perfectly judge the fine wares she makes while at the same time not bitching about how hard the road is on her hooves (well sometimes at least, women love their
peticureshooficures afterall), In alot of artwork you see ponies with the bottom of their hooves already in that 'U' shape pattern based on the footprints on the ground. Real life horses don't always have that and instead make a solid shape in the ground with their naked hooves. Ponies do grow their hooves to form that neat U shape naturally leaving the inside of their hooves for another interesting part of their anatomy.As for how they can grab things with their hooves otherwise... okay hold on this is going to get weird.
For starters, ponies do in fact have a 'frog' on the inside of their hooves, in horses this is an organ to help with blood circulation due to the sheer length the blood has to travel in order to get down those damn legs and back up to the animal's heart. Ponies have a stronger heart than horses (closer to a human's in fact, which is insane in its own right in comparison to the animal kingdom) and the distance the blood has to travel is shorter, meaning such organs are next to obsolete. No, the pony's frog has an entirely different purpose and the less you think of it the better.
Long story short, it can expand and grab things in a way similar to this fucking robot arm. This allows ponies to 'scoop' things with the inside of their 'hard' hoof and grab it with their frog. But that isn't all, the flesh of the frog can actually grip things so intensely that the pony doesn't 'need' fingers in the way humans do in order to wrap around things. While this comparison is wildly inaccurate, (because Gecko feet are fucking freaky), it is at least similar in part to how gecko feet work, thousands of tiny grips along the frog allowing ponies a small degree of manipulation and an intense grip, allowing ponies to grip spears (to a point, as long as the hard part of their hooves allow them to in terms of logistics) and other things, as well as allowing Jacques to hold a 'hand' of playing cards one hoofed. I demonstrated this briefly in this interlude chapter where Blueblood gets his first taste of Royal Guard training, it was all the time I could afford to going into detail on the topic, but suffice it to say the pony's hoof is a sophisticated piece of bullshit.
Oh and by the way they can totally roll their wrists the same way we do. The thicker more developed muscular system in the legs allows ponies a greater degree of freedom and fine tuned control over their legs and their motions than a horse could possibly have, and can even exercise these to a certain degree (so steroids aside, Bulk Biceps' muscles are NOT complete bullshit, that guy is honest to God built like a brick shithouse, although in BM while these muscles would be very noticeable, it is not to the absurdist degree its taken to in the show... although having said that Bulk Biceps IS one of the most buff ponies in the universe of the fic), ponies can exercise these muscles and become STRONK. And as stated in the fic from Handy's observations, ponies have ball and socket joints for their limbs much like humans do, given the absurd ease with which they flail their limbs.
Their movements are smooth and exaggerated, energetic and well calculated, not unlike a cats as you correctly surmised. Although pound for pound they sacrifice alot of the raw power horses have, they are still strong and able for their sizes on average (when we take earth pony breeding and magic out of the equation, this fact still remains true on average) putting them on even footing with humans in terms of strangth and power. However, logistics, body shapes and how each one uses their own and their opponent's to their advantage will determine a fight, one must adjust to fighting someone whose body language, 'tells' and capabilities you cannot implicitly understand based on your personal bodily experience. Its not easy being Handy. If all this difference seems to radically divorced from what we know of equines, you might want to reacquaint yourself with how radically different humans are from most primates in structure and form.
Although having said that, ponies are so divorced from earth horses that Handy rightfully questions if they're even related at all and that this isn't some cosmic joke that he has just so happened to encounter some kind of xenological genotype that just so happens to eerily resemble horses, and he doesn't even know half of what I have just told you.
Oh it should go without saying they have better butt support, considering all the sitting on their asses they do, but I won't go into detail on that, I once again refer you to the images of the ponies and griffons sitting.
Other than that, as previously mentioned, pony tails are, to a point, prehensile, but nowhere near the control or sophistication griffons can manage but its there, hence why we see all those weird tail shenanigans in the show. And the docks of their tails (those muscles tail hairs grow out of, are capable of wagging back and forth. Why? Couldn't fucking tell you, I just remember seeing that kid in Trade Ya! wagging his tail while asking Twilight Sparkle for an autograph. Fucking Ponies man.
