Author's Note
Prologue A
THE EQUESTRIAN AGRICULTURAL UNION PRESENTS
AN EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE APPLE EDUCATION COUNCIL
IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE PONY PUBLIC BROADCASTING SYSTEM
AND MADE POSSIBLE IN PART WITH THE PATIENT SUPPORT OF APPLES LIKE YOU
We slowly fade in to a tranquil shot of the verdant Equestrian countryside. Emerald blades of grass and purple flowers flounce in the breeze while soft brass instruments play in some ethereal background.
In the distance, the windmill of a quaint earth pony farm town lazily rotates in the warm summer air.
“Look around y'all.”
Foals play and perform cartwheels on the hillsides.
Happy couples rollerblade along park pathways together.
Two old stallions sit hunched over at a table, aggressively playing chess.
“Look around y'all.”
A filly chases a puppy through a garden while butterflies and bees buzz around them.
Stallions pack the backs of wagons with trade goods and wares.
A zebra is dragged—kicking and screaming—to the local police department.
“Just... look around y'all.”
A pastel-colored unicorn flies a kite, grinning with twitching eyes.
Overhead, a winged lesbian skywrites a typo with clouds.
Meanwhile, two teenage stallions toss a frisbee over a duck pond.
“There. Now take a closer look.”
The camera pans to the left of the pond as we focus on a patch of bushes between two oak trees. A squirrel descends the trunk and squats on dry soil, munching on an acorn.
“Have y'all worked out what we're looking for?”
The squirrel's beady eyes lock in place. Suddenly, it lurches forward. A gigantic lump forms in its throat, rising up and culminating in a gigantic blob of bright red pomaceous fruit that lands neatly in front of it, stem up. Unaffected, the bored rodent sniffs at the fruit, shrugs, and scampers off.
“Correct. The answer is... apples.”
We zoom in uncomfortably close, which accidentally reveals the cameraponies and film crew reflected in the glossy surface of the apple. Nevertheless, a few seconds later, the title cards flickers into being, accompanied by an enthusiastic orchestral score:
APPLES!
The director's figure flails, as if the soul behind him recognizes the fact that his reflection has been caught in the shot. There's a tackling motion, and the camera footage abrubtly cuts to black, lopping off the music score before it has a chance to reach a jubilant finish.
Slow fade in to the interior of Carousel Boutique.
Rainbow Dash is standing uncomfortably on bent legs. Her flank is straight as a board. She fidgets, somehow unable—or unwilling—to move from that exact spot.
Seconds later, we hear the clop-clop-clop of dainty hooves.
Rarity sashays into view, sporting wide-framed glasses and humming an elegant tune. She approaches Rainbow Dash, swivels around, and sits down on her backside. Reduced to a chair, Rainbow Dash whimpers something, but keeps her muzzle shut.
“Mmmmmm...” Rarity reclines, casually sewing a pocket onto a blouse. She looks at the camera with glamorous disinterest. “As somepony who has often trotted through Sweet Apple Acres' fields, I have seen many apples in my time. However...” She crosses one lower hoof over the other and tosses her mane back. “...all of these apples are in various states of undress.”
The fashionista removes her glasses and lets her pouting lips hang open a bit before continuing in her sultry voice.
“Are there any sorts of fashion apples have worn over the years? And, if so, what sort?”
There's another whimper from the limb-locked pegasus beneath her...
...and we fade out.
WHAT ABOUT APPLES AND FASHION?
Special Thanks to fourths for the question
Fade in to Professor Applejack standing on a dimly-lit black stage. Beyond the penumbra of the spotlight engulfing her we see ponniquins suspended on strings. Each figure is dressed in randomly designed gowns, pantsuits, prison outfits, and firepony uniforms—all sporting a red or green fruit motif.
“What a wonderfully cultural question for you to make, ol' Rarity ol' Pal!”
Professor Applejack adjusts her brown overcoat and leans against a marble podium featuring a large hardbound book entitled “Le Apple Dresse.”
