Lyra Heartstrings Guide to Human Culture and Biology

by Serperior2

Rating: teen
Tags: Human, Lyra, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Sex, Bon-Bon, Random, Slice of Life
Length: 4185

Lyra writes a non-fiction about her favorite mythical creature, but facts can be hard to come by. Just how much did she "fill in the gaps?"

After years of research and study, Lyra Heartstrings publishes a guide to everything human: Lyra Heartstrings Guide to Human Culture and Biology. Unfortunately a lot of what is written is inferred, and Lyra never learned good judgement on inferences.

OC label is for fake citation within the text.
Random parentheticals containing names are meant to be Lyras citations.
Italicized text is when BonBon is reacting to Lyra's "facts."
It would be greatly appreciated if you could post recommended OC names in the comments, I'm terrible at coming up with pony names.

Published 2014-05-21 22:50:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-11 16:39:59 UTC

Prologue

"BonBon! Bonbon! BONBON!!"

"What?"

"I did it!"

"Did what?"

"I got it published!"

"What? That cheesy essay type thing you were writing?"

"For your information, it is called 'Lyra Heartstrings Guide to Human Culture and BIology"

Bonbon sighed. This was JUST what she had hoped wouldn't happen. Lyra may have been working on that book for some time, and put a lot of effort. But Bonbon had seen her notes, and it was mostly crazy/wacko "inferences" that honestly didn't make any sense. She had hoped she would get denied by the publisher she was writing to, or even better gotten a full rebuke telling her to stop her silly pursuits and focus on a real career. How this book had been published Bonbon had no idea.

"The publisher says they've been lacking in comedy lately, I dunno why he'd think this is comedy. I mean seriously! I even sighted my sources and everything!

So that's how...

"Lyra... I think he called it a comedy because of the... absurdity of many of your claims.

"What? NO! That's ridiculous! This is entirely proven and studied thoroughly by leaders in the field of mythological studies!"

"Lyra, you interviewed a bunch of hicks, many of whom were running stills behind their houses. One even seemed to think one had drawn crop-circles in his fields."

"Their economic and cultural status has nothing to do with their credibility!"

This was beginning to give Bonbon a severe headache. "Fine, whatever. I'm going to go for a walk."

"What? No! You have to read it!"

Oh dear Celestia please no... "Lyra, no offence but I don't want to read it. I'm, uh, not into that sort of thing."

"But you have to read it! Your'e my best friend!"

"Lyra come on..."

"You have to! I won't forgive you if you don't!" Tears now welling up in the corners of her eyes.

"You know that human mumbo jumbo makes me uncomfortable."

Lyra was clutching her copy tightly between her forehooves. Tears were running down her face and she was making sniffling noises while scrunching her face up into a pained and depressed scowl.

"Oh fine I'll read your stupid book."

Lyra immediately perked up. She wiped the tears off her face and shoved the book into bonbons chest with her magic.

"Damn emotional blackmail."

Introduction: What is a human?

Bonbon cracked open the book and flipped to the first page. "Introduction: What is a Human? Ugh, why couldn't she think of something more original for her title? Honestly, that's how you sell books, make the title interesting! There's no way anypony would buy this, Lyra should have tried to write it in a way that would get her more cash. Sighing, she got comfortable and began to read this monstrosity.

Humans are obscure mythical creatures that have been extinct since before the time of the princesses. You may be wondering what significance they have to the modern world, well they are believed to have designed many of the tools used today, such as handles, door knobs, books, and many more such items commonly used today. Humans have left their mark on our culture in many ways too. Our equestrian language is derived from an ancient human dialect known as "Gansta", which originated in a country long ago known as "France" (HillBilly). Many modern day sayings like "on the other hand," "hand-me-down", "a helping hand" , and many other phrases came from them. Some other words like "tank" come from the Gansta language (HillBilly). Tanks were once a popular form of everyday transportation for humans, they were very durable and hard to stop once they got going, thus the term "like a tank."

Humans closest known relative is the Gorilla. They both have thumbs and four limbs with no tail. The gorilla seems to have come from a different evolutionary track than the human. There are some other major difference in their phylogeny such as their number of stomachs and the absence of livers, as humans have three small stomachs, and no liver (Biochem).