Oh and regarding the joke at the end of the last chapter. Yes all their plumbing is present, accounted for and in tact and no none of the other ponies can see eachother's junk either. Its considered pretty normal. If Handy were to kick a guy in the dick, that guy's dick would be in serious dick pain regardless of wether or not it could be seen. One guy in the comments got it in one go that its a kind of modesty magic, a subconscious one all sapients are capable of (to a degree if its sapient in this world, it has magic to some degree, although if I explain the direct correlation between sapience and magic it'd go into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say before anyone asks, no, magic does not 'cause' sapience and sapience is not lost if someone loses all connection to magic). As a result, its an easy way to tell if a creature you are speaking to is actually capable of civilization or not, you know, if you couldn't tell by the intelligence of their eyes or, well, speaking to them and it’s a suitable way to explain why a civilization that can see value in the concept of clothing (which ponies do) so often forego their use (which they do) because they do not need to worry about their modesty in the slightest.
I haven't decided yet if it's just something sapients have from birth, or like bladder control its something you have to grow into getting used to unconsciously using, with the later seeming more reasonable, since pony babies, like human babies, require at least a little bit of time before they start running about the place and doing things, long youth development is, as far as can discern in real life, a key sign of brainpower and intelligence in a species that requires some mental development post birth, (or that’s the excuse we humans came up for ourselves, hehe) I applied it here based on evidence in the show. So its not really a biological function, but one linked to mental and magical development.
For most people it shows up when they need their stuff. Or you know, when they're horny, (there's a very good and practical reason the workers of the brothel wore underwear all the time), so a stallion getting a boner in the middle of a crowd is going to be pretty fucking noticeable, because boom, suddenly penis. Women have the same problem. Humiliation knows no gender! Suddenly all those ponies would be grateful for their partially prehensile tails afterall.
In fact this ability is considered so basic and intrinsic its currently barely studied at all by most modern mages, (kinda like alot of questions about what makes humans tick historically), to such a point that not being able to do so normally is considered a disability. Handy is unable to do so of course, he wasn't developed while in this world when young, and even if he was there's no guarantee it'd take, he's a completely foreign species, (actually, fuck that noise, no one knows what effect magic would have on a gestating human child in the womb let alone anything else), he'd have to learn magic and learn a spell specifically for it, but why would he? He is not planning on going nudist ever. Although this does lead to a funny situation earlier on in the story when Joachim asked him why he wore clothes all the time (because he knew Handy was bullshitting about being foreign nobility), Handy dodged the question and Joachim thought he was just being prudish. Why wouldn't he? He likely assumed Handy could do the same as literally everyone else and hide it. If Handy was found naked out in the woods, people would assume he was a wild animal. If someone who knew he was sapient saw him naked, they'd assume he'd just used the toilet recently or was horny, if they then learned he couldn't do it flat out, they'd assume he was disabled somehow and be super awkward and bad at being supportive and caring and try to avoid certain topics when talking to him and generally get on your nerves.
And Handy would hate every second of it.
But back to pony biology. Most of the differences between BM ponies and the show ponies/most fic representations of ponies is internal. Specifically the ponies abilities to vomit (horses can't do that) and have a gag reflex, raising interesting implications for their gastro-intestinal system and other such.
But going farther than that would be unneccessary detail and I still need to work on other things such as the reporductive logic. You think pony genetics are weird? They aren't the only ones with very specific and odd rules about what can and cannot be interbred with. There's at least ONE species that was subsumed entirely by the ponies through interbreeding, the result was the sphinx ponies of Concordia (pegasi wings, pony heads, small leonine bodies and tails), rather than becoming more and more 'pony' with each successive generation of interbreeding, eventually the sphinxes reached a kind of equilibrium to the point where they are considered just another pony 'race' apart from the main three, and that having a child with another pony of any race, chances are one of the children might be a full blown sphinx and not something inbetween.
Thestrals are an odd case in pony genetics ('Thestrals are born, not made, you can't 'catch' thestralism' as Twilight once explained to an incredulous Handy), where 9 times out of 10 in a coupling the offspring will be a Thestral.
But that does not necessarily mean said thestral will be of the winged variety. There are a number of earth pony and unicorn thestrals, whose birth condition changes certain aspects of their appearence much like it does the pegasi thestrals. Unicorn thestrals for example, have a smoothed horn rather than a ridged one, that curves slightly upwards, and all of them have subdued coloured fur and manes of whatever colour you can imagine (with the occasional exception), and of course all thestrals of whatever breed have those slit pupiles in their eyes.