“As it so happens, the history of apple fashion is just about as fancy and excitin' as the history of apple farmin'... apple transit... and apple warfare!”
She reaches over to the book.
The camera switches to a macro of the opening pages, featuring illustrations of ponies wearing apple-inspired evening wear, ponies wearing farming overalls, and just sad-faced ponies drenched in copious amounts of cider.
“But... as you can see... there's a wholllllle heapin' lot more than what can be covered in forty short minutes of public broadcast programmin'! So... for yer sake and for the curious audience hankerin' for some delicious apple knowledge... a simple run-down should suffice, ya reckon?”
Cut back to Professor Applejack's smiling, freckled face.
“So come with me on a trip, y'all... a trip of apples and fashion. And I promise...”
With a simple fade effect, Professor Applejack disappears like a ghost.
“...it won't be too exposin'! Heh-hyuck!”
Slow fade to a series of cave paintings featuring equine outlines seated around a campfire, sharpening spears. Tribal percussion muzak rumbles in the background.
“Back in prehistoric times, primitive ponies didn't have time for dressin' up. Or for apples! Very sad, ain't it? Well... all of that was about to change with the invention of... this.”
Camera pans to a chalk outline of a ladder against the cave wall.
“Looks like a ladder, dun it? Well, in truth... this was the approximate shape of the dreaded Woolly Giraffe... a now-extinct predator that was the scourge of prehistoric caveponies. These bloodthirsty varmints roamed the earth about seventy million years ago! And they liked nothin' better than to prey on our poor grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grandparents! So... bein' the crafty Cro-Maregdon folks that they were... the caveponies of yore fashioned a bunch of sticks and wooden planks together so that they'd resemble their predators from afar! This fooled the Woolly Giraffe somethin' fierce, on account that their visual acuity was based on movement n'all. It just so happens that—while wearin' these wooden branches and stayin' dead-still while herds of Woolly Giraffes wandered by... one or two lucky caveponies happened to be posed right next to an apple tree. And one of their brothers or sisters took a gander skyward and was all 'Shucks! I see some tasty fruit! Hey, cousin! Stay still while I climb yer sturdy disguise and grab me some plump fruit to suckle on!' And this completely revolutionized the art of huntin' and gatherin'. Pretty soon—once the Wooly Giraffes went extinct from chokin' on a pill bottle cap or what-not—there was no use in the caveponies disguisin' themselves no more. But their disguise had worked so well in gettin' high off the ground to pluck apple trees that they chose to do the latter! And that's how the 'ladder' came to be—and got its name to boot! Ha-Hah!”
Fade to a lowering boom camera shot of Professor Applejack trotting down the Royal Canterlot Museum. She passes by an exhibit of petrified stone fragments propped together to form a rough “apple” shape.
“So here y'all have an example of prehistoric equine culture learnin' to dress itself and feed itself at the same time! Soon enough, habit became bigger than purpose... and shamanistic ponies began worshippin' the apple spirits hidden deep within the apple trees.”
Professor Applejack comes to a stop, gesturing to the stone apple with faded red berry paint.
“So—to get all up in the apple tree's business—they fabricated themselves these big apple fetish suits made out of stone and feces!”
She trots along, and the camera follows as she stands beside an exhibit of apple-shaped armored plates.
“And to appease the apple gods—they wore these armored plates in the shape of apple fetishes, made out of bronze and feces.”
She trots along further, and the camera reveals a monk's robe plastered all over with apple designs.
“And here's the traditional apple fetish worn by servants who worked in harems dedicated to the Pantheistic Apple Spirit, through which all souls are born and slaughtered in what is called 'Seedsara' by Eastern Ponies, no doubt smellin' the fumes of their burnin' incense... but mostly feces.”
Professor Applejack smiles in a still-shot that lasts a bit too long on the editing room floor. The edge of a crewpony's shoulder is briefly seen to the right of the frame just as—
The camera cuts to a macro of renaissance artwork. Pony philosophers are seen in flowing robes, staring point-blank into apples cradled in one hoof while they make sketches of pony skeletons and pony muscles with the other.
