For those unfamiliar with Fluffy Ponies, here is the rough background.  Back in 201X, Hasbio, the genetic engineering arm of Hasbro, developed a biotoy as the next phase of My Little Pony (which has become wildly, absurdly popular) merchandise.  The fluffy ponies are created from a very, very mixed genome (which is rumored to secretly include that of a little girl – a rumor consistently denied by Hasbio).   They have the mind of roughly a 3-4 year old human and can speak in baby-talk.  They were designed to be incredibly fragile and weak to the extent where they’re unable to hurt even a child (as that could open Hasbio up to lawsuits).  This fragility also means fluffy ponies are pretty death-prone.

Left to their own devices, fluffies breed incredibly quickly.  This was never intended to be the case, however.  The first fluffies were “breeder ponies” where the standard fluffy genome had been tweaked to allow rapid foal production to fill the initial projected market demands.  These foals would then be injected with a vector to patch their DNA back to the standard sterile version.  Unfortunately, as Hasbio was getting the stock ready, animal rights activists broke into the labs and freed the breeders and foals into the wild. The nascent fluffy pony market thus bottomed out almost immediately as feral herd populations exploded.

By this point, most citizens of the United States and Canada (and increasingly in other countries around the world) have had experience with fluffies, either as pets or as feral herds, typically led by a “Smarty”, attempting — and usually failing — aggressive methods to take over land.  Due to the strange birth of the fluffies, and Hasbio’s refusal to open the genome for study, many scientists have performed experiments on fluffies to understand their nature.  Rumors abound that Hasbio themselves do not understand the extent of the fluffy pony’s abilities, and have a secret lab themselves.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of fluffy ponies is their seeming ability to change reality at will — often times placing them in a potentially fatal situation, even when it is technically impossible for them to place themselves in this situation. As it turns out, fluffy ponies do NOT change reality at will — but rather, the existence of fluffy ponies causes great distortions on the Luck Plane.

The Luck Plane is the conduit through which luck flows into the universe. Some people are particularly good at surfing the Luck Plane. Others are particularly bad at it. Most of us, however, have the Luck Plane occasionally tilt towards us, bringing fortune, and have it occasionally tilt away, bringing sorrow.

The fluffy pony, however, causes severe warpage to the Luck Plane’s normal rotation. The Luck Plane sometimes tilts so far that a fluffy is caught on the edge and has a particularly charmed life. More common is the Luck Plane whipping around so fast it smacks the fluffy far, far away, like a steroid-pumped batter hitting a speedball, giving the fluffy a particularly horrible existence.

Many fluffies are far enough away from the Luck Plane that they have generally normal lives, but with the occasional weird anomaly — for instance, fluffies that can somehow find themselves in high places, despite being unable to climb, jump or fly. (This particular instance can be caused by both the Luck Plane bending towards or away from the fluffy depending on the outcome. If the fluffy is a pegasus, perhaps they have had a hit of good luck… if they fluffy is an earth pony, they’ve probably had a hit of bad.)

Here is simple story with two endings that illustrates the effects of the Luck Plane on the fluffy pony:

STORY ONE – LUCK PLANE IN THE FLUFFY’S FAVOR:

You are a gambler. Or, rather a gambling addict.  You’ve got a problem — perhaps have a bigger problem here in a moment.

You’ve taken the entire payroll of your company down to the casino. Roulette is your game, and you’ve brought in your fluffy pony for luck. His not-terribly-creative name is “Lucky”.

You spend your time reading up on gambling strategies. Even though roulette is basically random. You’re not a particularly smart gambler. Hence, “Lucky”.

You’ve been doing all right, but you think it’s time for the big score. You put all your chips on the board, and then put Lucky up there to give you that added boost.

* * *

Your daddy has put you on top of the fuzzy green table with the little red and blue and black round thingies and… BALL!!  You go to catch the ball, accidentally kicking your daddy’s round thingies.

You jump on the red and black spinny thingy and whoooo… 

You’re very dizzy… but you got the ball!  The spinny stops, and you hope you don’t make sicky-wawas. As your eyes slow down and let you look around again, you see that your daddy is very, very happy! He’s jumping up and down! He says something that his chips were on “Fluffy Pony!”

You’re a fluffy pony! But you don’t have chips on you. You like chips. Salty and yummy nummies! You look around and taste yourself just to make sure. Nope, no chips. But you got the ball, and everyone’s jumping up and down cheering you!

* * *

You just hit the friggin’ jackpot.  It turns out that Lucky happened to kick your chips on the “Fluffy Pony On The Wheel” square. You didn’t even SEE that on there.  Why would they allow fluffies in if they had that on there?

Whatever — it’s the highest-paying out one by far.

Not only did you win, but you can give everyone at your job double their pay this week, and still come back with 21 million dollars! You didn’t think the casino could pay out that much! The croupier is shocked as well. He didn’t think they could pay out more than a few thousand dollars in one go. You are the happiest man in the world and you owe it all to Lucky.  Someone’s getting spaghetti tonight!

 

STORY TWO – LUCK PLANE AGAINST THE FLUFFY:

You are a gambler. Or, rather a gambling addict.  You’ve got a problem — perhaps have a bigger problem here in a moment.

You’ve taken the entire payroll of your company down to the casino. Roulette is your game, and you’ve brought in your fluffy pony for luck. His not-terribly-creative name is “Lucky”.

You spend your time reading up on gambling strategies. Even though roulette is basically random. You’re not a particularly smart gambler. Hence, “Lucky”.

You’ve been doing all right, but you think it’s time for the big score. You put all your chips on the board, and then put Lucky up there to give you that added boost.

Even though you’ve told him a thousand times to be still when on the table, Lucky wanders around.  He kicks over all your chips and then scampers over to the roulette wheel shouting “Baww!!!” or some fucking thing.

The croupier is PISSED.

“SIR, you CANNOT HAVE your FLUFFY ON THE BOARD. YOU CANNOT EVEN HAVE YOUR FLUFFY IN HE-“

Just as he says that, the chandelier above the table comes crashing down killing him, two other players and Lucky. It also breaks your leg. Worse, it shatters your chips.

You’re broke.

Not only that, but when Lucky’s guts squirted out, they stained a very rich woman’s designer frock. You don’t even know what a frock is, but you know it’s probably pretty expensive.

As it turns out, they recorded this all on video.

It’s a casino, of course they did.

They link the fluffy to you and the families of the deceased decide to sue everyone involved. Including you, because, hey, gotta blame somebody, and there’s enough to go around. The casino countersues you just because. The rich woman also sues you for 2500 dollars to replace the frock, plus 25 million for emotional distress.

Also, your business sues you in the most obvious case for stealing the payroll money. You can’t afford a single thing. All of your belongings are sold off.  It barely makes a dent. You go to prison.

Someone’s getting confinement loaf tonight!

 


Note: I did NOT create Fluffy Pony. In fact, I don’t even know who did. I don’t know if anyone knows. Fluffy Pony, however, has grown into a big, collective project — for the fruits of this project, see Fluffybooru.org. Enhanced by Zemanta