The Griffons have a very robust genetic structure, capable of interbreeding with other species but have an odd quirk, depending on what the mother is, say between a pony and a griffon, two different sub species are birthed, Grifflings and Hippogriffs. Here's a picture of two such creatures having a polite disagreement.
I justified this based on the logic between Ligers and Tions, the offspring of lions and tigers which differ depending on the species of the mother. Unlike those kinds of halfbreeds, BM halfbreeds are fertile and stable. To the point where say, two hippogriffs can have children and those children will be hippogriffs. And should a halfbreed have a child with a full breed, say a pony or a griffon, the child may be either a full breed or a half breed, gryphonic blood can't be diluted any further than halfway for whatever reason.
Interestingly, because of the viability of offspring between mixed-race couples and the viability of that offspring's offsprings, nobles and major families, either through law or tradition, forbid intermarriage with other species. Not out of racism but practicality. It'd do no good for Marquis such-and-such the griffon to suddenly have his titles contested by Duke whats-his-name across the Equestrian-Griffonian border because they shared a grandfather. Its in everyone's best interests that nobles restrict themselves this way. Hilariously, this makes things difficult for those members of differing species than the majority who hold titles and lands in kingdoms ruled by a different species, those guys don't have alot of options. Most people don't mind intermarriage but views on it differ from place to place as you might expect, no sugar coated happy-go-lucky world in this story, no sir, you get judged motherfucker, welcome to life. A such the views of the common people differ from place to place.
And don't even get me started on fucking changelings. Here's a hint, they aren't bugs and they don't lay eggs.
But yeah, that's roughly how my ponies look in the world of BM. I don't go on too much about how much I personally envision the species of the world to be. Even if I did, everyone would have differing interpretation of their appearance anyway. So I stick to delving into it when its relevant to let people know whats up. So when I say Shortbeak has oversized wings, now you have a better idea of what I mean. Its the same reason I never linger too long on what Handy actually looks like. Giving the basic bare bones description, (angular face, slightly on the narrows side, high cheek bones, grey-blue eyes, dark brown hair that was once blonde when he was a child) what people make of Handy's appearance beyond that is entirely up to them (beyond superficial descriptions such as the style of beard he's wearing on a given day), its best to leave the audience to their own interpretations unless a specific character's looks are particularly important. I could've summarized this all up with 'Ponies are slightly taller with longer legs, bigger wings, smaller eyes, reasonable rounded muzzles.' and we'd be fine.
But fuck that, I'm Handyman, if I have to have this shit sitting in my head every time I put finger to keyboard, you might as well have it. Enjoy your 4k sandwich.
2991680 I return from gulag, and I bring website back because dirty capitalists did not care about common man like loyal communists.
2991814 As someone who has done far more tinkering on MLP physiology than is healthy or sane (mostly in regard to changelings which I have built a full working physiology for because nothing on earth lines up well with them at all so it took some serious engineering to make everything work), I have some thoughts I want to share on this.
Given that griffons are almost certainly mammalian rather than avian as you mentioned (something that is heavily supported by the presence of feathers on the clearly mammalian pegasi and alacorns), I think the solution to the beak is quite simple. It is just a standard jaw like what most mammals have with the sole exception that it is not covered in fur or feathers. Everything falls into place neatly with that assumption and there are no loose ends to tie up.
I do not recall the claws having any unusual characteristics in the show (although it has been a while since I saw that episode) so I would assume they are normal digits with claws at the ends like most species have.
Given that that is the same material as our fingernails, that is not unreasonable. You could quite easily hook up muscles to distort that to an extent so long as it is not too thick (which would mean it wears faster so it has to grow faster which means less active ponies would need to file it down on a regular basis like we know is part of Rarity's spa visits in the show), although it would be too stiff to really grab anything effectively. That is either magic (kind of a lame excuse, but it does fit with the telekinesis unicorns use all the time) or a more complex frog capable of distorting its much softer surface to grab things because ponies do not need the help pumping blood up their much shorter legs so they are free to do other things with it. There are several possible mechanisms you could use for that, although my favorite is the vacuum gripper ball which ponies could easily implement by controlling blood flow into a specialized spongy tissue which would also keep the sensory cells off the ground while running.