“But not all historical fashion ponies were dumb droolin' idiots! Here we see a bunch of artistic thinkin' ponies buildin' the cornerstone of modern equine civilization, thanks to a lot of philosophy, spaghetti, and apple fondlin'! It's from this glorious mess that we get the first phase in elegant female attire!”
Fade to the interior of a fancy baroque chamber, full of lush paintings of royal ponies. Guards in overcoats stand upright before the door. All the while, a mare strapped in a tight bodice of whalebone and apple stems sits on a poofy skirt before a harpsichord, playing mildly away at the ivory keys.
THE APPLE BODICE
“At last, appreciation of apple wear made itself known to the monarchs of Stirrup! This began what we historians like to call 'The Applestocracy!' In wearing the Apple Bodice, matriarchs felt emboldened to take fashion to its next pivotal step. And that was to use the taxes of the proletariat to dress up the fruit of the royal gardens!”
Cut to a vast green orchard located beyond a hedge maze surrounding a magnificently ornate villa. Apple trees dangle with fruit—each of which are ensnared in frilly ballgowns and lace pantsuits. A princess mare trots elegantly down the treeline in her dress, fanning herself as she smiles at the lacily-dressed fruit. She pauses, blushing, to stare prolongedly at a spicy apple dressed in nothing but leopard pelt and a loin cloth. The mare fans herself faster.
“But... while appreciated by nobility, the dressin' up of fruit at the expense of the workin' class had taken its toll throughout the years...”
Fade to a slowly panning shot of a group of green apples lying on pedestals above wicker baskets.
“...with expected results.”
SCH-SCHIIIIING!
The blades of multiple guillotines fall down, slicing the apples into halves and revealing their cores. As their dress clothes are ripped to shreds, shouting peasant ponies with grimy faces gallop across the juice-stained courtyard. They fight over the fabric and dance around, screaming bloody murder while their comrades storm the nearby villa's gates with torches and pitchforks.
“This, of course, led to clothes-wearin' apples bein' shunned by society. Many fruit sought refuge in borderin' nations, practicin' their fashion in secrecy... growin' more close-knit and pious by the decade until... at last...”
Fade to a macro of Enlightenment canvass paintings that illustrate green apples in drab puritannical garb crossing the ocean. Thanks to a series of artistic cross-fades, a tiny sailing vessel makes landfall upon a snowy shore, and several starving apples roll onto the exposed soil of the New World, where they immediately bow and pray.
“...they settled a new land... a free land where apples could dress and sashay about in all the frills and garments that they saw fit.”
The next illustration shows red apples in leather moccasins and ornamental feathers greeting the green refugees, exchanging food and seeds and farming tools.
“Thus began a new blossomin' relationship between two halves of the world... ... ... with expected results.”
A bugle can be heard warbling in high octaves.
The camera jump-cuts to a desert countryside. Cut-out hoofpuppets of green apples in dark blue cavalry uniforms are seen on horseback, chasing wildly whooping red apples across the arid frontier, shooting them to death with guns while a few unluckier natives are happy to just roll over and die from smallpox.
“And that's how the wild fashion was won! But don't be sad! It's just beginnin'!”
A whirring noise as the camera cuts to a slide photo of an apple standing propped up in legionnaire guard.
“The military uniform evolved to be more useful and utilitarian over time!”
A whirring noise. The next photo slides into place, showing an apple in a helmet.
“Soldier apples got the bright idea to wear metal headwear! To protect them from sniper bullets and artillery shells!”
Whirring. The next photo slides in, showing an apple with a bayonet and gas mask.
“And here's an apple fashionin' itself to be safe from mustard gas!”
Whirr. The next photo shows an apple in a bomber jacket and flight goggles.
“Here's how apples dressed to keep themselves nice, warm, and toasty up in their fancy bombers! See? It's all come full circle to Stirrup!”
Whirr. The photo slides to a kimono on fire above a pile of ashes.
“And here we have... oh... whoops! Uhhh... movin' right along!”
Bright flash fade to an apple in patchwork hippy wear upon a stage with loud speakers, kneeling before a burning guitar.
