Inspired by a comment u/Dalek_Kolt made earlier, I was thinking about all the things a Cockatrice can do and it seems pretty OP. It's big power is that it can turn things to stone by merely looking at it. That's huge. Earth ponies can't do anything because they don't have magic spells. Pegasus ponies can't fly away because the Cockatrice has wings too. And advanced unicorns could win theoretically using spells, but you need to focus on the target to use magic. You gotta look at that Cockatrice. Twilight herself got stoned and if she can't win no unicorn can. The elements of harmony are out because looking at any of the members individually disables the systems altogether plus I don't think the wild animal is evil enough for a magic nuke. Discord was turned to stone before so he's out by default. The Changelings are bugs and can technically turn into something without eyes, but if you don't look at it, how are you supposed to fight the thing? King Sombra has never done anything ever. He's a joke. Throw in Nightmare Moon and the Pony of Shadows too. Fluttershy cheated way back in "Stare Master". Her stare is stupid and shouldn't have worked. If that chicken wasn't such a chicken, in a rematch Fluttershy will lose. How would someone fight this thing? If you look at it you are stone, GG EZ. If you run, it will chase you down until you're petrified. If you fly, it will fly too. If you close your eyes: A) You can't hit it because it's small and you can't see anything and B) it has sharp claws and teeth. It will bite your face off. I can't think of a single way anyone in the series can beat the Cockatrice fair and square.
It's night time at Sweet Apple Acres. The sounds of a pony finishing up the dishes is interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. A very country sounding mare answers. "Sweet Apple Acres? Oh, hi Pinkie."
"Applejack! I haven't heard from you in so long, and all you have to say is 'hai pinkie.'? The other day, you passed me on the way back from a delivery. I signalled, and you didn't!" The pink pony exclaimed, flailing her forelegs and the phone with it, almost hitting her milkshake on the counter of Sugarcube Corner.
Applejack, squinting with her tired eyes, responded with a cool, level tone. "Nope, wasn't me."
"It had to be you, it was your Eight Six!" the voice at the other end loudly replied.
Without skipping a beat, Applejack answered. "Well, what I mean is, that was my car, but I wasn't driving it..."
As she listened, Pinkie Pie took a big sip of her milkshake on the counter.
"...my little sister Applebloom delivers my fritters to the hotels now."
The counter suddenly splashed with milkshake. "WHAT?! Since when?!"
Applejack ran a foreleg through her hair, resetting it from the explosion of sound. "Five years ago." She replied, a little smirk working its way across her face.
"Five years ago? She's been driving since middle school?!"
Later...
Foal Mountain. A road to Ponyville winds down it. A pair of lights streak across the road. It's a late model Mazda RX-7 Twin Turbo, specifically, an FD3S, large rear spoiler and all. The white car streaks down the straight-away, pink and lilac pinstripes leaving a colourful streak with the tail lights, SAPPHIRE SUNS written in glittery blue on the rear quarter panels. It brakes, downshifts, and pitches into the right turn in a braking drift. The driver, a white unicorn mare, with a fashionably curly pink and lilac mane, controls the drift with the finesse of a dancer, exiting the turn and accelerating down the next straight.
Sweetie Belle checks the rear view mirror, and sees nothing. As expected. During the day, she's a professional singer, but at night, she does a different kind of song and dance, the FD as her partner. Tonight, she practices on Foal Mountain, ready to race whoever stands up to her team's challenge. So far, nopony is fast enough. The Foal Speed Stars are a joke at best. She and her older sister are way above their skill. Admittedly, even the Sapphire Suns' other drivers are more than enough of a match.
"If I get serious, they can't keep up with me." she says, thinking out loud on the straight, as her team-mates fall further behind. "They're still at that level," which means she can go easy and lift off for a bit.
Suddenly, headlights appear in the rear view mirror, exiting the last turn and entering the straight. "finally caught up, huh?" She muses, as the car approaches from behind.
The car in question races down the straight, the mechanical roar of a 4A-GE engine with the runners open echoing along the mountain. It's a white hatchback with pop-up headlights, black trim, and Sweet Apple Bakery written on the side. A Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-APEX, also known as the AE86.
Sweetie sees the mystery car approach in the rear view mirror. "Huh? That's not one of ours. Is that a MR2 or a 180?"
The unfamiliar car approaches the FD, and starts drafting behind it, before moving to pass. The singer sees this, and narrows her eyes with the resolve to race. "Nice driving, but after two corners, I won't even see you in my mirror." Putting her hoof down, the 13B twin turbo sings like a racing motorcycle as it pushes past 8000 RPM, and the FD accelerates away from the other car. The next turn comes up, and with another braking drift, Sweetie rounds the right turn.
The opponent also drifts the turn, drifting in parallel with the FD. Sweetie can't help but to look quickly at her opponent. "An Eight-Six?!" she exclaims in disbelief. "you got to be kidding!" As soon as the turn clears, she puts her hoof to the firewall, accelerating down the short straight, away from the 86. The next right turn comes up fast, and the FD bursts fire out the exhaust as she downshifts while braking for the turn. Both cars parallel drift the right and left turn, the 86 again coming close to passing.
"My FD can't outrun an old Eight-Six?" Sweetie quietly exclaims. "Is this a nightmare? Cupcakes! I'm the number 2 driver of the Sapphire Suns!"
The next right turn appears, and she brakes hard for the turn. The 86 takes this moment to pass, diving into the inside of the turn at speed. The unicorn is dumbfounded, her jaw open. Doesn't she know this road? After this slow right, there's a sharp left. The 86 breaks loose, the car oversteering as it exits the turn.
"I knew it! She's going too fast! There's no room to slow down!" Sweetie starts braking for the turn, hoping the 86 doesn't wreck right in front of her.