Also, I am really not a fan of the recent prevalence of ponies sitting human-style in the show so I personally ignore it. Sure their physiology supports it (even if Rainbow is a bad example of "normal" due to her incredible physical condition), but I cannot see it being as comfortable for them as the more cat-like postures that were more common in earlier seasons.
Finally, on a largely unrelated note, while ponies are obviously more flexible and mobile than horses, their quadrupedal stance still significantly limits their mobility when compared to a bipedal human. Stability and maneuverability are inherently contradictory requirements because one is about not moving and the other is about moving so a more stable quadrupedal stance cannot match the agility of a less stable bipedal stance. This means Handy should be able to dance around even the most maneuverable ponies with explosive lateral and rotational movements while wearing full armor, although his lack of real combat training is particularly obvious here because he mostly charges strait at problems rather than slipping around them as he nails them with the hammer like he should.
Also, on the subject of pegasus wings, I did a lot of work on those with V-Pony as part of a major undertaking to understand what a pegasus is and use that to determine how they fight and what their weapons would look like. While we are still working on putting together the final discussion on everything to post in the Bronies With Blades group, the work is done (including full engineering drawings for a working wingblade that I made
) and I can at least give you a quick overview of the wings because we have a lot of very good and surprisingly consistent information on how they move in the show. The short version is that they are a weird cross between a bat wing and giant hand with big, strong, feathery fingers instead of a continuous lifting surface and have about as much to do with bird wings as they do with insect wings. There are obviously a lot of major implications of this and a lot of evidence I am not discussing here, but the gist of it is that while you can increase the size to something like that picture, the actual wings will look vastly different unless you totally throw out the show visuals.
2992935 The thing about griffon claws is I was trying to reconcile the tactility griffons obviously have while using them (tool using species really makes that sort of shit neccessary), they're hard but not especially bony and can feel with them in a similar way to how I said ponies can feel through their otherwise hard hooves. Only difference is they lack the ability to turn this on or off like ponies can.
I am aware of the robotic vacuum grip ball idea and had indeed been considering it for the frog of the pony's hooves, although it lacks the fine manipulation of the psuedo-gecko grip thing I currently have going on for their frog (considering ponies not only grip things but do silly things like say, spinning a spear in a hoof, the vacuum ball proved to have some minor problems regarding such blink-and-you'll-miss-it details like that. I go with the more complex frog theory for how the ponies grip with their hooves rather than the hard part of their hooves being used for everything, making the hoof a really alien and sophisticatedly awkward 'hand' rather than the blunt instrument it is for real life horses, since I ruled the circulatory purpose of frogs on real horses is not necessary with ponies given their MUCH smaller size and stronger hearts. Might as well dedicate that part of the body to something useful for an intelligent tool using species.
And the differences and the advantages/disadvantages of biped vrs quadruped is something I take into great consideration during fights, Handy should be miles more manoeuvrable and in alot of ways he is. Give him a few years experience and he will dominate the battlefields of this world as a living terror of a warrior by simply using his natural biological advantages to their fullest. The problem here is that he is still thinking of races like ponies as if they were in some way similar to real life horses and all the various drawbacks they would have trying to charge a human while that small. They do have alot of disadvantages given their morphology, this is true and undeniable. The difference is they are very aware of these shortcomings and have been overcoming them in daily life since forever, their warriors even more so since those bastards have to actually go to the unenviable task of fighting assholes who have shit much easier than them in this regard (assuming they aren't fighting other ponies of course)
The problem with ponies is, well given the evidence (sitting down being comfortable suggesting ample support structure for this to be not back breaking, Rainbow Dash, and other pegasi for that matter, being comfortable being 'upright' for extended periods, their smaller more manageable sizes) theoretically, they could walk upright if they wanted to. I don't know if the same would be true for larger ponies such as Alicorns but regular ponies? Yeah. I do recall the story All American Girl going into great depth of how this is possible, I'm not so certain of its theory of it coming to be but I agree with its conclusion. But if they did they'd be even less effective in a fight. You don't challenge a biped on its own turf, you will lose. Its not really relevant, just a tidbit that can be concluded from everything else discussed.