“Groovy! Back in the days of peace protestin' and Whinnystock, nopony knew what in the hay apples were gettin' their fashion ideas from any more! If you ask some ponies in the local couture scene, it was all downhill from there! Thankfully we had the high-tech days of big business to make all that nonsense marketable again!”
Fade to a brightly-flashing discotheque. Mares with frizzy hare, abundant lipstick, and broad poofy blouses are camping around a bar counter with canned sodas in their hooves. Bland and redundantly synthesized music warbles on in the background as they stare bored at one another.
“So—like—why should the Saddle Arabians hog all the oil?” one mare drones, taking time and effort to click her tongue and let her mouth hang open. “All they're good at burning is feces!”
“Yeah—like—I know, right?” another mare in exactly the same voice clicks and drones. “It's—like—every kingdom but Equestria is full of sooooooo many selfish ponies.”
“That reminds me. Did you—like—watch that episode of Okrah last night?”
Behind them, a shiny red apple on a stick “walks” down the middle of the dance floor.
The two mares turn to gawk, their fake eyelashes fluttering in disdain.
“Oh. My. Celestia.”
“Do you—like—see what the fruit is wearing?”
“Absolutely nothing! She's nekked!”
“You're right! She's absolutely nekkedddd!”
“Like... so nekkkkkkeddddddd.”
Silence. Synth music. A few beats.
Both mares grin at each other. “That's sooooooo sexy!”
SO SEXY
The scene freezes on that same frame of the mares' grinning muzzles looming kissably apart.
“And just like that... equine culture adopted the tail end of the apples' multiple centuries of fashionsploration!”
Cut to a beach at night. A sign labeled “Burn Clothes Here” is pointed boldly to a large bonfire. Mares and stallions are seen rushing towards the sight, stripping off their garments and tossing them into the flame.
“So Equestria had itself a decade or two of cultural adoption! Namely, if apples could be nude and taste delicious... then so could we nude! And taste delicious!”
Ponies dance and frolic and hug each other in a tribal circle around the flickering flames. They coo and chant and sing to the percussion of crashing waves.
“...also feces!”
Cut to a stage in modern times, with ponies cradling digital cameras and taking multiple flash photos of a runway. Ponies sashay up and down the raised platform, gazing every-which-way with deadpan expressions while sporting flouncy gowns with apple motifs and fruit fetishes.
“And what about today? Well, y'all, the post-modern era is a time of hindsight and recursive cultural appropriation. So—what do we settle for? Dressin' ourselves? Or dressin' apples? Well, I'd say it's a little bit of both! That's the benefit of bein' alive today! We get to sample from the smorgasbord of all of the previous centuries of anguish, sufferin', and struggle! Well... not includin' the Third Whinny parts of the globe that are still dealin' with anguish, sufferin', and struggle today... but... y'know what I mean. We've got credit cards! And apple dresses! And feces!”
A stallion poses in a dress made completely out of apple stems. The camera slowly zooms in on his sweating face as flash bulbs strobe around him.
“This... this hurts so much...”
More and more sweat beads form along his face.
“I don't mean emotionally but physically... intimately. This hurts.”
More and more flashes. The camera is painfully close on his muzzle now. It can see the bags under his eyes and the red vessels pulsating in his cornea.
“Stop. Please stop. What do you think this is? Do you actually believe this is some sort of ill-forgotten public-paid program? Help me. I am in very real pain. Can't you see that I'm in pain? Please, for the love of Celestia, somepony get this dress off of me and help—”
Freeze frame.
Musical fanfare.
APPLES!
Slow fade to black.
Author's Note
"Hey y'all, ponyapplefolk! Hankerin' for some apple knowledge? Just ask ol' Professor Applejack, and she'll set you straight! Or maybe she won't! It's like Schrodinger's apple! The answer's there, and yet it ain't! Whelp, happy trails, y'all! I've got some apples to study! Yeehaa!"