In the 86, a yellow hoof lifts off the throttle abruptly, the car engine braking in the drift, as it suddenly swings left, pitching into the sharp left turn sideways.
"Wh-What?!" The unicorn spits out, caught completely off-guard. Her mind replays what she just saw in a moment's notice. The 86 exited the right turn in a drift, then suddenly shifted into a big leftward drift on the space between the turns, going almost completely sideways as it entered the left turn from the outside, nearly hitting the guardrail. Inertia drift?! The 86 continues into the turn, towards the apex, as Sweetie follows.
If somepony were to have a camera on that turn, it would have been a picture perfect scene. The 86 drifting at a steep angle, touching the apex of the turn, with the FD falling behind, apexing early in a shallower drift angle.
Sweetie realized too late, her entry angle was off. She was so enamoured by the 86's driving, the momentary lapse in concentration put her into the turn at a bad angle. With teeth-gritting desperation, she gave it too much throttle, and the FD started to oversteer. Fortunately, she entered the turn at a lower speed. Unfortunately, there was no saving it. The guardrail came closer, like a snake ready to strike out at the FD's rear bumper, but then the car spun towards the inside. Slamming on the brakes, the FD skids to a stop, sideways, at the turn's exit. The singer pressed her forehead into the steering wheel, defeated.
I can't believe it. She thinks, in quiet disbelief. Did I just see the ghost of a street racer who died here? The first counter-steer to the right was actually a feint setup for the next left corner. In her mind, the 86's inertia drift replayed again. That was the perfect drift, of a driver with ultimate knowledge of this mountain pass.
Two cars approach the turn, stopping before the FD. Two mares hop out, Aquamarine and Bee Bop. "Sweetie!" Exclaims Bee Bop, the seafoam-colored mare with the hazel mane. "Did you see that Eight-Six?"
"Yeah" the singer absently responds, exiting her car. My pride is torn to ribbons. As she thinks on the matter, Sweetie looks at the FD. To think that the latest mountain Spec-tuned FD could be defeated by some ten-year-old beat-up Eight-Six. Where in Tartarus did that car come from?
Hello and again welcome to your weekly dose of 'Why don't they have a Christmas header yet?': 'This Week on the Plounge' wherein I inform you, the fine folks of the mane sub, what's been going on at your favourite sister subreddit, the Plounge, this past week.
Wait, what is this Plounge you speak of?
The Plounge, or more formally the MLP Lounge is /r/mylittlepony's sister subreddit. Designed to be a place where you can free of the tyranny of rules 3 and 4. A chill place for bronies or anyone to talk in a SFW chat centric environment. It can be found over at /r/MLPLounge. (most of us browse by /new though). Oh and BPM is nice to have. You may not need it for yourself, but you will be missing out on tons of hidden ponies scattered across the forum.
What some casual conversation with a sprinkling of ponies? Come over to this introductions thread and meet some people. Don't worry there's also a topic so it ain't just "hi!" "hi" awkward silence.
News
We updated our emotes, with customary silly hats! Oh and also we reached 11,000 subscribers but that was actually a week or so ago.
And also the mane sub then added some new emotes like literally the day after so that's fine. REALLY FINE
Our End of Year Survey is still still open! Go on, answer it.
Regulars
Every week there are two Plounge member of the 'day' AMAs! You can sign up here. AMAs since last week's TWOTP are...
Character Discussions Threads (weekly on Fridays) courtesy of /u/I_Condone_Pone:
Top Posts
The top 5 link and self posts, for your browsing content.
Self Posts
Links
Highlights
(manually selected rather than just by score)
i told my brother they did but i'm not sure and i don't want to be a liar
So, because it's No-Pics Thursday (December 21st, 2017) today, you know what that means...
It's time for the Weekly Fanfic Recommendation LINK-SWAP Game thread to continue!
And we're in Week 7 of the Season 7 to Season 8 Hiatus.
Anyways, THE RULES (read 'em carefully):
Post a link to a fanfiction you like (can be your own as well - it's okay to self-promote), with or without a short blurb.
Important: Reply to someone else's post with a link to a fanfiction you think they might like, based on their choices.
Put each of your choices in a separate post if you want to make sure to get a recommendation based on each one. You may reply to someone else's reply, either to you or to someone else. Please make long discussion threads, they introduce a healthy bit of exploration and can help us find new interests! And that's it!
PLEASE COMPLETE BOTH STEPS 1 and 2. Don't just show up and ask for recommendations if you're not willing to provide any. I'll start the first few threads myself, and reply with a gentle reminder if you forget.
IMPORTANT NOTE. Thanks to /u/BookHorseBot (many thanks to their creator, /u/BitzLeon), you can now use the aforementioned bot to easily post the name, description, views, rating, tags, and a bunch of other information about a fic hosted on Fimfiction.net. All you need to do is include "{NAME OF STORY}" in your comment (without quotes), and the bot will look up the story and respond to your comment with the info. It makes sharing stories really convenient. You can even lookup multiple stories at once.
Ready? Set? LET"S GO! Also, feel free to self-promote in here!
Hello my subjects, it's good to see you as always! Also congratulations to /u/Lankygit for his first place victory in the annual charity Dodge ball competition. Although there was some controversy over the technicality he used to enter the competition, everyone can agree his performance was first class. Those fillies don't know what hit them!
On to more important matters, it's Hearthswarming Time! Or whatever they call it in your local universe. It seems to have a different name everywhere. Either way, we're celebrating it!
This next week starting on Monday the 25th, post or repost your favorite Hearthswarming content. And please consider cross-posting to /r/HappyHearthsWarming/ and as always, have a safe and fun Hiatus!
As per usual this is not mod endorsed. This is just me endorsed.
