Can we have a thread discussing pony anatomy gee we've never

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Horse Pussy

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Here.

>>29537697
I wonder if unicorns/alicorns have to regularly file their horns to stop them from stabbing each other.

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>>29537701
Crotchteats

>>29537697
>I've always had this headcanon that pegasi and alicorns are lighter than other ponies due to their cloudwalking abilities.
Agree about pegasi, but I think alicorns keep their weight when they ascend. It means that alicorns that weren't pegasi before getting their wings would be worse fliers, but in my headcanon their predominant magic is that they used to have. Ie., Twilight will have her former unicorn magic, but both her pegasus magic and her earth pony magic will be weaker than those of regular pegasi and earth ponies.

More on pegasi: I've seen some art lately where they have the entire body covered with feathers. I think they only have feathers on the wings and they have fur on the rest of the body. Opinions?

>>29537765
I think they only have feathers on the wings and they have fur on the rest of the body.I think they only have feathers on the wings and they have fur on the rest of the body.

100% this

I'm no expert on avian biology, but I can easily bet there are some birds out there with fur and feathers.

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>>29537795
maybe pegasi have pneumatic bones like birds?

>>29537795
forgot to greentext the first line and somehow I pasted it twice.

>>29537795

There actually are no animals with both fur and feathers, those two traits diverged from each other. Feathers are evolved from scales, so from an avian perspective you could argue for a pegasus with scales and feathers, but not one with feathers and and fur.

Similarly, from the history of our biology something like a dragon with a mane doesn't make sense either.

That said, neither dragons nor pegasi, or anything else Equestrian really, have anything to do with our or avian biology. For one there are no mammals with six limbs like pegasi have, they also appear in colors that can't exist in mammals, as Earth-mammals have only two types of hair pigment, one pigment for black or brown hair and one for yellow or reddish-orange hair. You can't for example have a green mammal without adding another pigment from somewhere.

>>29537697

I really don't think pegasi are lighter, at least not significantly. No matter how light you are, a cloud can't possibly support your full weight.

Whenever a pegasus crashes into someone for example, their momentum seems to be as high or even higher than what other ponies achieve. We know most of their power is pegasus magic anyway, and I doubt the mane6 somehow got lighter when Twilight made them walk on clouds back in Sonic Rainboom.

I also think Scootaloo might be deficient in pegasus magic, moreso than wings or weight (her wings are the same size as other fillies her age, and MUCH larger by proportion than for example Bulk Biceps.), because she falls through the cloud she's hanging on to in Sleepless in Ponyville.

TITS

>>29537827
You can look at bats which are flying mammals but they still only have 4 limbs.
Really though considering griffons, mammals and avians fused together is tge most likely answer.

Earth ponies are naturally big, tough and powerful: a mature stallion is built like a Mack truck.

>>29537765
Ive seen a few works of art where ponies have feathering along the back of the neck, shoulders, breast and back, and a few extra feathers on the rump similar to a bird's tail feathers. it seems to be more of a stylistic choice than anything.
imo, though, pegasi probably have a few feathers spread along their body but they're mostly hidden by the fur

>>29537827
>Similarly, from the history of our biology something like a dragon with a mane doesn't make sense either.

Strange considering the legend of the dragon is believed to be traced back to 3 seperate animals.

Birds
Reptiles
Mammals

At least, back when humans looked more like mice. e.g. mammals being more towards large cats so a dragon with a mane I can imagine.

But I'm probabily going off to an irrelevent extent.

oh wow I got a capatcha of a cart pulled by two small ponies.

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>>29537697

>>29537836
Except for the breezie/changeling branch, which is a bit weird, this seems pretty plausible to me.

>>29537853
>A healthy, mature Earth pony stallion can pull his own bodyweight several times over
>a mare's strength is in her lower body and her fearsomely-powerful hindlegs

>>29537900
i thought that dragons where how ancient civilizations explained dinosaurs.
and dragons with manes or even fur doesnt seem too far off. a creature in cold climates would need a thick fur coat to survive.

>>29537946
Don't fish or is it seals have fur when they're babies but the ocean removes them? I think even some crabs do.

>>29537915
>breezie/changeling branch
Both inhabit the South, particularly the Badlands.
Both show heavy insect-inspired traits.
Both substitute part of their biological functions with magic.

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>>29537853

What's this notion based on? This guy sure as hell ain't no Earth Pony. Earth ponies in general also aren't larger than other ponies.

>>29537951
seals have fur, its just short and slick, like a doberman, pit bull, or great dane. most of a seals insulation comes from blubber.
ive never heard of a furry crab though.

>>29537951
>>29537960

Seals are also mammals. Whales too have fur while in the womb, but it's shed before they're born.

>>29537953
Good point. And magic would also explain why they're closer to ponies than donkeys, despite the fact that they don't look really similar. Yeah, I like it. Good chart.

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I'm sure griffins would be possible on earth.

>>29538028
ah, archaeopterix. the chicken of the dinosaurs.

>>29537960
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_crab

>>29537966
i didnt know that about whales. interesting.

>>29538118
....i really wanna rub that peach fuzz.

>>29538028
a quadrupedal griffin. now id pay to see that in the show.

>>29537955
>larger
Not larger as in 'stands taller than other ponies', numpty. Larger as in stocky, built, dense, muscular, that kind of large.

Fun fact: The dragons in Skyrim aren't dragons, they're Wyverns.

Wyverns have two legs + wings
Dragons have four legs + wings

Then again, they tend to use their wings to walk around if that counts to anything.

>>29538170
A lot of fan art that ive seen correlates body build with specie.
Earth ponies tend to be what you described; well-built, muscular, made for doing hard work and traveling long distances by foot.
Unicorns tend to be a bit daintier, especially in mares, since they can use magic to replace physical labor. Male unicorns can be stocky but not as stocky as earth pony stallions.
Pegasi seem to vary the most, and it seems to be related to wing types. large wings means a larger body to support them and provide the correct amount of muscle to propel them forward. Smaller wings means a more streamlined body to make every flap count.

>>29538175
Are there any mods that make them 4 legged?

>>29538175
This actually makes me wonder if wyverns exist in Equestria and are seen as a distant cousin to dragons like donkeys are to ponies, or as a different species entirely.
Hell, we could expand and think about oriental dragons as well.

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>>29538140
What?
do you mean bipedal

>>29538303
i meant in terms of the number of limbs, like having the wings and front limbs combined. i can see where what i said can cause confusion, it made sense in my head

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>>29538170

But they're not.
The overwhelming majority of Earth ponies have the exact same build as other ponies, and earth ponies with unique builds show no trend towards "largeness".
Ms Cake is shorter and chubbier than the standard model, but Mr Cake is taller and leaner.
Prim Hemline (Rarity Takes Manehattan) is slightly taller than average but much thinner.
Sapphire Shores, tall & thin.
Cheese Sandwich, tall & thin.
The Ponytones is Big McIntosh (standard "big stallion" model, common among all races), Toe-Tapper who's very tall and very thin, and Torch Song who's shorter and chubby, similar to Ms Cake.


But we can see this sort of variation with characters of all races, Claude and Coriander Cumin are both unicorns, and they're among the stockiest builds in the show. Fleur De Lis and Sassy Saddles are literally as tall as alicorns, but they're also very thin. Flim & Flam are both taller than the norm but slightly below average body mass. Slapshot (Buckball Season) is another tall & thin character model.

As for pegasi, Stormy Flare (Spitfire's mom) shares her body type with Prim Hemline, so she's taller and thinner, Hoops (the biggest of the three Cloudsdale bullies) is bigger than the more common "Big McIntosh-style" model, while the smallest bully, Score, is about as short as the norm but much heavier built. Fluttershy's brother Zephyr Breeze is very tall and thin,

The three largest ponies in the show, both when it comes to height and relative mass, are pegasus and unicorn. Whoa Nelly is the largest unicorn, pic related, while Bulk Biceps >>29537955 and his female counterpart Big Bell are the most muscular, both pegasi.

Do you have any actual evidence that Earth ponies are larger? Because the huge amount of data available seems to speak against it.

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>>29538412

One trend you DO notice among all the pony races is that ponies who are below average height tend towards above average bulk, and vice versa. There are some exceptions both ways with big & bulky and short & slender ponies, but generally speaking the taller a pony is, the thinner he or she is, regardless of age, sex or race.