Although I clearly delineate that flying opponents, pegasi, griffons, etc, are the most manoeuvrable fighters Handy faces up against, and for obvious reasons. The most dangerous example of this, ironically isn't shortbeak, (who despite her speed is actually more powerful than she is a fragile speedster, but she is manouverable enough even in her own heavy armour to be a huge threat), but Masquerade, who alarmingly in the tournament arc, when Handy was first fighting the dragon in the refreshment tent, whirled around to face him with a simple flick of her wings, a literal 180 degrees turn that was little more than her hooves being elevated a few milimetres off the ground and her body turned through expert use of her wings. Obviously there was a tiny push of pegasi magic involved there but it was minimal. Handy wasn't quick enough to catch the, frankly, alarming implications of that. But generally as a groundbound fighter Handy was always going to find flying opponents difficult, which is kind of the point. (of course we aren't taking vampirism into account here, because then we're just slipping into powers territory which is irrelevant for this discussion)
As for pegasi wings, I figured they were nothing like avian or bat or insect wings as we are familiar with, but rather and entirely new kind of wing. I evidenced in the story they are capable of manipulating things with their primary feathers kind of like fingers, kinda evidence in the show as well (assuming we ignore the gag of pegasi doing push ups supported by nothing other than wing tips, you might as well push yourself up with your penis) which suggests very fine motor control and blood vessels along the 'arm' of the wing. Considering these are definitely feathers of some kind, even if they are ones that have some kind of response to messages from the nervous system that allows them to 'bend' at will (which actually raises alarming implications for the degree of control Pegasi have during flight, most birds definitely don't have that kind of ability) while at the same time these feathers are disposable (grow, moulted, replaced) suggests that we really need an extended lexicon to probably describe these bastards' wings. Although despite their huge differences, I have no problem visualizing them being somewhat similar aesthetically to either the wings shown in that picture or what we see on the show, which is merely superficiality anyway (I take the assumption the lack of feather detail we see on the show is merely conservation of detail rather than pegasi and alicorn wings being these huge blocks of feathers, you're free to think otherwise but it just seems silly to me).
Given their complexity and overall utility (wings go through ALOT of abuse), I always found the hyper sensitivity and eroticism winged characters have in fanfics ludicrous. Its like orgasming because someone dared brush against your leg or something. In fact thats the better comparison: in terms of culture, wings are about as sexual as legs are, which is to say they aren't and it depends on context. A friend helping you pull shit out of your wings is no different from a friend, slapping you on the knee after you tell a particularly funny joke or story. Obviously given how much winged character rely on wings for combat in BM, I don't worry about such nonsense.
Say, what inspired you to write BM? Where did you get the idea for it anyways?
2993743 Its actually pretty underwhelming.
And it pretty much just snowballed from there.
2992180 Oh hush, Rome was wearing Purple before Constantine made Byzantium cool.
2993834 Aww, was expecting a big post that would have massively delayed BM.
2993228
Fine, make me look up images why don't you. Ok, looking at some pictures of Gilda, I am not actually seeing much in the way of useful claws. The whole hand looks fleshy and nimble which means it is probably more like our hands than an actual bird claw. That means the nails are going to be much more like ours than an actual claw so you do not need to play any of these games to make everything work.
Honestly, you can get most of that with zone control of blood flow with the ball model. Selectively expanding and contracting different areas can get you most of that with subtle actions of the ankles to engage edges of the hard hoof and free floating movements with objects sliding over different parts of the foot giving you things like spear twirling.
I did not read that story so I cannot speak to its theory, but I feel like sitting upright would put far too much stress on the lower back to be comfortable for an extended period of time. Pegasi in the air are a totally different story because the body is hanging from the wings so the only point with an unusual strain when they hang upright is the base of the neck which seems to be plenty strong enough for that, although it might still get sore after a while.
For the combat stuff, that was exactly what I was thinking as well. Handy is seriously limited by his lack of training and experience which keeps him from being the heavily armored and startlingly agile terror he really should be, but flight is a tremendous advantage no matter how you look at things even if flight maneuverability does have sharper tradeoffs against armor weight and wings are virtually impossible to protect.