There have been reports in the modern day of human sightings, though none have offered any sort of solid proof. Compiled reports have pieced together it's appearance and describe it as being extremely tall, about eight feet, walking on two legs, having little or no hair on the body with a small patch on top, gills, no nose, no and four limbs. Each limb ending with paw like structures similar to that of a diamond dog, with six small endings meant for gripping on the upper body limbs commonly referred to as "arms" and four on the lower body ending referred to as "feet." The gripping structures on the arms are called "fingers" by the modern day species that possess them. On present day creatures they have names for each finger on the hand. Their skin is a tannish-pink color and changes color to have more pink in the sun with a similar process to that of a chameleon. They emote similarly to ponies except that frowning and smiling is reversed so that frowning shows happiness and smiling shows displeasure (Hillbilly).

The human is a peculiar creature that has been a major mystery to those that have studied them. Signs of the ancient reign of the human can be found almost anywhere in everyday life. Hopefully you will be enlightened with new knowledge of Equus's wonderful ex-dominant species: the human.

"Seriously Lyra?" Bonbon had just finished reading the first chapter, and most of this sounded even crazier than she thought. I mean come on, there's absolutely no way humans had no tail, everything intelligent had a tail! Finally she decided to go ahead and keep reading. This was turning out to be more interesting than she had anticipated, but not by much.

Biology

Humans are geovores and herbivores their diets are composed largely of minerals, metals, gems, vegetables and fruits. They can eat almost anything without so much as indigestion. Some foods however are an exception, such as Brussels sprouts, which contain some unknown chemical aversion, and potatoes for a similar unknown reason (CalorieFree). They were expert farmers and originally devised crop rotation long before ponies. Humans have three stomachs each with the ability to digest certain materials. One stomach is for metals, another for organic foods, and a third for rocks and gems (BioChem).

The fact that they are geovores is derived from their extreme similarities to diamond dogs in spinal structure, brain size, overall stature, and hands. There is supporting evidence that diamond dogs and humans share a common ancestor due to these homologous structures.(CalorieFree)

Humans have roughly 415 bones in the male human body, most of which are in their hands, feet, knees, elbows, and testicles. The structure surrounding the testes is made up of approximately one hundred small plates similar to scales, but made of the same material as bone as well as being endoskeletal. (BioChem) These are likely meant to protect the sack due to their vulnerable position on the chin. Females only have 300 bones, which are also focused in the hands, feet, and joints. The majority of a humans skeleton is endoskeletal but the entirety of the fingers have a solid chitin like cover referred to as a "nail" that is considered to be an exoskeleton by most. These nails can be used for gripping objects, cutting through or ripping soft objects like leaves, or making a punch more effective when fighting off predators.

The human nose is not extremely effective like that of a pony of dog. They have far fewer nerves for sensing scents than most other animals and thus are not as effective at locating things through that sense. Their ears are also far less effective for similar reasons, including the size and placement of the outer ear. They make up for this with their incredible sense of sight and touch. While ponies and most other animals can only see the normal colors of the rainbow humans can see ultraviolet and infrared light, allowing for a larger spectrum for them to see. They also have extremely sensitive fingers for feeling things, the fingers on one of their hands contains about as many nerves as the entire pony body, despite the hard coverings over them.

Humans are bipedal. Most bipedal creatures are much slower than quadrupeds. Humans however, are the exception. They can run at an astounding forty miles per hour on average, and with proper training similar to a professional hoof racer they can achieve sixty miles per hour. These speed machines can almost keep up with cheetahs from Zebrica, and far outrun numerous other predators.

Humans are incapable of properly harnessing magic similar to zebras or unicorns. Their magic flows naturally through the body aiding them subconsciously like with earth ponies and pegasi. Their magic adds to their speed, and overall strength. The magic also aids the digestive process in the same way it does a diamond dog.

Humans are truly a majestic creature with a magnificently unique anatomy, they are the outliers of nature, and when considering their amazing abilities it becomes even more a mystery when considering the cause of their tragic disappearance.

Biology part 2

To continue on the uniqueness of the human biology they appear to share the reproduction capabilities of the fabled platypus. They lay eggs, But this is where the similarities end.