>>29537697
I think alicorns get even heavier, that's why they need such big wings

>>29538412
>Do you have any actual evidence that Earth ponies are larger?
Not really, and to be honest I don't really care. The writers and animators certainly don't, and I very much doubt they ever theorycrafted even as far as this thread goes. Find bg_pony_puppet_###.fla, drag into scene, make pissy tweets on Twitter, job done.

Earth ponies are big and strong. A +2 class bonus to CON and STR, if you like.

>>29538412
its more of an argument of design vs biology

Earth pony's strength is entirely based on magic, not muscles or size.

>>29538473
>Let's just ignore established canon, my idea is better and more accurate

Are you for real?

How can you even pretend that Earth ponies are big and strong if you have literally nothing, NOTHING to back you up?

>>29538504

I'm still looking forward to seeing the actual argument.

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>>29538534

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>>29538473

I'm not buying it.
What you're saying might have been true once, back in S1 and S2, but not any more.

Such a huge amount of attention goes into every scene it's insane, to the point where all crowd scenes now are a near-perfect 50/50 split between mare and stallion if it makes sense that they'd be, and they go to great lengths to for example showcase how diverse Canterlot is with very, very close to 1/3 earth ponies, 1/3 unicorns and 1/3 pegasi while for example Manehattan is well over 50% Earth pony.

Also D&D attributes, like most things D&D, are retarded, gamist and highly reductionist, making them non-applicable to essentially anything outside of D&D. So no, I don't "like"

>>29538530
Well, there's this thing called imagination that you can use to fill in the blanks, or parts that we don't see, or even correct mistakes caused by human error. This is because the show isn't real, and we're not watching something that literally happened, being transmitted for broadcast in our world by magic. The people who make up the stories and the pictures of the scenes also use their imagination because it's their job.

>>29538719
you sir get an internet cookie

>>29538719

Fair enough. The initial post >>29537853 made it sound like an actual canonical fact rather than something you just made up yourself.

>>29537910
I don't understand people who don't into crotchboobs: ponies have teats, that's where they go. They're used for feeding their babies.

Kick everyone who draws ponies with human shoulders and chest-boobs in the shins, imo

>>29538827
i only dislike teats when people make them ridiculously huge.

>>29537697
Maybe, when Celestia transformed Twilight in MMC, she removed bits and pieces of Twi's bones to make them lighter, then reused those removed bits and pieces to build her wings. Very efficient.

>>29538848

Wouldn't make much of a difference if you just mess with the bones, your skeleton only accounts for around 15% of your total body mass.

So even if a pegasus had one third as dense bone as a regular pony, they'd only be about 10% lighter.

>>29538719
that, i find, is one of the good things about creating fan works. that and its great practice for your own world building.

>>29538887
would muscles make a larger difference?

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Redpilled theory anyone?

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Guys

I'm gonna be honest here

I always thought horse/pony tails was just a tuft of hair extending from above their butt, I had no idea it was actually a real bony tail until just now

>>29538910
sok. i thought the same for a while. then i cared for horses at a camp

>>29538895

For a healthy person it's something among the lines of:
15% bone
30-40% muscle for women, 40-55% muscle for males
25% fat for women, 15% fat for men
The rest in various, including organs and IIRC skin, although some of your organs (like liver) contain a lot of fat.

So, if you removed ALL muscle from a pegasus you'd reduce their weight by at most half. Of course, this isn't feasible as all you'd have left is a blubbery mess that can't even move of it's own accord and would look really, really freaky, with skeletal legs and a distorted stomach keeping it's non-functioning organs in a sack.

Another thing to note is that as long as you're built from the same cellular, high-water-content, carbon-based organic type stuff that creatures are, you can't actually have significantly lighter muscles. You can't have a hollow muscle in the same way you could feasibly have hollow bones, and you can't really replace all that water (60% of your body mass) with a lighter liquid like vegetable oil. Not only is it not biologically viable, oil is still only 0.92 times as dense as water so the oil-instead-of-water pony would still only be about 5% lighter.

>>29538903
Fuck off.

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Colors

Any Pony can be any color. Among them, black is the least common, whereas white isn't particularly rare, especially among Unicorns. Red is the next most uncommon, (It's a very human-centric color, really. Ponies don't tend to have personality traits we associate with red; they're pansies,) and magenta/pink is notably very common among all races, representing Pony society as a whole. Common pallets otherwise differ by race:

>Earth Ponies
Warm tones: Browns, yellows, earthy greens, stone greys.
>Pegasi
Cool tones: All different kinds of blues, cyan, sunny yellow, stormy and light greys.
>Unicorns
Mystical tones: Purples, blues, mint green, magenta-red, very common white.

"Horse colors", as in tan/beige/brown, are also quite common especially in Earth Ponies.

>>29538538
>the weak should fear the strong

>>29539048

Oooh, I like this observation.

At a glance Crystal ponies trend towards purple and yellow, and especially light hues.

Also worth noting is that crystal ponies have gradient manes, no other ponies have that. Except Cadance, but she's known as the Crystal Princess and her cutie mark is the Crystal Heart, so she's about as Crystal as an alicorn can get.
Sombra has a gradient horn, which is an interesting little detail. Since we know the Crystal Heart transforms nearby ponies, it's not unthinkable that the reason Sombra's horn is the way it is is because he tried to force or corrupt that crystal transformation. We know he's originally an outsider unicorn who took over the empire, and he's obviously quite skilled in magic.

>>29538972
huh. good to know

>>29539048
good eye.
this actually reminds me of something ive been wondering for a while; what do you suppose an albino or melanistic pony would look like? would it not be dissimilar to said conditions in real life animals?

>>29537736
>Your Waificorn is laying across your lap as you run a file back and forth across the tip of her horn
>She snuggles closer to you, and you adjust your angle of attack
>"Thanks for doing this for me, Nonny. It's hard to file down my Magicer when I have to use magic to do it."
"Hey, don't mention it. Anytime, alright?"
>"Maybe when you're done, we can cuddle? It won't hurt now if I accidently poke you again."
>You chuckle as you gently scratch behind her ear
"You never have to ask for cuddles, waifu horse."

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>>29539221

Hmm...
Cutie marks are magical, and would probably not be affected.
Ponies can range from extremely white (Shining Armor) to very dark (pic related) or partially black (Sombra).
Sombra sort of fits the bill as being melanistic, doesn't he? I mean what would actually change? Slightly darker coat?
That shitty Nazi-OC, Arianne or whatever, at least looks very close to what I imagine an albino pony would look like, white or near-white coat and blond mane.

>>29537736
if they did, do you think it would hurt? you would basically be filing down bone very close to the brain.

>>29539338
It's like dentistry. Horse dentistry, if you will.

>>29539332
a coat would be completely black for melanistic, since its overproduction of pigment, if im remembering it correctly. sombra is pretty close, but maybe not exactly melanistic

>>29539344
i remember learning about that in equine science class. does not seem pleasant at all.

>>29538028
>"what the fuck man"

>>29539344
on the topic of dentistry, how common do you guys think wolf teeth are?

>>29538910
Here's a kicker; pony tails are completely prehensile, hair and all. How the fuck.

>>29539481
wtf
all i know about horse hair comes from brushing it and violin bows

>>29539481
magic, ain't gotta explain shit etc

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>>29539338

We had a thread discussing this only last week, the most well-founded theory put forth is that a unicorn horn is only sensitive while it's channeling magic.
If a spell isn't cast, a horn is fairly insensitive. Someone can file it while the unicorn can hold a conversation and relax, it can be used for goring (as for example Twilight and NMM try to do in the pilot before Twilight teleports), and getting a book stuck on your horn is inconvenient but not painful.

If a simple spell is cast and the horn is disturbed, it not only breaks the spell, but is apparently quite painful.
>Sweetie Belle flicks Rarity's horn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYq1hz9ZJ08
Even a gentle nudge is enough to disturb the spell, as Rarity demonstrates in Princess Twilight, where she stops her own magic from going wrong by licking her hoof touching it gently against her horn.
While using magic, horns do heat up, and they can get so hot they glow and fizzle when you put water to them, so they're never heat sensitive.

Essentially, I think what we're seeing is a magical backlash, all the magical energy that is being channeled through the horn is abruptly cut off as the spell fails, with nowhere to go and nothing to do this magical energy causes pain and discomfort, it's reasonable to assume this is more painful for bigger, more advanced spells, up to a point where the backlash could at least in theory be lethal.

>>29539507
oh. that makes a lot of sense. thank you friend!

>>29539507
>she stops her own magic from going wrong by licking her hoof touching it gently against her horn
...haven't you ever extinguished a candle on a cake that way? You lick your thumb and index finger, and pinch the flame to snuff it. It's a visual joke.