~Lurve, Professor Applejack
We fade in to a lusciously upholstered apartment with wood paneling. On the wall, there's a clock built out of the mounted cross-section of an apple tree's trunk. Framed pictures of wagons and plows flank a window, through which we see a scenic beachfront with crashing waves.
An adorable blonde farm pony—about the size of a domestic cat—finishes dusting off a series of gold trophies... all shaped like apples. She wears a bright brown overcoat with a slate gray turtleneck underneath. About five seconds into the shot, she takes notice of us... and smiles.
“Howdy, y'all...!”
She puts the duster away, adjusts the sleeves of her coat, and trots gingerly towards us across the thick furry carpet.
“I am Professor Applejack of the Apple Technical University.” She smiles, face full of freckles and fuzz. “And thank you for joinin' us on this here exploration of the greatest subject to ever grace the collective consciousness of equine-kind. I speak—of course—of the very fruit of our existence. The only fruit that's ever plum mattered. Ahem... please. Listen closely.”
She approaches a pedestal, atop of which plainly rests a bright round sample of fruit. She picks the item up by its stem, then cradles it before us as the camera goes in slowly for a macro shot.
“Take a gander at that. This here. That's food. That's for us. With it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone y'all've ever heard of, every equine being who ever was, munched out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in lurve, every ma and pa, hopeful foal, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species has eaten this—this bright red dot suspended from an apple tree.”
Cut to an extreme close-up of the smiling pony, freckles and all. Her teeth glints as she drawls with sincere enthusiasm and undeniable horse wisdom.
“The apple tree—or as it's officially known in fancy as 'Malus pumila'—originated in the arid deserts east of Stirrup, and ever since then it has been domestically grown all around the globe. And why not?! Both the globe and the apple are round! Them's kissin' cousins, y'all! Heheh!”
Cut to a wide shot as Professor Applejack places the apple back on its stand and then proceeds to trot leisurely past scale models of apple trees bent side ways, apple trees brandishing spears, apple trees doing taxes.
“But there's somethin' extra special about this here spry sproutin' tree of goodness. Throughout the epochs of time, it's outlived its surly... nastier relatives. I speak—of course—of the long extinct Anti-Gravity Apple... the Neanderthal Apple... the Whinnystreet Apple... and the Abominable Snow Apple of the Dreaded Lurch Kingdom.”
She pauses in front of a model of a razor-backed apple tree with giant, gleaming tusks.
“These... were bad apples... and they all vanished from the food chain for one single reason. They refused to be food!”
Professor Applejack gestures towards a majestic painting of a regular apple tree with a halo, lovingly cradling two foals and a lamb in its branches while sunlight parts a storm over a valley in the background.
“But not our apple tree. No... our apple is an awesome apple. It reigns on heaven and earth with wisdom power and love. Our apple is an awesome apple!”
She holds two fetlocks together, gazing heavenward with an angelic expression.
“Yellow, brown, black or white—our appetites are quenched in its sight.”
She smiles at the camera again with a sagely smile.
“And the thing about apples is that they're delicious whether you believe in them or not!”
She holds a hoof out towards us.
“But I know that some of y'all... heck... a whole heck of a lot of y'all dun know a thang about apples. So it is the purpose of this program to educate you on all things to do with the greatest fruit that ever did descend from the loom!”
Her eyes take on a brief, vicious glint as her voice hisses through clenched teeth.
“Especially in such a dark political age full of backwards pomaceous-deniers...”
A twitch, and she springs back to a freckled smile. “...it's important for us to give back in respect tenfold what apples have given to our whizz-banger of a civilization all these years! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeehaaa! So!”
She approaches a desk and sits down in a bright brown upholstered chair, waving towards a stack of envelopes resting between her and the camera.
“I figured that the best way to do so would be to open discourse with y'all... the wonderful viewin' audience. We sent out a heapin' load of invitations... and already we've gotten a mighty fine bushel of honest questions to answer. So... without much further fritterin' around...”
A good-natured chuckle, and she hugs one knee to herself with a cheeky grin.
“Let's get to edumacatin' the whole lotta you. Startin' with...”
