Horns, Wings or Hooves ... Which would you pick?

[Landi 597]

I would definitely choose having wings and being a pegasus! 

First off, flying would be such a fun and useful ability. I could reach higher places more easily, travel at a quicker pace, and just have some fun when I'm bored. Then there's the cloud-walking. Not only would it be soft and comfortable to walk/sleep on clouds, but cloud walking would give you easy access to Cloudsdale and other cloud cities (which would be epic paces to live in, or at least visit). Last, but not least, is the weather manipulation abilities. Whether or not I'd have a weather related job, having this ability would be so cool. Plus, it could come in handy an certain circumstances (Want to hang outside with friends and family, but it's raining? No problem! Just move some clouds out the way and you are golden). As you can see, I would love to be a pegasus in Equestria!

Magic is kinda cool, but I would get bored of it easily, and probably just look up at the sky longingly. And while their abilities are pretty useful to Equestria, I just wouldn't want to be an Earth pony. So, pegasus it is for me!

[HedonismBot 218]

16 minutes ago, Landi72 said:

(Want to hang outside with friends and family, but it's raining? No problem! Just move some clouds out the way and you are golden)

I would speculate that the other ponies likely wouldn't be too keen on somepony mucking around with the balance of nature for their own convenience.

[cuteycindyhoney 13,283]

22 hours ago, Pentium100 said:

Friend - sure. Boss? You know how she can get obsessed about small details and spiral out of control? A perfectionist boss (or teacher) is not something I would like. "See? You forgot one dot on an i in this 10 page report - sit, 2".

Also, I don't think her school (or worse, being a personal student) would all that useful. I mean, if I am going to school to learn something, then I would probably prefer something that can make me better at my job (whatever it would be in Equestria), so I could earn more money or something that could be a fun hobby. 

From what I have seen on the show it would not fall into either category.

Twilight made great progress in remaining calm and composed. Being with friends helped her a lot. I'd gladly be her friend and student.

[Pentium100 2,056]

Moments ago, cuteycindyhoney said:

Twilight made great progress in remaining calm and composed. Being with friends helped her a lot. I'd gladly be her friend and student.

She did and she's my favorite pony in MLP. Still, being her student does not appeal to me. Being friends with her would probably be very nice though.

[Landi 597]

9 hours ago, HedonismBot said:

I would speculate that the other ponies likely wouldn't be too keen on somepony mucking around with the balance of nature for their own convenience.

It would only be the little section of clouds where the small event is happening and you could just put the clouds back when your done. I mean, some may gripe about it, but hey, pegasi have these powers for a reason. (Plus, there are scenes in the show where Rainbow Dash controls the weather for her or her friends convenience)

[HedonismBot 218]

On 1/19/2021 at 4:05 AM, Pentium100 said:

Also, I don't think her school (or worse, being a personal student) would all that useful. I mean, if I am going to school to learn something, then I would probably prefer something that can make me better at my job (whatever it would be in Equestria), so I could earn more money or something that could be a fun hobby. 

As I understand, "wizard" is a job title. Though if you might want a different career, a more well-rounded education would make sense.

Then again, it's well established that Twilight's book smarts aren't limited to magic.

 

9 hours ago, Landi72 said:

(Plus, there are scenes in the show where Rainbow Dash controls the weather for her or her friends convenience)

"Hurricane Fluttershy" implied that Rainbow Dash is in charge of Ponyville's weather, so there's a decent chance that getting away with that is an unofficial perk of her job.

[Pentium100 2,056]

6 hours ago, HedonismBot said:

As I understand, "wizard" is a job title. Though if you might want a different career, a more well-rounded education would make sense.

Then again, it's well established that Twilight's book smarts aren't limited to magic.

At least from what I have seen in the show, it looks to me like Twilight's school was something like one of the less useful degrees in the real world (the ones where, when you get the degree, pretty much the only job available to you is to be a teacher of that subject). While learning about friendship can be a good thing, it probably won't help the students do their jobs, especially if those jobs do not involve working in close teams.

We never saw what Twilight does with her normal personal students (other than Starlight, but she was kind-of unique, being a reformed enemy and almost as powerful in magic as Twilight herself), so I can only assume that she would do pretty much the same thing as Celestia did with her. Which means, teaching magic for a while (that would be useful), then sending her off to fight enemies who were too strong for the regular police and military. Then she got to stay in Ponyville while apparently learning about frienship - how much that helped her to get better at magic (that is, how much it increased her ability lift heavy objects with TK or kill invading changelings) I have no idea, because it does not look like those things are related. Then Celestia slowly made Twilight into a politician. Even looking at Starlight, we never saw Twilight taching her anything useful for a job, then again, Starlight is an exception, she already has leadership skills and such.