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On the topic of horns, do you think Best Waifu can use magic? What would happen if she tried? Is she incapable of channeling magic altogether, or would the result be something like a stream of raw unfiltered magic?

>>29539507
Horns arw just processing units that take in the magical energy that surrounds equestria and outputs spells

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>>29539552

Better picture showing the full extent.

>>29539557

No, magic in Equestria is internal, and the magical energy comes from within. That's why ponies tire and need to rest when they use magic, why it's physically taxing and why they can't just go somewhere else and continue casting spells.

Another good piece of evidence is Cadance and Shining armor in Canterlot Wedding, where Cadance uses her magic to quite literally recharge Shining Armor, after Chrysalis had absorbed all his magic.
Or Tirek, who was specifically out to get the magical energy of ponies, not their processing centers. If he did, he'd have cut their horns and wings off.

>>29538528
>eyes occupy half of the head
>tiny

>>29539507
Semi-related and only headcanon, but I like to think more experienced spellcasters would be harder to interrupt. Yeah, a blow that causes actual physical damage to a horn might interrupt any pone's magic, I like to think a little flick to a pissed off Twilight's horn wouldn't be enough to stop her from blasting your ass.

>>29539541

Sure, but it's a visual joke that falls in line with the rest of established canon, like Sweetie Belle's flick, and is therefore relevant.

Things can be jokes while at the same time being true. I'd go out on a limb and say most visual jokes in the show actually are.

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>>29539589
You might be right
My headcanon is ruined

>>29539589
And what if it is processing magic from the environment what makes them tire?
Also Cadence could have transmitted some of the surrounding magic (and probably did, she was ok after that and didn't fall exhausted)

>>29537697
It is probably terribly headcanon, but I think Alicorns are so full of magic they don't care about weight any more.
It does'n make them a flying unicorn, it makes them superior.
The probable evidence is that they have mane-thing, powerful magic... and can consume as many cake as they want without going fat

>>29539679
>And what if it is processing magic from the environment what makes them tire?
That would lead to low-magic environments as the surrounding magic is depleted, cities especially with a sizable population would be permanent low-magic zones as everything from the weather to farming to work is done with magic of one form or the other. There'd be fluctuations in the magical environment as magic is siphoning into cities so the population can exploit it. If magic is external and ponies only focus it, the external field has to be near-infinite and uniform, in which case Cadance has no reason to transmit magic to Shining.

But we know that that can't be the case.
Chrysalis and her minions feed on magic, and they take it from ponies as opposed to the environment.
Tirek takes the magic from ponies and even Discord. In the same episode, the other alicorns transmit their magic to Twilight, they don't transmit their horns and wings. And the environment can't be involved here, since the battle between Twilight and Tirek happens miles and miles away from where Twilight borrowed the magic.


>(and probably did, she was ok after that and didn't fall exhausted)
A pony doesn't have to expend all their energy at once, while magic is tiring ponies rarely collapse after one spell.

>>29539757

Tantibus might be another example, it can't feed off of the environment, it must feed off of ponies.

>>29539757
Well, I've never thought of the exhaustion of external magic, it is a good point.

Though I still think the land of Equestria has something specual about it. Ponies who migrated there were certainly surprised by the supernatural fertility of the land and impossible amount of gemstones. It can be just the folklore interpretation, but still.
>Chrysalis and her minions feed on magic, and they take it from ponies as opposed to the environment
And as far as magic absorbing is concerned I think Changelings feed on processed magic. "Raw" magic is inedible and must be prepared for them by ponies.
And Tirek, in his turn, feeds on pone ability to do magic. Their soul, to certain extent, as they lose cutiemarks and can hardly move.
The same thing was transmitted to Twilight, thus increasing the magic flow into her and making it difficult to control.
>A pony doesn't have to expend all their energy at once
Oh, and Cadance probably transmirred that "processed" magic I mentioned.
Though it is all completely headcanon, it seems to make sense for me.

>>29539507
>horn filing is canon

holy shit I was fucking right.

>>29539906
hownu.ru ?? that's season 1 nigger

>>29539879
I can see your logic. Pretty sound.
>>29539757
>That would lead to low-magic environments as the surrounding magic is depleted, cities especially with a sizable population would be permanent low-magic zones as everything from the weather to farming to work is done with magic of one form or the other.
What if cities and other settlements are built over wells of magic? It seems to be a resource just like oil or water. A reservoir might be a naturally occurring thing, especially if it's fed from a far-off source that isn't drained heavily and can constantly resupply itself.
It also raises the question of where exactly magic comes from. Possibly the core of the planet?

>>29539558
She might be able to use magic, but can't control what happens. She just decides to use it or something triggers her to activate her horn, and what comes out might be a wildly chaotic release of energy.
That actually makes me wonder if unicorns can suffer negative effects from not using magic on a regular basis if the theory of them absorbing magic from the environment to use is very similar to what actually happens in the show.

>>29540285
Probably not. Environmental magic if there is a thing seems to be good-natured, and thus does no harm.
Thinking about it, poh-nees may even have no limit how much they absorb. And that's why the older pony (well, alicorn. Simple ponies age) gets, the more power she has. Her absorbing-processing ability is training.

>>29539929
Did you know horn filing was canon before coming into this thread?

>>29540359
Yes

>>29540340
Training seems plausible, especially since, as the Cake twins demonstrated, babies are prone to random outbursts of magic, since they have no idea how to control what they absorb or what to do with it.
Man, imagine a pony that wasn't taught as a foal how to limit their absorption or control their magic. They'd be like a walking bomb.

>>29540377
There are probably some of those. Insane, mentally challenged and so foth. They are full-grown, powerful enough, know no limits... Even if the absorbtion theory is bullshit, they are awfully dangerous.
That's why ponies should have invented horn-blockers. They did, right? I think they did.

>>29540364
Then fuck you.

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>>29537736
Gee anon I don't know.

>>29540448
I've seen a few being used in fan works, but Idk about the show. Just went through the fan wiki and nothing came up about any items used to block magic.
They might not be able to make any because magic is such an integral part of their world, or they might not know enough about it to understand how to keep a pony from using it.
If they did make them, how would they work, though? Absorb the magic before it has any effect on the physical world? Nullify it completely? And if it did absorb it, how much could it take before it overloaded and was destroyed? Or does it even have a limit?

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>>29540285
>broken horn causes chaotic magic
it all makes sense now

>>29540533
here newfag >>29539507

>>29540587
The way i think of it is that a unicorn's horn acts kind of like a bridge between magic, which is energy, and the physical realm, as well as a baton to direct the magic and tell it what it needs to do. A broken horn means that orders are disrupted, warped, and misinterpreted, and more often than not causes some very bad effects to the surrounding area.

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Redpill me on dark magic

>>29540585
Why so complicated? It can just cancel the magic flow in the horn, that is all.
So the main transmitter doesn't work, which means no spells.
Some metal ring thingy around the horn would do.

>>29540656
hm. i see your point.
I have a bad habit of looking too deep into things.

>>29539048
http://orig12.deviantart.net/71f8/f/2015/344/b/3/a_pondering_of_the_pastel_pony_pigmentation_puzzle_by_hydrusbeta-d9jpkl4.pdf

>>29540719
i can only applaud the person who made that. holy shit

>>29540668
That is probably ok till you start diving.
And, well, I've heard there are materials magic doesn't work on.
Fantasy that is, but relevantly logical. Or at least possible.
Maybe ponies have something of the kind too.

>>29540730
hm. maybe. it would be interesting, i think, if it did exist in the show. would probably warrant a lot of research, probably even royal grants to find out what other uses it has.
I tend to dive too deep and not realize it sometimes. the career im looking into is pretty big on world building and rules.

>>29540767
its kind of become an unconscious habit

>>29540633
Dark magic is not evil by nature, but can corrupt a pony who uses it into becoming evil if used long enough. Something like a drug user, one or two hits won't really affect you, but a life time of meth, and you'll do anything within your power to get more.

>>29540767
A new villain: a heavy lump of how-the-buck-do-we-brake-this-thing, immune to magic damage. Very epic battle. So picturesque.
And, well, it doesn't seem to mess with you, anon, so why not.
Aaand we seem to shitpost in the anatomy thread. Not good.

>>29540805
its probably known as dark magic for what you said, and also for what it's capable of.
Also, people tend to stay away from what is perceived as 'bad', so it also could have been labeled as such as a deterrent.

