Pony Express: Friendship is Cultural Exchange! Wednesday, period 1

[locointhecoco]

"So we've seen a nice sized town," Pinkie said without so much as a 'howdy' for prologue, clearly anxious to get the class through the portal and into the land of ponies once again. "And we've seen a big city. Today I'm going to take you to a teeny tiny frontier town, settled by my friend Applejack's very extended Apple family!" She led the way through the portal into a dusty street in a fairly stereotypically wild west sort of desert town, complete with tumbleweeds and boardwalks and flapping saloon doors.

So, just to be clear, week one had involved a quaint sort of English village sort of place, week two was a bustling modern city, and week three was the wild west. And no, this class didn't involve time travel.

Pinkie waved excitedly as a pony wearing a vest and a cowboy hat (because herding was, in fact, a legit pony career path!) came trotting up. "Hiya, Braeburn!" Pinkie greeted. Braeburn doffed his hat and bowed a little.

"Well howdy, Pinkie! Pinkie's class! Welcome to Appleloosa, one of Equestria's premiere apple-farmin' communities!"

"And home of the very first pony-buffalo peace treaty!" Pinkie enthused. "Helped along just a little by the musical stylings of yooooours truly."

"Er," said Braeburn. "Sure."

"You see," Pinkie continued. "When my friends and I first came out to visit the Appleloosans, bringing along a new tree for their orchard, we were actually attacked by the local buffalo tribe before we could get here! It turned out that the buffalo were upset at the Appleloosans for setting up their apple orchard right in the middle of traditional buffalo stampeding grounds."

That's right, kids. You were in for a doozy of a colonialist metaphor.

"Fortunately, with the help of all of us from Ponyville and some deeeelicious apple pie, we were able to convince the ponies and buffalo that they should share the land equally, by building a stampeding path through the orchard. So now the ponies and the buffalo are bestest friends!"

Braeburn looked faintly uncomfortable. "Uh," he said. "Yeah, that sure is how that happened." He doffed his hat again to wipe sweat from his brow. "Chief Thunderhooves and his tribe come through every now and then through the orchard, and we make sure to have plenty of pies for 'em when they do."

"And every year on the anniversary of the treaty ponies and buffalo get together for a celebratory feast!" Pinkie said. "And an even more celebratory pie fight!"

"Wha --" Braeburn started, but was interrupted by a pie to the face.

"Eee!"

Comments

Re: Talk to Pinkie!

[locointhecoco]

"Oh, yeah, totally, if you already know about it," Pinkie said. "Ground's around for everypony. If more than one pony needs it, you have to share."

Re: Talk to Pinkie!

[spin_kick_snap]

"How did the ponies respond when the buffalo told them that this was their traditional, err, stampeding ground?"

Re: Talk to Pinkie!

[locointhecoco]

"You know, I don't know," Pinkie admitted. "Whatever it was, it wasn't very nice. The buffalo were super angry by the time my friends and I showed up!"

Re: Talk to Pinkie!

[spin_kick_snap]

"I just think that it seems very unfair that he ponies came here and planted an orchard and everything when there were people using it first," Kathy said, trying for the most tactful response.

Re: Talk to Pinkie!

[locointhecoco]

"But the ponies didn't have anywhere else to plant their trees out here."

Re: Talk to Pinkie!

[spin_kick_snap]

"Did they bother to find out if any, umm, pony else was using it first?" Kathy pressed. "Maybe if they'd spoken to Chief Thunderhooves first, there wouldn't have been a problem at all. Or they could have kept looking."

Re: Talk to Pinkie!

[locointhecoco]

"Well -- I mean --" Pinkie was actively frowning now. It wasn't something she did well. "I -- they learned to share it! That's good, right?"

Re: Talk to Pinkie!

[spin_kick_snap]

"You don't know that they needed to learn that, though," Kathy said. She tried to find a metaphor. "If they'd been asked first, they might have shared freely. But instead, they came home to find their traditional lands taken by peop--by ponies they didn't know and then when they protested, the ponies were really rude to them or something. That doesn't sound like it would put anypony in a sharing mood. How would you feel if someone, say, moved into your house while you were on Fandom, putting all their stuff in and saying it didn't belong to you anymore?"