So, I wonder how actually useful this would be for me, assuming I do not want to become a politician or someone famous or the Equestrian equivalent of Spetsnaz. That is, compared to other types of education there, like what schools other unicorns go to to learn about magic and how to use it to do things, for example, Rarity probably went to some school to learn about designing and making clothes etc. 

[HedonismBot 218]

8 hours ago, Pentium100 said:

At least from what I have seen in the show, it looks to me like Twilight's school was something like one of the less useful degrees in the real world (the ones where, when you get the degree, pretty much the only job available to you is to be a teacher of that subject). While learning about friendship can be a good thing, it probably won't help the students do their jobs, especially if those jobs do not involve working in close teams.

You're talking about the School of Friendship? Then yes, you're probably right. Though in "A Horse Shoe-In", it was implied that the school teaches normal school stuff alongside the friendship stuff (with the discussion of Yona's aptitude for science).

I thought you had been referring to the School for Gifted Unicorns (I had assumed Twilight would have taken over that one after taking the throne) - a degree from that would probably go a lot further in the job market.

Though I could still understand having reservations about being a private student - it seems that Twilight had picked up Celestia's "trickster mentor" habits. This may well include "steering a student towards a particular career without their knowledge or consent, and without regard for their own life goals".

Edited January 21, 2021 by HedonismBot

[Pentium100 2,056]

1 minute ago, HedonismBot said:

I thought you had been referring to the School for Gifted Unicorns (I had assumed Twilight would have taken over that one after taking the throne) - a degree from that would probably go a lot further in the job market.

Yeah, but she would not really be "my teacher", more like the headmistress of the school, the students probably do not have that many interactions with her. The scool also seems more ike a general school, so yeah, it would help to get a job and maybe even be decent at it.

3 minutes ago, HedonismBot said:

Though I could still understand having reservations about being a private student - it seems that Twilight had picked up Celestia's "trickster mentor" habits. This may well include "steering a student towards a particular career without their knowledge of consent, and without regard for their own life goals".

I don't knwo if I would do this to Twilight (because I like her), but if I was in Twiligh's place and Celestia was my teacher, if I managed to pick up that I am being steered toward something I don't want, I would try to sabotage it. Hopefully without Celestia finding out I am doing this on purpose. On second thought, I would likely do this to Twilight as well, I hate being manipulated.

If I was transported to Equestria (before or during the early seasons of the show) and had to take Twilight's place, but retain my knowledge of the show that would be interesting. Let's just say I would not end up like Twilight did (which I consider a somewhat bad ending)

[Props Valroa 26,042]

I honestly would try to be Celestia's student.

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

On 1/16/2021 at 8:28 PM, Stardust Live said:

1. If you choose Unicorn, you CANNOT use your magic to 'fly'.

I say BS, dude.  Lots of unicorns do that.  Even the little baby cake did it.  By making this arbitrary rule, you're essentially just saying that if we pick unicorn, we're gonna basically suck at telekinesis and not be strong enough to lift our own bodyweight.  Lame, dude.  I would pick unicorn and just train the sh*t out of my magic until I could fly like Superman with it.  F*ck your rules, dude.  (By the way, just so we're clear, I'm laughing and having fun as I'm saying this--it's totally in good humor.  I'm just poking fun at you.  That would be abundantly clear face to face, but in text it could come across like I'm actually mad when I'm not.  But, y'know, when somebody makes an arbitrary rule like that, it's in my nature to be a contrarian and play around with it.  )

On 1/16/2021 at 8:28 PM, Stardust Live said:

Even Twilight couldn't do long-range teleportation.

You have offended my honor.  Pistols at dawn.

Spoiler

 

I believe that is what they refer to as a checkmate, good sir.  (Lol, again, don't take it too seriously.  I'm still just having a bit of fun.  )

Edited January 21, 2021 by Justin_Case001

[Landi 597]

45 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

I say BS, dude.  Lots of unicorns do that. 

They really shouldn't though. Flight magic should only be able to be harnessed by the highest level magic-users. What would the point of having pegasi be if the average, everyday unicorn could do all the same stuff. I like these rules because they give some balance to the three pony types, unlike the show writers of the later seasons.

(I'm not angry at you, moreso just annoyed at the show for making unicorns so imbalanced XD)

[HedonismBot 218]

9 hours ago, Pentium100 said:

I don't knwo if I would do this to Twilight (because I like her), but if I was in Twiligh's place and Celestia was my teacher, if I managed to pick up that I am being steered toward something I don't want, I would try to sabotage it. Hopefully without Celestia finding out I am doing this on purpose. On second thought, I would likely do this to Twilight as well, I hate being manipulated.