You are way off the mark here. We got an X-ray of Rainbow's wing a long time ago and it very clearly shows bones running through it so the whole structure is more analogous to our hands than anything else. Here is a screenshot of the bone model I made superimposed over a screenshot of the wing so you can see how things actually line up. The bones are not accurately detailed because I was making it more for a motion study than anything else, but you can still clearly see how it is all put together.
i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww47/Diablo48/Wingblade/Skeleton_Model_With_Wing_by_D48.png
Those bones support large, strong, fleshy fingers which have a layer of feathers over them for aerodynamics and to increase their surface area. The fingers can be moved independently of each other to drastically alter the profile of the wing and allow air to slip through them to give them extraordinary control in the air. That also means things like the wing pushups are entirely reasonable because those finger structures are more than up to the task of supporting their weight just like how we humans can do pushups on our own relatively light finger structures.
The larger alacorns have the same underlying bone structure as pegasi, but they also have a web of skin and feathers connecting their fingers to increase their lifting area to help lift their larger bodies at the cost of maneuverability.
While it is not unreasonable to dismiss the sexual connections of wings, the skin covering them does have to be extremely sensitive for flight. It takes an enormous amount of information to keep a complex structure like that moving correctly in the air to provide exactly the desired overall movement so the skin has to be extremely sensitive to pressure and the movement of air across it in order for pegasi to be able to fly effectively. That means that while wings are not necessarily going to be erogenous zones as you pointed out, they are also not going to be totally inconsequential like you seem to think. I would expect them to be roughly comparable to human hands in this regard so they are definitely used for a number of sexual acts due to their sensitivity and fine control, but are not particularly connected to sex.
2994424 Well I know they aren't the super-sharp claws most fics have them as, had that much down as fact in the second chapter when Joachim boasted about them... right before he and Handy promptly got their asses handed to them and enslaved by diamond dogs. Otherwise there'd be alot more griffons walking around with scars on their faces and missing eyes.
Still not sure of the vacuum ball theory precisely because of the blood flow neccessary in order to make it work like that, that is a huge liability for a pony who is walking about on their hooves all day to the point where stepping on something sharp and piercing could cause a seriously bloody injury much like real life frogs do when horses stand on caltrops, the gecko model allows for their versatility while mitigating the vulnerability somewhat. I dunno, by the time I get to Handy actually learning how their shit works, I'll have made a decision for definite.
And I get your distaste for them sitting upright, but the fact of the matter is it is evidenced to the point where it can't be dismissed as a gag, it does happen and so to a point, it must be comfortable for them on some level even if it does put alot of pressure on their lower back. The thing is humans have this same problem, sitting down over the long term is taking years off of our lives and can be a source of lower back pain and problems thereof. Yet we still love that shit and do it for absurd amounts of time every hour of the day. The strain on the pegasi neck while flying would be about accurate but given A) their more robust chest bones and musculature and B) they exercise these parts of their bodies all the time, they'd likely not get all that sore and it'd be more a case of strain and exhaustion (like humans who are capable of a walking all God damn day are still going to run their legs ragged and bloody their feet) especially considering the additions to their ribcage and chest muscles I have stated in my earlier comment, this shit is way easier for them now, creating an internal leverage system for weight and stress distribution.
Combat wise, yes, flight gives massive advantages even when taking the disadvantages into account, flyers are quitewell aware of this and compensate for it. Any intelligent opponent would try to find a way to at least neutralize one of their wings (a lesson Handy learned the hard way during the duel with Shortbeak), similarly when facing a human, the best way to fight us from their perspective is to take out a leg. In fact its absolutely vital for opponents of Handy that they do this. For humans this is second nature to us and obvious, most of the time we don't go for the opponents legs in fights because A) we assume the other human is aware of their vulnerabilities and B) we know they know how to compensate and C) those damn things are dangerous in their own right. The difference being if you take away an opponent's wing, they are still mostly combat capable, if Handy has a leg taken out from under him, he is practically defeated. Handy demonstrated his awareness of their prioritising in the tournament arc where he was fighting a nameless pony warrior, he learned the hard way from his training with Shortbeak (which I STILL have to write)