Females of the species are extremely aggressive towards males, especially at certain times of the month. The nature of females aggressiveness is unknown even to humans. They turn into monsters more feared than even ursa majors every moon cycle, except when producing young (Hill Billy). But even with their uber-aggressive natures they seem to be creatures that even the most powerful of males would compete for wholeheartedly.

The time it usually takes for a human egg to hatch would depend on the human female. She could keep the egg from hatching by screaming at it till it reverses its hatching process due to sheer fear. Or accelerate its growth due to the same factor. However this only works to a point, as the fetus cannot remain in the egg for more than approximately fifteen months, and needs at least five to completely form, so there is an approximate ten month span of hatch time. Once the egg hatches there is no more the mother can do to change growth rate other than feed it.

Human children are physically weak but far from defenceless, if a predator manages to slip past the mother, they would have to fight infants equipped the ability to spit acid. Acid strong enough to melt almost any organic material, one of the exceptions being human skin which is enhanced by the rocks they eat.

This continues on into the infants childhood as it shows itself to start to take care itself as they start to learn the world. The powerful acid glands in the stomach weaken in potency after early childhood. Juvenile humans fight each other to continue the development of bone structure, such as the male testicular region making it would the most dense part of a human males body. While the females seem to be less dense they make this up for their vocal chords which go at a frequency that can stun males but leave infants and other females nearly unharmed.

Intercourse is performed through the female oral cavity rather than the vaginal, as the females ovaries are located in the neck similarly to mens testicles. The process of eggs being formed could take hours or days depending how pleased the female is with her mate, both mentally and physically.

Alternate Ending 1

Bonbon finally was fed up with this stupid book. It was absolutely ridiculous! Tales of creatures with neck-balls with pony intelligence and no tails are something that don't even belong in the imagination of the insane. Lyra must really be losing it!

She checked the back cover, only to see that Lyra had included not only her picture but her back story and mailing address (thank Celestia they had a P.O. box, some wack-job showing up at their door is the last thing she wanted).

She got up and stretched her legs, how long had she been reading? She checked the clock and found it had been far longer than she had thought she had or meant to read. She took one last one look at the cover which depicted a blurry photograph of a distant shadow that was supposedly a famous human sighting out in the mountains somewhere.

Disgusted, she chucked the book in the trash-bin, adding several tissues over it to conceal it, she wanted to avoid hurting Lyra's feelings of course. Becoming guilty of her decision, she retrieved it, and decided to at least donate it to the library, since most of the princess's books had been incinerated by the weird pony-minotaur half-breed that had attacked Equestria last month.

She grabbed her saddlebags and stuffed the book in, not wanting to be seen in public with it. She trotted out her door and began her trek to the towns newest eyesore, rivaled only by that prissy white unicorns gaudy boutique.

As she walked she noticed a rather long line right outside of the bookstore. She figured that the newest Daring Do book had come out finally, since it had continued to be delayed repeatedly, even though she could have sworn that stupid rainbow-maned pegasus somehow managed to get her hooves on a copy months ago. She  passed through the crowd easily, most ponies knew when to keep out of Bonbons way when she was having one of her moods.

As she continued she overheard a couple of pegasi flying by, "I heard she lives right here in town! And shes doing a book-signing tomorrow at the castle library! I need to..." the talk faded as they flew out of earshot. Bonbon was getting rather confused now, she hadn't heard of any famous authors living in Ponyville, and she was a big reader! She would have to go tomorrow and find out who it was, perhaps buy a copy and have it signed before reading it.

She finally came up to the over-sized tree-fort, and let herself in, after all it housed the new public library. She made her way through the barf-tastically sparkly hallway and followed the signs directing her to the library section. As she entered she found the lizard dusting the countless empty bookshelves in the room, standing at the top of a comically and dangerously tall and unsturdy looking ladder. She stood in the doorway for a moment or two waiting to be acknowledged, and when she finally ran out of patience let out an irritated "ahem."

The drake turned and saw the visitor. "Oh, uh, hi there. You need something?"

"I came to donate a book, if your accepting."

"Oh sure, just wait a sec." He clambered down the staircase to mount hooverest and scampered over to her. Bonbon dug the book out of her saddlebags and shoved it into Spikes chest.