>>29540819
Maybe even a villain wearing armor made of the stuff. also shitposting is like dust; it gets everywhere.

>>29540830
Wouldn't that be too OP? Invincible to magic and, most certainly, giant and strong af, as small villains who can't use magic are, like, pointless.

>>29540934
probably. its an interesting idea, but yeah, too broken.

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>>29537862
Y u no sauce?

>>29537697
A pony's eyes are not perfectly round spheres, but rather a sort of hollow hemisphere shape to provide room for the brain behind them. The entire 'back' (the inside of the hemisphere) is coated in light receptors; rather than the eyeball turning to focus, the retina is mildly elastic and can be 'pulled' around the eye's surface or expanded/contracted by a ring of muscles that encircle the edge of the eye.

>>29543278
Sounds painful

>>29537753
disgusting and not canon

>>29538827
Kick everyone who draws ponies with boobs in the shins*

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Ponies must have insane fov and depth perception. How does this play into their societies development?

>>29543330
nu u

>>29543344
I like how they have a blind spot in the middle of their face. Imagine sticking something there without them noticing and going on about their day

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>>29539679
>>29539757
What if it's only certain types of magic that drain the surrounding environment? Like, say, things specifically meant to manipulate nature.

Example: An earth pony has passive magic, according to Faust, that allows them to better commune with the earth. A unicorn doesn't produce that magic naturally; maybe the best they can do is move it from one place to another, via their own power. This would probably drain said resource from the surrounding environment -- which would be terrible for sustainable farming in the long term. It would help to explain why unicorns can't just cast "grow food" to cut earthies out of the equation, and would push home the direness of the Flim Flam timeline.

>>29543384
That'd be cute as hell

>>29543384
Maybe they have an extra sense, like from a magical pineal gland or something, solely for the purpose of seeing things an inch in front of their face.

By the way, this image >>29543388 is the answer to this >>29537697
>I've always had this headcanon that pegasi and alicorns are lighter than other ponies due to their cloudwalking abilities.

It's just magic, yo.

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>>29543222
Bumping. Checking. Providing content.

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>>29540448
>>29540585

During the Equestria Games all ponies go through a magical screen which disables their magic temporarily, to stop them from intervening with the games and cheating by using a subtle spell for example. That's why no one can intervene when the ice-archer screws up and hits a cloud, and Spike's breath saves the day.
It's unclear how exactly this device works or how long the effects last, but apparently it DOES work, and is strong enough to seal alicorn magic.

The way I see it, there are three ways you could make a canonically viable unicorn BDSM-ring.
>1. Miniaturize the gate-technology used in Equestria games.
Could be viable. You can cut down on duration and range since the ring is always going to be present, hopefully that would let you make the gate small enough to be worn as a ring.
>2. Use a ring incorporating a tiny fragment of the stone the Changeling throne was carved from.
It's a natural magic-blocker. Supply seems to be limited and it's unclear exactly how potent the stone is. Do you need bucketloads, or is a grain enough? Is the area of suppression small enough that you can neutralize the wearer, without interrupting everyone nearby?
>3. Use a material that reacts to magic.
Many relics like the alicorn amulet, elements of harmony, etc. glow in the presence of magic, either make a ring that distorts the unicorn's natural magic into something harmless (like how the EoH turns "useless" friendship magic into a potent weapon, but in reverse, turning a potent unicorn spell useless) or a ring with a material that expands, vibrates, or undergoes a similar physical change. That way, when a unicorn tries to cast a spell, the ring does the equivalent of Sweetie Belle's tap >>29539507 and the spell fails.
It's unclear how expensive or rare such suitable objects are. Relics fit the bill, but relics are called relics for a reason. Even if it'd be a really, really minor relic, it's unclear if ponies know how to create them.

>>29540830
>>29540934

Being immune to magic isn't the same as being immune to damage.

Sure, you might be able to deflect Twilight's magical horn-beam. But you can't deflect a boulder if Twilight lifts it above you and drops.
Sure, you might be able to harmlessly ground the incoming pegasus-made lightning bolt. But you can't harmlessly ground an incoming hypersonic Rainbow Dash.

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>>29543388

This is one of Faust's ideas that didn't make it into the show, at least not without heavy modification.

Three times Applejack has actively made plants sprout in mere seconds, at least one time on cue. Earth pony magic could be mostly involuntary but it's by no means passive. Pegasi like Rainbow Dash do use their magic voluntarily (but with nowhere near the same control a unicorn has). Some examples include the breeze in It Ain't Easy Being Breezies or Dash transforming a cloud so much so that non-pegasi can bounce on it in Wonderbolt Academy. Of course, the lines between voluntary and involuntary gets a bit blurred with things flight and cloud-walking, but later seasons add distinct pegasus "spells" whose only difference to unicorn magic is that the casting ritual itself has a larger physical tell.

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>>29543384
Holy shit. That's like the best thing I ever heard.

>>29543344

In real life, the reason eyes evolve like that is because a creature is being preyed upon. Being able to spot predators sneaking up on you while you're grazing is a lot more important than having a good depth perception. Although I doubt it's intended, this rationale does make sense for Equestria too, with dragons, hydras, manticores and what have you roaming the countryside and preying upon the weak. While not predators, their advances in culture, science and magic made ponies the apex species at least on large parts of one continent.

The most obvious result of pony eyesight is probably books, all books and tomes are proportionally larger than ours, because a pony's wider vision means they can still read the entire page comfortably.

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>>29540719
Usually, I would have pointed out this guy's autism for taking so much time doing this, but now that's just fucking impressive. I can only applaud.

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>>29544240
>Use a material that reacts to magic
The Smooze slime was enough to make Celestia's magic useless. It's unclear if his slime was somehow special or any kind of viscous fluid would do the same though.

>>29544267

my headcanon is that the mane six represent combinations of the different types of pony magic, of which there are three:

applejack: earth/unicorn
rarity: unicorn/earth
ponkers: earth/pegasi
fluttershy: pegasi/earth
dashie: pegasi/unicorn
twilight: unicorn/pegasi

'unicorn' here more or less just means 'magic', like if a 'unicornia' existed and all the real unicorns drew their power from it maybe they're drawing too (but just a little).

>>29538730
Oh boy! Wait... Oatmeal or Chocolate Chip?

>>29544865

also now that i notice the opposite typings are also opposite personalities.

>>29544865

Wouldn't it make more sense then to just classify the ponies as "more magical" or "less magical", then?
Same as you could classify them as more or less physically able?

Dash, Twilight and Pinkie(?) are among the most magical, while Rarity is average and Fluttershy's pegasus magic is damn near useless.

>>29544903
They all have opposing traits and similarities to each other, they're not some two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, they're fully-fledged characters.
You suggest Rarity and Applejack are opposite personalites, and in some ways they are, but they're also both hard-working and dedicated to their craft, and very, very practical.
This stands in contrast to for example Dash who's more of a dreamer, procrastinates everything until the last minute, is generally irresponsible, and only gets by on raw talent.

>>29544959
>Wouldn't it make more sense then to just classify the ponies as

in a world where the characters obviously draw power from these sources i think you're kinda splitting hairs :\

>Pinkie(?) [is] among the most magical

i don't disagree, and when i wrote this out i considered pegasi magic more to embody agility -- which i think somehow does fit ponkers more in the end (she can walk on air after all).

applejack i see as having strong earth magic or at least strong attunement to it, so that's why her typing.

>They all have opposing traits and similarities to each other, they're not some two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, they're fully-fledged characters.

lol holy shit calm your tits. applejack is opposite rarity. they have similarities but come on, don't play dumb just to chat.

>>29544838
I don't remember much of that episode, as I only watched it once, drunk, and didn't like it. It was very weird. I got the impression Celestia was just dicking around and only gave a token effort, since the excessive formality of the Grand Galloping Gala bores her to tears.

But yes, I suppose slime would disrupt a spell as easily as a hoof would.

>>29544988
>i think you're kinda splitting hairs :\
Not really. To me, there's a clear distinction between pegasus magic and unicorn magic, as I can't really see mane6 as combinations of other magic types.

>i considered pegasi magic more to embody agility
Right, so Twilight's magic, who you've also pegged down as pegasus, is agile in what way?
It's strong and straightforward, but I wouldn't really consider it agile. Rarity for example actually seems more dextrous than Twilight when using her magic. While Twilight can lift a house, Rarity can float and work on five dresses simultaneously.
And in what way are Fluttershy's and Rarity's magic similar? Dash and Applejack?

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>>29540719
This is incredibly well done.

