My Little Pony, My Little Pony, and Me 322: Way Too Much Ghost Sex Talk For an Episode with a Princess in It

Ditto leaned back in his chair. “Alright, Juice, hit us with that first question.”

“Okay, here we go.

Hello, brothers. A kirin moved in recently, and the two of us formed a fast friendship. I have a "Welcome to the Neighborhood" pepper-grilling party coming up, and I want to know if it's out of line to ask my neighbor to light the briquettes as part of being the guest of honor. I know that I should just ask her and not you guys, but it feels awkward to discuss it. Still, I just want to light up the grill, not my whole backyard. Thoughts?

- Flammable in Fillydelphia”

“Well, first of all, you are correct,” Scraps said. “You should just ask her.”

Ditto nodded emphatically. “We are not in any way sufficiently familiar with the kirin and their culture, and we cannot provide any definitive answers.”

“Can we ever?” Scraps asked.

“No, which is why we’re still gonna goof on this one,” Juice said. “I mean, it feels kinda rude to ask, doesn’t it? Like, they have to get really angry in order to catch on fire, and that feels like a weird thing to ask of somecreature.”

“Well -- now hold on,” Ditto said. “Last time I checked those funny books, that seemed to be the Saddle Rager’s whole deal.”

“True,” Juice said, nodding along. “True, true. Counterpoint, though, when she gets mad and starts breaking down the city, she does do it to stop the city getting broken down by worse things and not, like, smashing a pinata.”

“Well, not in the comics!” Scraps said. “Marevel wouldn’t want to put out a comic that was just the Power Ponies at a birthday party, right?”

“So she does it off the page,” Juice mused, resting his head on his hooves. “In the margins, as it were.”

“And maybe -- maybe she does it as a day job?” Scraps suggested.

There was a long pause. “...She hits pinatas. As a day job,” Ditto said flatly. “Scraps, you do realize that Raised Banner has a doctorate, yes?”

“Well, no. Not hit pinatas, obviously,” Scraps said. “Not for a job. But, y’know. She gets the lids off of pickle jars for ponies. Uh, maybe she knocks down buildings.”

“She does that last one anyway,” Juice said.

Scraps rolled his eyes. “No, like… buildings that are supposed to be knocked down. Old ones that are falling apart, and sure, they could bring in a wrecking ball, but why bother when you have a Saddle Rager?”

“Again. Doctorate,” Ditto said.

“What, you think some fancy piece of paper makes you too good to knock down buildings?” Scraps challenged.

“I mean, no, but she already has a day job!” Ditto said. “She’s a physicist and a superhero and you think she moonlights getting the lids off of jars?”

“She might! Are you saying that if one of the other Power Ponies couldn’t--”

“You can say Humdrum,” Juice said.

“If Humdrum couldn’t get the lid off a pickle jar, she wouldn’t go all giant rage monster to help them out?”

“Okay, fine. Sure,” Ditto said. “But as a job?”

“I bet Zapp has a real good side gig on the weather patrol,” Juice said idly.

“I mean, I guess if you wanna make some storms, but most ponies don’t.”

“Be handy in a drought.”

“I -- okay, fine.”

“I bet a lot of superheroes have side hustles,” Scraps said thoughtfully.

“Not Bruce Mane,” Ditto said. “Not Pony Stark.”

“No, probably not them,” Juice said. “But y’know, a lot of them are journalists, probably struggling to make ends meet, and they need a second job to keep them in spandex and capes.”

“Mm.” Ditto nodded. “That is true. Wondergriffon wouldn’t be able to make down payments on the Invisible Blimp on a journalist’s salary.”

“She probably does rodeos,” Scraps said. “Because of the --”

“Because of the lasso, yes,” Ditto said. “Superpony could probably work at the hospital, save them a bunch of money on x-ray machines.”

“What about Spidercolt?” Juice asked.

Ditto tilted his head. “Mm, honestly I think Spidercolt is living pretty believably on a photographer’s salary, considering he still lives with his aunt.”

“Fair, fair… So, uh, back to the question at hoof,” Juice said. “Is it alright to ask your new kirin pal to do this?”

“What if,” Ditto said, leaning forward in his seat. “You were like, ‘Hey, do you wanna light this barbeque up?’ and if it turns out that’s not cool, you just have a box of matches there and are like, ‘No, I just meant ‘cause you’re the special guest and all. You wanna?’”

“The ol’ switcheroonie,” Juice said, nodding. “Alright…”

“Oh! But then, you’ve put gunpowder in the charcoal!” Scraps said, sitting forward. “And then your yard catches fire!”

There was a long pause. “Why,” Ditto said, sitting back. “Just… why.”

“It goes back to what we were saying about Saddle Rager, and how she breaks the city to protect it from getting broken even worse by bad guys! Your new kirin friend could catch fire to create, like, a fire break? One of those things you get in forest fires, you know, where the fireponies burn down some trees in a controlled burn so that they can’t catch fire when the bigger fire comes around!”

There was a longer pause. “Scraps?” Juice said. “Hey, Scraps? That might be the dumbest shit you’ve ever said, ever.”

“It’s a real thing!” Scraps protested.

“I know it’s a real fuckin’ thing, Scraps,” Juice said wearily. “Fire break. Great. Yay. You did just make her burn down half your neighborhood, though.”

“Buuut, she saved the other half!” Scraps said. “Look at the glass as half-full!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s half-full of kerosene!” Ditto said, exasperated. “None of what you’ve said changes the central premise of burning down your house, which is not the ideal way to welcome your new neighbor!”

“...Unless,” Juice said.

“Unless?” said Scraps.

“Wha -- no! No, no ‘unless’,” Ditto said. “You can’t -- you can’t come back from -- Juice, why would you help him?”

“Hey, Ditto?” Juice said. “Unless…”

Ditto rolled his eyes and rested his cheek on a hoof. “Unless,” he said flatly.

“Unless you spin it so that this isn’t just a barbecue, it’s the world’s biggest campfire,” Juice said. “All the fireponies come around with, y’know, sticks and mini-marshmallows and carrot dogs, and you all sing Kumbaya --”

“Around the charred and smoking ruins of your home,” Ditto finished.

“It’s a community-building exercise!” Scraps insisted. “Actually, literally once the fire goes out and you have to rebuild your neighborhood.”

“I… okay,” Ditto said, utterly defeated. “Okay. That’s the answer, burn down your house to avoid social anxiety. Seems to check out pretty well to me.”