"Wow, another one of these? Twilight ordered a whole dozen, the book is in really high demand. You sure you want to just donate it?"

"What are you talking about? The whole things a load of crap! Who would want to read this?"

"Seriously? This has become the most popular book in Equestria almost overnight. Didn't you see the line at the bookstore?"

"Just shut up and take the stupid book already."

"Fine, fine, no need to be so pushy. Do you think you can hang this sign on the front door for me on the way out?"

Spike handed her a little wooden sign from the desk next to them. Bonbon nodded in assent, it's the least she could do for forcing that garbage on their collection. When she got outside she hung the sign up on the post next to the door. She was surprised to see that it said "Copy of Lyra Heartstring's Guide to Human Culture and Biology currently available."

As a crowd of ponies walked past, heading from the bookstore which had just run out of copies of the esteemed publication, they seemed to all at once turn and notice the sign she had hung up. A collective gasp went through the mob, and they all at once rushed the library, attempting to acquire the final copy available in town. Bonbon saw the danger immediately and attempted to extricate herself from the premises as quickly as ponily possible but was trampled by a herd of brainless nitwits desperately competing for her newest bane.

Culture part 1

Culture

A good example of human pastimes would be soccerbal. The game consists of two teams each competing for the ball, attempting to get it into the enemy teams goal. But the trick is to always fall down and cry and act hurt in any occasion possible, so the referee would give out punishments to the other team and allow you to make make an easy score on them. It riles up the humans into a frenzy to see if their team would win or lose. And if any human gets seriously hurt they bring out the most dreaded and revered card of the entire game. The red card.

Games have used to settle rivalries and love relationships between humans. As it has prevented 3 catastrophic wars,  and countless marriages.

Humans worship many different gods, some are more prominent to others. Here is a list of some of the more commonly known gods.

Chuck Norris, the god of epicness, martial arts and beards.

Kanye, the god of Kanye (we have yet to figure out what Kanye exactly is)

Arnold Schwarzenegger, god of guns, termination, and returns

Beyonce, the goddess of music and dance.

Spongebob, the lord of the oceans.

Zeus, lord of guitars.

George Washington, creator of their entire world.

Nikola Tesla, thunder god

Kim Kardashian, no apparent use.

Robin Williams, god of comedy.

Obama, bringer of much misfortune (evident from the popular sarcastic phrase “thanks Obama”)

Gordon Ramsay, god of food, and anger

Batman: god of justice and the night

Taylor Swift, goddess of short relationthips

MIchael Bay, god of explosions

Paula Deen, goddess of butter

Leonardo Dicaprio, god of no Oscars (whatever that means)

Nick MInaj and MIley Cyrus, the goddesses of sluts

Disney, god of childhoods

Kenny Mccormick, god of death and resurrection

Barney Stinson, god of Legen-dary things

Internet, god of cats, stupidity, trolling, fandoms, etc

America, god of freedom

Russia, god of opposites

Canada, god of apologies and the word “eh”

Justin Bieber, god of homosexuality

Edward Cullen, second god of homosexuality, married to Justin Bieber

Bill Gates, god of wealth

4-Chan, god of porn, offensive language, and anonymity.

Mr T, god of pity, and fools

Charlie Sheen, god of sex, and near dead careers

The are but a fraction of the many idols that humans have created. The humans honor them by watching them, and making jokes about them. However, some of these gods are not honored by all, and fights are started, with Internet being the go between.

Alternate Ending 2

Bonbon was suddenly interrupted from her reading by a knock at the door. Lyra, who was currently preparing dinner, told her to answer it. She figured it was probably the cross-eyed mailmare Derpy, seeing as it was about mailtime. She closed the book, not bothering to mark the page. She got up and slowly trotted over to the door. Whoever was at the door was getting impatient and hammered on it again, much harder this time.

"Yeah yeah. hold on, I'm coming." In response there were five more loud and angry knocks.

Becoming suspicious of whoever was so irritable, she checked the peephole on the door. She was met with what appeared to be the crotch area of a strange bipedal creature. Suddenly whatever was out there bent down and looked into the peephole on the other side. Bonbon screamed as she saw the face of the strange creature outside. She galloped through the house into the kitchen where Lyra was at that moment mincing some mint leaves.