I've been looking for something that generates sensible random pony color schemes for a long time now.

anybody has that picture about pony size and horse dicks?

>>29545110

i consider teleportation to be pretty agile but hey what do i know.
also she gets fucking wings you clod. i'm so done.

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On the topic of magic, the fuck is up with Luna's magic? I've always wondered.

She's leagues above and beyond every other pony character, only Twilight has her beat in diversity, no pony comes close in magnitude.
But she generally doesn't cast spells the same way other ponies do, as if she wasn't using unicorn magic (like Celestia does on occasion) but rather something else entirely on some occasions. If you've forgotten the context, she just conjured that entire storm out of thin air.

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>>29545182

She's using her horn, yes, but the aura is completely different, and the tendrils don't look at all like the cloud-like glow you typically get from unicorn magic.

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>>29545191

Even Luna's magical beam is different, where other ponies have a steady, focused beam, Luna has a bolt of arcing lightning.

>>29545191
>>29545182
moon magic

>>29545182
I've just always assumed that's what it looks like when a pure-blooded alicorn puts a fraction of their actual power to use.

It's not just raw magical capacity, but the ability to on-the-fly blend the magics of the three tribes. So for instance, in that scene Luna is working with both unicorn (manipulation of matter at a distance) and pegasus (weather control) magic. Add in being exponentially more powerful than anyone else around, and she can easily call a storm without lifting a feather.

>>29537735
But what about the eyes? how do they work?
there is not enought space in the skull.

>>29545265
See >>29543278

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>>29543278
well that sounds fucking unsettling.

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>>29545215

Possible, but she's straining and close to her limits in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, so the fraction she's using here is probably quite sizable.
She's synchronizing hundreds of instances of the dream-weaving spell that only she can cast, using another spell to project herself into the dream, and a third spell to fight within the dream, all simultaneously, but it's clear she's straining and quite close to her limits after a few minutes of doing it.

Why does Celestia never do stuff like this, though? She should be a pure-blooded alicorn too, right? (if that matters and/or is true. No one had ever heard of a born alicorn before Flurry Heart. Mature alicorn works as well here though)
Aside from that bout with the dark magic, this is the most advanced spell Celestia has used, and it's S1 Twilight-tier, if even that, and takes a similar amount of concentration from Celestia. I guess since Luna has no friends she's had plenty of time to study and practice, while Celestia has been busy ruling, organizing and waving to the crowds.

It'd be a fun twist if we learn that what Luna has been using is some type of light magic, while Celestia dabbles in dark magic.

this is nice thread

>>29545294
Honestly, I used 'pureblooded' to mean 'direct descendant of the original alicorns' as Celestia and Luna are, rather than born from ascended alicorns (i.e., like Flurry).

Anyhow, my suspicion is actually the sort of inverse: Celestia's had 1,000 years more time to practice, so she's figured out the absolute bare minimum of power necessary for any situation and prefers to use that (whether because she feels it's 'better' to not appear flashy, or because it's just a personal challenge thing she does). Celestia also really seems to prefer to position others to achieve their goals on their own, with direct interference by her being a last resort.

Luna's the opposite; she's still in many ways used to an era when the defeat of Discord was a relatively recent memory and alicorns were hailed as powerful rulers. Direct intervention is her first option, not her last (again, whether because she actually believes it is how a ruler should behave or because she's trying to make herself helpful and raise ponies' opinions of her), and when she does get involved it's often with magic meant to leave the greatest impression.

Example: We know Celestia can teleport, but she rarely ever does - seeming to prefer to fly places. Luna, on the other hand, not only liberally drops in on ponies without warning but does fancy stuff like popping out of the moon in dreamscapes.

>>29545388

Interesting theory.

What about the dark magic scene?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plDqQg7JH40

Even back then it struck me as overly flashy and unnecessary, simply telling Twilight would have served the same purpose.

>>29545294
Most advanced spell aside from, you know, moving the fucking sun

>>29545445
It's a good question. I see two possibilities:

One, Celestia was already directly intervening to prepare Twilight for the mission to the Crystal Empire at that point - which means at that point that she's already falling back to taking a more central role. It's a big difference between S1E1's vague "go make some friends" and S3E1's "here, let me show you exactly what you're going to be facing." Being a little flashy to impress on Twilight the nature of what she would be opposing might not be so out of line in that situation.

(Interestingly, that may mean Celestia had more confidence that everything would turn out 'okay' with Nightmare than she did with Sombra. A statement on Sombra's power, or on Celestia's certainty that she had pre-arranged Nightmare's redemption to turn out successfully?)

Two, if you follow the theory that Twilight can replicate a spell she sees in action - which seems to be a thing - then a demonstration of Dark Magic is used as a flashy but rapid training tool. Twilight may not come out with as complete an understanding as if she'd been given time to study and practice it, but she does learn how to basically replicate what Celestia shows her. This, of course, turns out to be useful during the actual mission to the Crystal Empire.

>>29545546
How is that an advanced spell?

>>29545615
For one, twilight struggled to do it even after receiving the power of all other alicorns, so it's safe to say it's pretty difficult.

>>29545630
She struggles with everything tho, and Celestia can't overrule Luna on an equally advanced spell, moving the moon, so it's a moot point

>>29545648
I dont know what you're trying to say. Celestia used to move the moon too. Twilight could barely do it as the element (princess) of magic. It's fair to say it's highly advanced

>>29545576

Precognition is such a handy power to excuse discrepancies with.
But yeah, it adds up.

>>29545682
Eternal Night ring any bells? Celly could just move the sun a little to the side, or move the moon herself if she's so great

>>29545693
That sounds like more of a political issue than a skill issue. I'm not even talking about luna, I'm talking about twilight

>>29545712
moving the sun = moving the moon, which luna does better than celestia (pilot, cum-potion flashback). Also takes less effort for Luna than the dream-spell

>>29545733
Right but it's still pretty hard to do. They manage it with ease because they've been doing it for hundreds of years

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>>29545576
From what I've seen in the show, the reason why Celestia is so confident in Twilight and seems to take a backseat role in so many things is that her "special" magical ability is Foresight.

It led her to find the elements, and perhaps showed her the way to reunite with Luna. Even if it's less controlled than Luna's abilities, 1000 years is a long time to put the pieces together to come up with a plan and prepare for destiny.

Recall the moments Celestia seemingly is on top of something seemingly random much quicker than she should.

Why was she looking for a personal protege to specifically teach the magic of Friendship? (Both Twilight and Sunset went along that path, with the former rebelling, and perhaps, Glimmer would have been chosen by Celestia as well, if she applied to the Canterlot School of Gifted Unicorns)

Why was Celestia standing outside right beneath the tower that Twilight was having her first magical outburst, unsurprised at the very least and immediately going in to recruit Twilight to her side?

Why was she there, in the sealed Star Swirl Wing of the Royal Library, on the very morning Twilight returned from her use of the Time Travel spell?

Why was Celestia so sure that Twilight becoming an Alicorn was her true destiny?

Why was Luna quick to recognize Celestia's vision of Tirek, and took it seriously as if it's happened several times before?

Another part of this theory is that Celestia's mentor, Star Swirl the Bearded... Is renowned for his magical studies and abilities in space and time. Time travel and Time manipulation, and perhaps, with Celestia's help, observation beyond time are all things he is implied to have done.

In conclusion, Celestia takes a back seat because she's seen everything in advance, knowing at least that if she simply provides the path for the main characters to succeed and steps aside.

It begs the question, however: Does Celestia then fear the unknown future, should a variable change the result?

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>>29545146

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From this image we see that pegasi wings are actually fairly similar to fingers, this explains why they can bend and move the way they do.

But where are the muscle? Do pegasi have another pair of muscles on their stomach that control the wings?

>>29538827
Crotch boobs are literally gods gift to mankind, IF THEY ARE DONE CORRECTLY. If they are done wrong they are just cancer.

Something like this is ok, too big is WAAAY worse than too small.
https://derpibooru.org/42443

They shouldn't be massive honkers or some weird shit. They should be small and relatively unnoticeable unless you are looking for them. I mean for god's sake these are LITTLE ponies who haven't even had offspring before, they wouldn't have huge cowtits. Why would that even be attractive, it makes no sense.

>>29545793
Twilight's cutiemark?