I never said there weren't bones in those wings. Indeed in my imagining based on evidence seen there are quite strong bones for the raw abuse wings suffer and given their overall size (moreso given the fact I am running with much bigger wings in BM than seen on the show) and indeed a skeletal structure would be necessary because of the micromanaging muscle control the ponies seem to have and to help guide an protect blood vessels along that system (although I am doubtful if they have arteries but I am not ruling it out, I actually have to consider shit like that because, you know, vampires). I saw the x ray the problem I have with it and the 'wingfinger' hypothesis is because the 'bones' seen on the xray seem to actually be separate from the bones along the wing's arm. Much more likely in my mind given their sensitivity, utility and flexibility is that 'primary' feathers have a membranous makeup, thick enough to at least show up on xray, it would also explain how they are able to be manipulated by conscious commands from the nervous system while at the same time beign disposable and regrowable. If we went with your model and extrapolated to the sizes I'm talking about for wings, those wing fingers would be absurd. Useful for manipulating things yes, but less so for flying. (thus making ponies and flyers rely more heavily on magic whereas I am going with a hypothesis that requires less of a reliance on magic for everything), the fleshy wing finger hypothesis is less of a 'wing' and more like an arm with each finger being a seperate wing covered in feathers which... I am not even sure how that would work. Cool, certainly, but wildly impractical, moreso than wings on horses already are. Could they push up on their wings? Yes, but not necessarily their primaries which in this instance are less like fingers and more like manipulable nails that happen to be a kind of membranous feather (man ponies have alot of nail analogues)
And I didn't want to imply they aren't used for sex. Human feet and hands aren't meant for sex either but they sure as fuck are (to a ridiculous extent in the case of hands) and they are both sensitive to touch and tactile but hardly erogenous in themselves. (although hilariously, one can see why aliens like ponies might think they were) the leg analogy was just me saying it'd be ridiculous to assume someone helping a friend out with their wings would automatically be assumed to be sexual in nature (otherwise the narrative scene where Handy helps pull detritus out of Joachim's wings in the Hearts and Hooves day chapter in the first arc would have very different context and implications and reactions from Joachim) as well as dismissing 'wingboners'. Flyers extending their wings when surprised or agitated is a believable and natural response (why wouldn't they? increasing one's size is an instinctive fear response in an attempt to appear threatening to something that is threatening you, most animal species have something similar), and maybe they could do this when aroused or excited, but wings becoming stiff and hardened in an obvious erection analogue when aroused is ridiculous, its like us being unable to walk because our legs got stiffened up every time we got excited, (meaning if any pegasi got aroused while in flight he or she is fucking screwed, enjoy that tailspin into the ground you horndog), sure they're sensitive and I'd imagine it'd be enjoyable to use them in the act itself, but I doubt its to a too noticeable extent, otherwise just the rigours of daily life would build up over the day.
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It sounds like we are on the same page here then with griffon claws being fairly similar to human hands but with slightly pointier nails (not that that is much of an accomplishment given our blunt fingers).
I don't see how this is a problem. Sure it is a vulnerability, but creatures make evolutionary tradeoffs all the time and this is really not a big problem compared to the power of tool use. Besides, the frog is recessed up from the ground inside the hard hoof to keep it away from damage, skin is not all that easy to puncture even if it is thin and flexible, and the vacuum system can be used to pull most of the blood out of the damaged area if it does get cut to check the bleeding so it is not that big a vulnerability.
The thing is, our bodies have specifically evolved for a bipedal stance unlike ponies. Yes there are still some issues, but we are far better off than ponies which is why I cannot see it being comfortable for them for extended periods. That does not mean that they cannot do it at all or that it would be immediately uncomfortable for them, just that sitting like that for hours would start to hurt. That is really no different from a number of unusual postures we can take which are fine at first but get uncomfortable if we try to hold them for an extended period of time.
That is exactly why I said it seemed plenty strong enough for that posture. I honestly only mentioned it at all for completeness because it is literally the only point in their bodies that is seeing any loading in any direction at all that is in excess of normal standing or flying loads.
That is about on point, although there are two other reasons not to go for the legs in a fight. D) our unstable and highly maneuverable posture lets us get them out of the way of attacks very quickly and easily, and E) attacking the legs with any weapon held in the hands (sword, spear, hammer, ect.) significantly reduces your reach due to the angle of the attack which makes it possible for your opponent to pull his or her legs back out of range of your attack while still being in range to launch an attack at your body.