"Whats wrong Bonbon? Is something destroying the town again?" Lyra asked casually with a smirk.

"T-tall! Hairless! Two legs! Trying to get us! Quick! Lets go out the backdoor and go find Princess Twilight or somepony else!"

"Wait, tall? hairless? Two legs!? That sounds like a human! Of course! I saw my books and wants to thank me for bringing positive publicity to his species!"

"Wait Lyra! If he wanted to thank you then why is he banging on the door so hard? That is even if it is a human, which I doubt."

"Oh don't be silly Bonbon. He's probably just excited to meet me is all." Another loud series of bangs came from the entryway. "Here, finish the cooking while I go greet our guest."

Bonbon grimaced as Lyra trotted to the front door and opened it. Bonbon didn't dare pick up the chefs knife in fear of cutting herself with her quaking hooves.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! You are a real-"

"There you are you libelous bitch!"

Bonbon grabbed the knife in her mouth.

"Wh-what? I don't know what..."

"Oh you know EXACTLY what I mean you piece of shit! You published this goddamn book of fucking lies! You've ruined our reputation with this bullshit! It made the papers in my town and now my girlfriend can't get a job, people keep asking me why I got myself neutered! And kids are throwing rocks at my window saying their feeding the unfortunate! What the hell made you think publishing this would be funny?"

"It's not supposed to funny, it's a serious investigation into your people, and what did happen to your testicles? Humans are so rare it's a shame you can't reproduce."

"My testicles are between my legs just like any fucking mammal you bitch! And it says right here on the inside of the cover that its a comedy! And a sick one at that!"

"OK I think I'm beginning to understand whats going on, some of whats in the book is inaccurate. If you like we can sit down and go over whats incorrect in the book."

"No, I'm not bothering with you, you heartless sicko, here's my girlfriends fully annotated copy of your book, highlighting everything incorrect and explaining whats wrong with it and whats true."

"Well can't we go over it together?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I hate you."

"Why?"

"Because you published this garbage and ruined my reputation."

"But I didn't mean to! I thought it was all true."

"Well then you're a retard."

"Well that's not very nice."

"I don't care."

"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease... gasp... pleaseplease..."

Lyra was suddenly shut up by a tight grip around her muzzle.

"Fine, I'll stay here and go over it with you. But I don't want to be here too long."

"So you have testicles between your legs and on your chin, but you lost yours?"

"No, you see Lyra..."

"So you only joke about Chuck Norris being super tough, but he's really a wimp?"

"No, he's still pretty tough, but not as much as people say."

"Oh I get it, so Schwarzenegger is the real god of epicness then."

"Oh god."

"Ooh can I see how you do your ceremonies for George Washington?"

"Okay, so it's actually called soccer, except in America where it's called football."

"No Lyra it's the other way around."

"So it's soccerball everywhere except America where it's called football?"

"Finally, were done with this stupid thing. Now send that to your editor and tell him to do a recall on the bad copies."

"I can't do that! I'd have to give back all the money Iv'e earned from sales and more! My reputation will be ruined!"

"I'm sorry to hear that, but I'll make you if I have to."

"Well were going to have a problem then."

___________________________________________________________

Sometime later, Lyra was had finished digging the large hole in her backyard. She dumped in the large smelly sack beside her, and began filling it in.

Bonbon came out of the house, giving Lyra a weird look. "I seriously  can't believe you did that, Lyra, I'm very disappointed in you."

"I had no other choice, it had to be done."

"Yeah but, it that gets out, it'll ruin everything."

"Don't worry Bonny, it won't. The bag will hold, and it will only be here for a while."

"I don't want it to ruin my garden though."

"I already told you, it won't. And I'm sure it'll be delicious in a few months."

"With how bad it smells now, I'm seriously doubting it."

"Don't worry, it's a delicacy in some parts of human culture."

"I don't think I'm going to eat any. It's disgusting."

"Fine, more kimchi for me then."

"Trading the rights to your book for a stupid human recipe was a terrible idea Lyra."

"Whatevah, I do what I want!"

Bonbon sighed heavily and trotted back inside, slamming the door behind her.