>>29545816
This. This to the moon and back. Crotch tits like in that pic or this one - https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/2/5/1355724/tall.png - are hot as hell. I have fapped to this pic at least ten times now and I'm still revving for me. Holy hell, man, they're hot when done correctly. But yeah, when they're these bloated human-like ones that derpi tends to upvote to the top every goddamn time, it's disgusting. On that note, Sunnysundown is the worst artist on that entire site, and I'm including all the people who post MS-paint ponies.

>>29545685
Agreed, but yeah - we can either conclude that Equestria is a ridiculously unstable place that has been perpetually on the edge of any number of assorted magical disasters and is ruled by a pony who genuinely doesn't give a shit, or that she's planning three steps ahead of everyone else and has the abilities to do so.

>>29545793
I mean, it's not so much a theory: Faust outright said Celestia has a kind of precognizance and can use it to guide her actions.

>It begs the question, however: Does Celestia then fear the unknown future, should a variable change the result?
This is how I've always assumed the S5 finale 'bad end universes' happened: Celestia had everything planned out according to her visions of the future, and then Glimmer fucked it up by traveling back and invalidating those visions to varying degrees.

>>29545816
>>29545830
Can confirm: Small teats are cute and fitting. A really like artists that give them ever-so-slightly more pony-like features like that.

And they're probably fun to play with too: https://derpibooru.org/622536

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>>29545793

She hasn't seen everything in advance, she's seen a few glimpses that she then has to puzzle together the future from. For example the Tirek vision, we see the vision in it's entirety, and we have no more knowledge than Celestia does. Celestia acts upon what little knowledge in the best possible way she can think of, which is by sending Discord.

> Does Celestia then fear the unknown future...
I think she fears the future as much as any immortal ruler would. She knows and intuits parts of the future, but the pieces inbetween worry her and she prepares for the unexpected as best she can.
As an example, she sees the return of Tirek, and this worries her to the point of her waking up in cold sweat. She knows Tirek is loose, but not how to successfully defeat him, she can only guess and make plans.

>...should a variable change the result?
It's important to note that in Equestria, you can't actually change "the result". Destiny, Fate, the timeline, whatever you want to call it, is fixed. Twilight tries with all her might to change the future/past (depending on perspective) in It's About Time, but despite all her best efforts she can't change a thing, the variables are all fixed, down to the tiniest scratch and the slightest inflection of her voice.
Even Glimmer's spell in the S5 finale doesn't create alternate timelines, because such a thing can't exist in Equestria, there's only ever one. Zecora tells us "it is we, who should not be" and "Stop Starlight and put the whole world back on track!" because she realizes the world they're in is false.

>>29537697
Alright let's talk about hooves for a second.

Obviously the show shows us that - with very few exceptions, interestingly mostly stallions - hooves are the same color as the legs and very often the ankle is completely indistinguishable from the leg.

What are peoples' thoughts on this?
> Hooves are actually covered in skin with a coat of fur
> Hooves are a different color, we're just seeing fetlocks covering the hoof
> It's just an animation convenience, and ponies would actually have more horse-looking hooves (different color, not covered)

>>29546079
Animation convenience; hair on horselegs neatly borders the hoof. 'Sticky hooves' are for lazy hack animators.

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>>29544267
>Three times Applejack has actively made plants sprout in mere seconds
Are we counting songs here? Because songs are like, the definition of cartoon rules at work.

>that gif
That's not what "active" means in this context. She's actively planting and spreading the seeds, but she isn't actively magicking them to grow faster. That's like saying pegasi use active magic, when all they're doing is standing on clouds; in both cases the magic is merely triggered and flowing freely by a more mundane action. The magic itself is not the act.

>>29544333
>all books and tomes are proportionally larger than ours, because a pony's wider vision means they can still read the entire page comfortably.
Or mouth motor skills are not quite so fine as finger motor skills, requiring larger "handwriting" on average.

>>29545793
This is actually an interesting twist on an old trope, since you'd usually expect the moon-related one to be more of a seer.

>>29545806
>Pony = 3'5"
>the Vitruvian Man in that image show the pony as being half the height of a 5'10" male
>other comparisons in that same image show them at even less than half
Shit's all jacked up, yo

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>>29538570
It's still true. In D&D-ish sources, fittingly enough.

>>29537836
>>29537953
the thing I dont think makes sense is crystal ponies and bat ponies. I guess crystal ponies might be intensification of earth magic, but could just as easily come directly from a different anscestor between earth and them, same with bat poners.

>>29537697
Pegasi probably have hollow bones, much like real-life birds.

>>29549059
this is some dog shit right here. how to into your own fusion pulse.

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I personally think all ponies are permeated with magic of a sort. Their emotions are magic in nature, their cartoon nature notwithstanding it seems like the various performances of ability we see are inherently linked to the realization and expression of their own emotions. What other sort of species would be beset by magical, psychic parasites that seemingly feed off of emotion? Chrysalis is the most direct, stating it outright, but it seems to be a feature of many of their enemies. Even in their historical recounting of when their races were separated by strife was heralded by the appearance of a psychic parasite which fed off of their intolerance.

Even Twi's magic abilities correspond to her emotional awareness, a difficult test turning her into an uncontrolled whirlwind being chronologically the first occurrence. I also allege that Pinkie Pie, even as an earth pony, is so anomalously powerful because she's consciously aware of their own somewhat ephemeral nature as clouds of emotional energy. This is why My Waifu is superior to other waifus.

As for anatomy: amorphous, at once able to take an anvil falling at terminal velocity while already badly injured out of sheer determination , able to change shape, able to do potentially anything their emotional will allows. Ponies do not have anatomy, they are clouds of psionic energy. Cute energy.

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>>29544959
>>29544988
>They all have opposing traits and similarities to each other, they're not some two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, they're fully-fledged characters.
This.

>>29545388
>Anyhow, my suspicion is actually the sort of inverse: Celestia's had 1,000 years more time to practice, so she's figured out the absolute bare minimum of power necessary for any situation and prefers to use that
The problem with this line of thought is the way Celestia is presented in the show. We essentially have two options:

A, take what we see at face value. When Celestia appears worries, she's worried, and so on. She's old, wise, and incredibly well-informed, and she's got a limited sense of precognition to guide her, but occasionally she screws up and makes mistakes, and occasionally she's not strong enough. So far, in those circumstances her friends and subordinates have been there to carry her through. Occasionally she's manipulative for the greater good, but she makes clear on it in the end, for example in the pilot when she clarifies to Twilight that she really needed to make friends, she just didn't explain WHY she needed to make friends until now.

B, assume the Celestia we see is entirely a facade. When Tirek emerges she pretends to be scared and worried to rile up Luna. She let the elements banish Nightmare Moon for 1000 years and purge her from the history books rather than beat her down herself and try to reason or compromise with her. She let Chrysalis defeat her and let the attack on Canterlot escalate until Shining Armor and Cadance could save the day. She pretends to be concentrating in >>29545294 and wages a long war of attrition against Sombra rather than face him head on as Luna would have wanted. One could possibly argue the attack on Canterlot is "child friendly" and the worst any pony suffers is bruises, but the Crystal War is violent enough that ponies like Rainbow Dash lose limbs and are scarred for life.
And for what?

From a canon perspective, my money's on option A, option B casts Celestia in a weird light, as someone who willingly sacrifices lives and blatantly lies at time because "Celestia works in mysterious ways".

>>29550310

I would probably extend that thought to all of Equestria, magic in one form or the other is (almost) omnipresent.

There's the regular pony types of magic, unicorn, earth and pegasus magic, then there's alicorn and black magic (which seem connected. Black magic could be "false" alicorn magic), changeling magic and zebra magic which are close and similar but not the same.
Then we have the magic of friendship and love, probably different names for what's essentially the same kind of magic.

You could maybe group those together as "emotional magic", something ponies are very good at (or, in your words, very much permeated by).
The only problem I see is that unicorn magic is studied and used through intense concentration rather than an emotion like anger or fear. Pegasus magic seems connected to emotions, at least the right emotions makes it easier, but the way I see it when the emotion is "giving it your All", that emotion is going to help you no matter what you do, magical or otherwise.

But there are even more kinds of magic, some of which aren't even remotely realized or expressed through emotions.
There's magical plants and creatures. Creatures feel, even Timberwolves, but I think it's fair to assume magical plants like the poison joke don't have any emotions.
Alchemy. MLP alchemy isn't your typical RPG fare "mix two ingredients to make potion of restore health", nor is it ONLY a matter of applied chemistry. MLP alchemy is closer to historical alchemy with the purification of essence and things being more than the sum of their parts. We don't get much insight into Zecora's advanced elixirs but the CMC manage to make a love poison using three common household items. Where's the emotion there?
And what about relics? Some channel friendship/love like the elements of harmony and the crystal heart, some seemingly feed off the user's negative emotions like for example the Alicorn Amulet, but is this true for all relics? What about the dragon scepter?