Someone really, really, REALLY needs to write a fanfic based on the premise of somepony actually doing that (either Twilight or Luster Dawn). The comedic potential there is absolutely phenomenal.

 

5 hours ago, Landi72 said:

They really shouldn't though. Flight magic should only be able to be harnessed by the highest level magic-users.

It looks like it essentially is. When Twilight cast the butterfly wing spell in "Sonic Rainboom", she looked like she was about to pass out, and even back then she was already among the most powerful unicorns in Equestria.

Plus self-levitation appears to offer roughly the same flight performance as Bulk Biceps in "Rainbow Falls". We've never even seen a unicorn use that to fly further than a few feet in any direction. The butterfly wings don't look all that impressive either.

A better solution would be to take whatever voodoo keeps Tank's propeller spinning, crank up the power, build it into a ducted fan, add a wing, and develop something like my profile pic. You could even add in a thrust vectoring system like the Harrier jet for better maneuverability. Then put it into production for non-pegasi who might have an interest in flight, as well as pegasi with disabilities.

[Landi 597]

38 minutes ago, HedonismBot said:

It looks like it essentially is. When Twilight cast the butterfly wing spell in "Sonic Rainboom", she looked like she was about to pass out, and even back then she was already among the most powerful unicorns in Equestria.

Well yes, I'd say it was like that in the earlier seasons as well. The only time we had even seen a flight-like spell was the butterfly wings which took an extremely strong magic-user a lot of effort. I liked it that way because it showed that unicorns were still somewhat balanced.

The turn kinda started with Starlight's self-levitation. Seeing a unicorn fly around like a pegasus was really strange, but since she was a Twilight-level mac user, I figured only the best of the best could do it. Then, towards the last few seasons, we started seeing average unicorns self levitating (like Rarity and Snails). I'm just saying, unicorns became very unbalanced towards the end.

[Pentium100 2,056]

1 hour ago, HedonismBot said:

Someone really, really, REALLY needs to write a fanfic based on the premise of somepony actually doing that (either Twilight or Luster Dawn). The comedic potential there is absolutely phenomenal.

Yeah, I have read one where Twilight gets fed up with Celestia sending her on very dangerous missions with no preparation or explanation and calls her out on it. While I did not particularly like the ending, I liked the fic.

I have also read a few where Twilight just refuses either becoming an alicorn or taking over. 

But yeah, so far, I have not seen one where Twilight tries to do this in secret. Twilight, at least in the show, is so afraid of disappointing Celestia that she would do everything for her. Me? I'm pretty sure I would either fail some "tests" or solve them in a way that was not intended.

[Stardust Live 43]

Dear lord. I put in the restriction to force a choice based on the pegasus pony's primary strength; flight. Unicorns get to use quills, let the Pegasi have something that's all their own plz.

(Also Twilight is a smelly pony who is the wurst )

Edited January 24, 2021 by Stardust Live

[HedonismBot 218]

1 hour ago, Stardust Live said:

Unicorns get to use pencils, let the Pegasi have something that's all their own plz.

A physically fit pegasus can fly much faster and farther than any flight magic shown on camera, so they still do.

Plus we've seen multiple examples of heavier-than-air flight technology - the comic even told the story of an earth pony who invented a set of strap-on wings and got himself into the Wonderbolts.

[CaesarSalad 36]

I would be a Unicorn because computers don't exist in Equestria and if I lived there I would probably study magic instead of programming, I also draw and that would be difficult without levitation. I also think being a Unicorn just fits me more than being an Earth Pony or Pegasus, especially since I have no interest in flying or animals.

[Sonic Shimmer 4,116]

I'd go with the horn. I could levitate myself around with magic so I wouldn't need wings or legs.

[North Star 4,540]

Wings!

Flying over the sea :3

Also so many birds out right now.

But the answer changes all the time.

[ExplosionMare 18,007]

A horn because I can put a tennis ball on it draw with magic when my hooves get tired

[cloudybanana 0]

planned of the no hooves centre as viewed what????? Or Tennis Ball????? In Friday to she you their of the times.

[Adorable Lovestar 243]

I'd definitely prefer to be a unicorn. The ability to grip things is just much too valuable to sacrifice.

[HedonismBot 218]

On 2021-03-02 at 9:39 AM, Kharrnix said:

I would be a Unicorn because computers don't exist in Equestria and if I lived there I would probably study magic instead of programming, I also draw and that would be difficult without levitation. I also think being a Unicorn just fits me more than being an Earth Pony or Pegasus, especially since I have no interest in flying or animals.

In the "Doctor Strange" movie, magic is described as "hacks in the source code of reality". If practicing magic actually were analogous to writing and executing code, I could probably approach Starlight's level relatively quickly.