Ok, there are a ton of very fundamental problems with this. First I am going to hit the aerodynamics because you clearly do not have the kind of understanding of the mechanics of flight I have as an aerospace engineer and literally everything else hinges off and understanding of how flight dynamics work. While you are right that pony wings are far too small in the show, that picture you posted is honestly no better. The fact that mass increases with the cube of linear dimensions means that pegasi would have to have an incredible wingspan to have enough raw surface area to have any chance of flying without massive magical assistance. For scaling reference, eagles (as a good large bird reference) have about a 2m wingspan for a 5kg body with much wider wings than that image you posted. That is about the same wingspan as the show ponies with roughly comparable total wing area, yet pony bodies look to be in the 40~50 kg range so that is about 10 times the wing loading which is just not workable. The picture you posted roughly doubles the wingspan, but the slimmer wing profile means the increase in actual wing area is only about 50% so you are still looking at something like 6 to 7 times the wing loading which is not much better. Furthermore, you cannot really scale up the muscles very much to compensate for the increased wing loading because they fall victim to the square-cube law with muscle mass increasing with the cube of muscle diameter and the muscle power increasing with the square of the diameter so bigger muscles wind up hurting as much as they help. The net result of all this is that the canon ponies can only carry about 10% of their total body weight on their physical wings while your larger wings only increase that to 15%. That means magic has to be doing at least 85 to 90% of the lifting work, but if that was all it was doing then ponies would be no more maneuverable than large birds which we know is not the case because it is very clearly demonstrated that ponies can hover which is something almost no birds are capable of so the magic must be doing at least 90% of the work of flying to give them the extra power they are clearly shown to have. This in turn means that the wings are almost exclusively used for fine motion and control while the magic does basically all the heavy lifting and raw thrust so they have a very different set of requirements on them than any known animal wing.
Next, you really have to remember that the X-ray was from a cartoon and is more representational than explicitly factual just like X-rays of human bones in cartoons. Just take a look at the pair of images below and you will see the exact same kinds of issues in both.
cdn.toonvectors.com/images/35/13024/toonvectors-13024-940.jpg
i938.photobucket.com/albums/ad221/9moviefan/RDWing.png
The entire limb in both cases is made up of large long bones like the humerus rather than showing the collections of smaller bones like the radius and ulna we know are there, and none of the joints work in either image with the first one overlapping things in impossible ways and the second having every bone floating several inches from the others including the broken bone which has an absolutely impossible gap between the two segments. There is no deeper meaning to those gaps, it is just an animation quirk.
Furthermore, your attempts to make feathers do everything we see in the show is just flat out impossible. You just cannot get the kind of motion we see in literally every episode of the show without having a bony structure and muscles running throughout the wing to give independent control of multiple joints. Just take a look at the show animation frames for normal flight and you will see exactly what I am talking about.
fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/235/a/7/mlp_pegasus_wing_animation_step_guide_by_isomorphicartwork-d5c7qx4.jpg
There is a lot of independently controlled bending across multiple sets of joints in each finger structure with multiple degrees of freedom which requires a highly flexible structure like our own hands to work. There is just no way around the fact that there is far too much motion to have anything but large muscular finger structures making up the bulk of the wing rather than the lightweight feathers birds have.
Now, circling back to the mechanics of flight and taking into account that the wing is primarily there for control, we can clearly see that the large finger structures give pegasi huge advantages over an avian wing in flight. All that flexibility means pegasi have an extraordinary amount of control over exactly how the air moves around and through their wings with the ability to move fingers in three dimensions independently of the main wing body to vary the wing area, alter surface angles, and allow air to pass through the wing in a staggering variety of ways to create subtle cross currents, vortices, local stalls, pressure gradients, and other aerodynamic phenomena to let them efficiently generate any combination of effects they want exactly when they want them. This flexibility translates into staggering maneuverability because they can quickly and easily generate any combination of forces and torques they want with little regard for their current orientation and airspeed which is how an experienced flyer like Rainbow Dash is able to maneuver the way she does.
Hopefully this covers things for now, although there will be a lot more on this subject and how it translates to combat whenever I can get a hold of V so we can get the rest of those posts together and up.
Ok, cool. It sounds like we are on the same page here now. Just make sure you compare wings to hands in the future and not knees like you did the first time because they have very different connotations.
Also, while letting someone touch your wings is obviously not explicitly sexual as you said, it does still require a significant degree of trust to let someone else help take care of them like that because the wings are still sensitive so being open to that kind of contact would still be an important step in a romantic relationship just like it is a significant step in a normal friendship.