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>>29550286

>>29551331
I mean, A is pretty much what I've always assumed too. Celestia's very obviously got some long-term plans in play, but I don't see her as the kind of character who'd willingly sacrifice the serious well-being of her subjects for some longer-term goal (on that note, I do not consider the attack on Canterlot 'child friendly' - if anything, I think we were shown a watered-down version of it and ponies did suffer real and serious harm during it).

To be clear, when I'm saying she prefers to use the absolute minimum of power I'm not saying everything that happens is her deliberate choice. Obviously things fly out of control sometimes, but when Celestia has a say in the matter she prefers the softer touch; even then, when push comes to shove she is willing to take up a direct role.

>>29546805
>in both cases the magic is merely triggered and flowing freely by a more mundane action.
Unlike a concentrating unicorn? Concentration is a pretty mundane action too, and I don't really see any major distinction between intense focus to levitate something using your horn and intense focus and physical coordination to sustain a supernatural whirlwind using your wings.

I think the problem might be the oversaturation in pop culture where all "active" magic comes in the form of wizards with wands and magical staffs and robes ala. Gandalf or Harry Potter, but if you look a bit deeper there are hundreds of ways to perform magic just as "actively".
The wand (or in MLP, unicorn horn) can just as easily be a poem (like Odin) or a song (like Väinämöinen) for example. And don't mistake this for D&D-style "bard song" that inspires your allies, but stuff like singing people back life, shouting down a mountain (Yes, Fus-Ro-Dah! in Skyrim wasn't taken out of thin air, like many things in the game it's got mythological roots).
Magic can also be a dance, either as a communion with the gods like a rain dance, or actively magical like certain Haitian traditions.

>>29550261
The Crystal Heart makes all ponies crystalline when it's at it's peak, like during the festival when all the mane6 turn crystal. After a while, the effect fades and ponies go back to normal.
Except crystal ponies. Who are permanently crystalline, even when robbed of the Crystal Heart and enslaved under Sombra.
The idea is that over time the effects of the Crystal Heart became permanent, the ponies living near it and basking in it's power changed from what they were to the crystal ponies we have now. Maybe it happened in a few years and still happens to new settlers, or it happened over generations of ponies. Like magical genetical engineering, or magical "corruption" but in a good way.
Oh, and the original settlers who founded the Crystal Empire were most likely earth ponies, because aside from their crystalline nature they could pass for Earth ponies, whereas when mane6 are crystallized they keep their wings and horns. And because they're so similar they must have split from earth ponies fairly recently rather than from a common ancestor.

All this of course assumes the Crystal Heart was found rather than made. Considering the closest comparable relic we know of, the EoH, was found rather than made the same is probably true for the heart.
The other option would be that Crystal Ponies evolved from a common ancestor, pooled all their magic together and created the heart themselves.

You're right about bat ponies though, that one isn't very well substantiated. Magic could have been involved, but it's just as likely pegasi and bats both evolved from a common flying or at least gliding ancestor, and evolved towards different niches from there.

Also, the movie adds seaponies and hippogriffs. Hippogriffs especially cause something of a headache if they're griffon/pony hybrids like you'd expect. I doubt ponies and griffons are at all related, yet they're clearly biologically compatible and the hippogriff race might even breed true.

>>29538827
Human-looking boobs look retarded on the crotch. But proper teats are okay.

Bumping bc there's actually a lot of cool shit on this thread

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>>29546079

Animation convenience.
We can exclude the skin and fur option right off the bat, because of scenes like pic related, Twilight (I think?) chewing her hooves as one might chew one's fingernails, and Dash using her hoof instead of a hammer to strike in a nail.

>>29550273
As discussed earlier ITT, it wouldn't make much of a difference, around 5-10% weight saving at most.

>>29538910

We get a good look at how it is for Equestrian ponies when Snips and Snails lose most of the fur and hair off their back ends.

>>29553404
This.

If anything, I'd expect Pegasi to actually be among the heavier of the tribes. Unlike earth ponies who can brace against the ground, or unicorns who can do magic shit Pegasi have to use the inertia of their own bodies to deliver force. Furthermore, Pegasi are probably pretty muscled to keep that flight up - magic-assisted or not.

>>29553149

>>29552612
Perhaps triggered was the wrong word. It's more that this always-on state is influencing something.

The difference in passive vs. active is kind of like being the target of an enchantment, versus exerting something from within. Non-unicorns aren't "casting" anything; it's just an intrinsic part of who they are, and what they do. A constant state. They're less mages and more magical creatures.

Earth ponies have a constant state that makes their influence on the land more meaningful. Pegasi have a constant state that lets them interact physically with the weather. By contrast, unicorns aren't constantly channeling magic; their channels are closed until they decide to do so, but they have greater raw power and flexibility than the other races when they do.

>>29537697
>pegasi and alicorns are lighter than other ponies
Considering they all fell equally fast in some episode (including Fluttershy who paniced and forogot to flap her wings until caught) we can assume they have equal density.

So unless Pegasi has skin like teflon that seem to be as heavy as any other Equestrian pony.

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>>29554592
>[unicorns] have greater raw power and flexibility than the other races when they do.
No, that doesn't seem to be it...
Flexibility I'll agree with, unicorn magic is the most versatile, and therein lies it's strength.
But when it comes to raw power, it loses out to pegasus magic, and it's very energy-inefficient. Think about all the stormwinds and lightning bolts even average pegasi summon versus what an average unicorn can do. Or look at Twilight's shimmer-wings spell or Glimmer's self-levitation, both are horribly inefficient compared to pegasus flight.

If I had to hazard a guess at the strength's of the three primary magic types, it'd be something like:
Unicorn - versatility
Pegasus - strength
Earth - fortitude (i.e. energy efficiency)

Out of these, Earth Pony magic is the least supported one, but I think it makes sense considering they're the dedicated farmers, they can reach a high enough efficiency to make farming viable, whereas for example a unicorn using a growth spell on a plant costs more energy than the plant gives back in food.

i confess to liking earth ponies because, like batman, they're useful and good and interesting to think about, despite not having obvious or flashy pew pew superpowers

there's also a 'dead parents' joke but that's old and tasteless.

>>29557430
Yeah, I don't think it's a coincidence that Earth ponies are the ones most likely to own airships, balloons, operate trains, and similar.

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>>29557358
I don't know if I'd consider something like a rainboom to be raw magical power -- more that a pegasus' state of being allows them to manipulate very powerful physical things. It lets them get the dominoes moving, but the choice of which domino to push comes down to physical fitness and personal skill.

A unicorn, on the other hand, deals more directly with stopping and starting their own personal flow of magic, and gauging the quantity in which to apply it.

(That isn't to say that pegasus magic isn't influenced by its own sort of magic level -- we've seen "surges" with both Cake Twins after all -- but pegasus training is shown to be a purely physical regimen.)

>>29557514
The rainboom is almost certainly magical in nature, since it's the catalyst which gives the mane6 their cutie marks and reaches all the way from Cloudsdale to Manehattan. I doubt a physical occurrence could do that. Dash and her team creates a breeze in It Ain't Easy Being Breezies that goes all the way from Ponyville to the Badlands, and while you could argue the breeze is physical and it's a matter of "a butterfly's wingflaps can create a storm on the other side of the globe" kind of deal, I highly doubt that's what we're meant to read out of it, plus, the Breezies magic interacts with the breeze:
>Well, you see, it's the breeze that activates the Breezies' magic, and that magic protects the pollen they're carrying from being destroyed.
It seems more reasonable that a magical breeze would interact with Breezie magic than a simply physical breeze would interact with Breezie magic.

Then there's the event that formed the Wonderbolts:
>Headed by General Firefly, an elite team of aerial performers were chosen to help celebrate this auspicious occasion. The first performance was so full of energy, so highly charged, that magical lightning showered down on the crowd.
Here, Twilight explicitly states the lightning is magical.

>>29539507
>>29539604
>>29544240
>>29544838
this is all very interesting
part of my headcanon on the Unicorn Horn is that there are special nerves that connect the Unicorn's brain to their horn, which is what enables them to use magic. The horn acts as a conductor, while the brain is what sends a signal through the horn to attract magical energy from the planet itself, and then the brain interprets what the magical energy is to be used for. The horn then acts as the conductor again, channeling the magical energy to a specific place, which the brain designates, to do a specific thing, which the brain dictates. These special nerves, which line the space between the horn and the brain, are what allow the brain to properly communicate with the horn, acting like an electrical wire.
On the topic of why unicorns will start to struggle to keep up a spell (especially a very strong/difficult spell), I think it may have to do with these nerves. As stated, It does seem that unicorn horns themselves are insensitive to heat, so that's not the issue. The issue is the nerves' prolonged exposure to the heat from the magic that the horn is channeling, which can singe these nerves after a long time. Not only that, but a sufficiently powerful spell takes a lot of effort to use, which can lead to a unicorn being exhausted after using it too long. The most prominent example of this would be during S5E13 (Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?), when Luna was hosting a shared dream for all of Ponyville. As time went on, she looked to be more and more exhausted, and in exponentially more pain by the second. She even started sweating heavily, and borderline crying towards the end (although she did start outright crying because her emotions started to overwhelm her).
Also, from seeing these posts, I actually hadn't thought of the effect of the horn being impacted by something before. But now, I think that the nerves in the horn, which channel the signals from the brain to the horn become...

>>29558094
...distracted (they are still sensory nerves, to some degree) by the sudden impact, and lose the ability to enable the brain to use the horn properly. The brain becomes distracted, focusing on the sensation of something touching or hitting the horn, and then the truly scary part begins. Since the horn is no longer channeling magical energy for a purpose, any and all magic goes straight to the horn. However, the horn no longer wants to act as the conductor for this energy, for it has no signal from the brain to do so. So then the energy which has all rushed to the horn is channeled from the horn straight into the first place the horn has contact to, that usually being the brain. and now I'm watching the cup so i'll be back

>>29557612
A physical breeze would absolutely have that effect. Ponies control the weather, after all -- not any special kind of magic weather, just plain old weather. They control every wind and rain, and are an integral part of the physics of that world.

The Wonderbolts line was always a bit odd to me, but the fact that it's historically relevant suggests it's an outlier. And given that ponies are a natural function of the environment, it's easier to say that Equestria itself is suffused with magic all throughout: physical interactions give way to magical ones just as a matter of course. That would also feed into alchemy, farming, and any number of other practices.

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>>29559177
What about some other physics-defying stunts pegasi accomplish? Are they magical, or is pegasus physique just that damn impressive?

Things like:
>Vapor Trail: He set the record for the fastest vertical acceleration rate! Five hundred feet in two seconds!
That's an average acceleration of 500 feet per second per second, around 15 times the acceleration of gravity, and Dash isn't even impressed.

Or RD going from standstill to supersonic in less than a second.

Or things like pic related.

Or the numerous tornadoes and whirlwinds that are too small to be physically viable, like the one lifting water to Cloudsdale, the one Dash and Thundercunt make, or the one trying to get rid of the parasprites.

Or hell, just flying Fluttershy pulling her wooden cart filled with frogs without any support for the cart's wheels without it tipping over, or the pegasi guards who escort Twilight to Ponyville in the pilot.
SOME of it I can agree is done according to cartoon physics, for example I would take Dash's mach-cone in Sonic Rainboom with a grain of salt, as well as the turn near the end of the dive.

But not all of it, especially not when these feats are within the same orders of magnitude as the written script.

>>29550683
>Ponk is sensitive and flippant

nuh uh, try again.

>>29538903
it can be considered a theory, but not a redpill in this case you faggot.

>>29538977
chek'd

>>29559431
Sensitive, yes - believing that pranking Fluttershy might hurt her feelings. Flippant suggests how she's written now, which is to SCREAM LOuDLY

>>29557358
Not sure if this was brought up but Pegasus bodies seem capable to withstand extreme low temperatures. In Hearth's Warming Eve both the earth ponies and unicorns (even with magic) were freezing. Pegasus didn't have that problem, just hunger.

>>29544193
Thanks for elaborating this, been wondering how the fuck they work.
It sounds very, unnerving if you can imagine a hoof which can invert into itself and expand in this middle area.

>>29559396
Oh, they're undoubtedly supported by magic. Pegasi are still absolutely magical beings, just like any pony. But they're permanently under the effects of, for example, things like a "go fast when I flap my wings" spell or a "manipulate the weather" spell; those are passive pegasus magics. The extent to which an adult pegasus can do so, however, is a product of fitness and skill.

Things like the pegasus chariot from the pilot or Derpy's moving lorry, I honestly just chalk up to a unicorn enchanter somewhere along the line.

>>29544193
>a spongy soft pad of tissue would work the same way
No, it wouldn't, actually.

>>29559623

Controlling the weather implies some control of the ambient temperature. There are other factors beside just the amount of sunlight, especially so in Equestria. It's not enough to counter the Windigoes, obviously, but it's enough to make the local temperature more manageable at least.

With that in mind the pegasi ARE probably better suited to dealing with low temperature. Little things like a slightly fluffier coat with more insulating air bubbles, a higher metabolism (especially with them spending energy flying around all the time) generating more core body heat, deeper running veins, and a lowered blood flow and temperature in unnecessary extremities like hooves and ears probably all contribute.
Plus, they're a culture of warriors, endurance training is part of what they do, and one can train one's body to deal with cold or hot temperatures remarkably well.

>>29561394
Every time I think I've seen the weirdest this fandom has to offer...

boop

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Any thoughts about this?

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>>29565624
I'm inclined to simply dismiss this as cartoon joke logic. I'm not averse to the idea that ponies have unique organs or glands unknown to us that help them manipulate magic. Hell, unicorns have their horn - why shouldn't pegasi or earth ponies have something similar?

But the presence of an organ which actively mimics the thing it's supposed to be related to - to say nothing of apparently being either a bone or coated in a bony shell - is bizarre and has some horrifying implications for pony health: What happens if someone gets a sword or spear for a cutie mark? Do they have an approximation of a deadly weapon in their body, just waiting for an accident to impale some other vital organ? Do Fluttershy or Rarity have three such organs?

Surprisingly, I'd actually rate pic related as a more accurate depiction of a pony's skeletal system. They even got the rear hip structure reasonably right, while the picture you linked shows a more cartoony human-like hip.

>>29565624
'blink and you'll miss it' joke

like the Enterprise-D's rubber duck.

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>>29539279
Haha...
Hah...

>>29537697
Twilight is so fucking adorable

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>>29565624

Should be taken about as literally as pic related.

>>29539507
Interesting.
That last paragraph would explain further why Celestia got floored at the Canterlot Wedding with Chrissy. Not only id she get the brunt of Chrissy's spell, but she also got all of her own, since it was pushed back dbz style.

>>29539757
What if magic has the same properties as matter does? The magic isn't spent after a spell, it just dissipates and goes back to a channel-able state.
That's a really cool idea for a story or something though, like magic being finite in certain places, and the use of it becoming almost regulated, or taxes being place upon those who you use it too much in low-magic zones. Perhaps a sign of the upperclass could be constant use of magic. Conflicts could emerge for some sort of magic import, similar to how we do with oil. Wouldn't even need to be with ponies.

>>29565811
She gets floored in very much the same way when she's struck by NMM, so I don't think that's a major contributing factor. NMM's spell is strong enough to cut through a stone castle ceiling like a hot knife through butter.

>>29540263
Well, what is magic?
Friendship is magic, and if this is the case, either internal magic or external magic could make sense, as ponies who practice friendship maybe "create" magic, or friendship is a catalyst for what some other Anons called "raw" magic.
I feel you guys are forgetting a key aspect, only focusing on magic itself and not the relationships potentially needed for this magic to work/even exist. Look at the mane six and the CmC- are they strong just because? Maybe, but a more plausible reason would be because their bond is also very strong, Celestia saw their potential and forced them to work together a little bit, but it worked, and as for the CmC, when they got their cutiemarks, it wasn't just a flash on their butt as it was for other fillies, they levitated as a trio and kind of exploded with a flash of light. Another little theory: what if getting a cutiemark is like a growth spurt or something, allowing you to truly channel and use your specific magic, depending on race and such.

>>29565850

Magic in this context is there to explain where the energy comes from. As in, magic is a form of easily-converted energy that then is transformed into less useful states of energy, like heat, light or kinetic energy. Or hell, in a few specific cases, converted into (unstable) matter.

When Twilight lifts an Ursa Minor she's exerting more energy than her biology has available, this energy she's expending is magic.

Saying that magic is a type of matter doesn't really help, because it doesn't explain where the necessary energy comes from.

>>29568156