Our Elephantine Equestria

Worldbuilding and writing by me, illustrations by White-Eyed Viero/Yellow Throated Warbler/whatever his other aliases may be

 

Main Document: https://files.catbox.moe/3gy46a.pdf

Addendum: https://files.catbox.moe/ucyu8t.pdf

Catbox links for now since smutty.horse is still in limbo

 

It's not like I planned on restricting access anyway, since that would be stupid, but I more than welcome any creative basing their story, drawings, animations, etc. in this fat equestria universe

sneed

Further updates will not feature illustrations as the working relationship with the artist has been terminated.

 

Text-only dump below so I'm not just using ponepaste as a link farm

 

Our Elephantine Equestria:

A Compendium

CONTENTS

Foreword ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5

About Me .................................................................................................................................................................... 5

A Rough Timeline ............................................................................................................................................................. 7

Agriculture, Medical Science, and how being Fat carries few consequences ........................................................................... 8

Equestrian food, diet, and cultural impact ........................................................................................................................ 10

Food intake ................................................................................................................................................................ 11

Food service types ...................................................................................................................................................... 15

Fast food ............................................................................................................................................................... 15

Cafés and diners .................................................................................................................................................... 17

Restaurants .......................................................................................................................................................... 18

Bakeries ................................................................................................................................................................ 20

Bars ...................................................................................................................................................................... 20

Grocery markets .................................................................................................................................................... 21

Long term effects of the new Equestrian lifestyle .............................................................................................................. 22

Everyday life .............................................................................................................................................................. 26

Effects on Lifespan ..................................................................................................................................................... 27

Reproduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 28

Technological Improvements ....................................................................................................................................... 29

Transport .............................................................................................................................................................. 29

Bathing ................................................................................................................................................................. 30

Medical ................................................................................................................................................................. 30

Entertainment ....................................................................................................................................................... 30

Furniture ............................................................................................................................................................... 31

Pony Subspecies and Obesity ........................................................................................................................................... 32

Deeper study .............................................................................................................................................................. 34

Earth Ponies and Crystal Ponies .............................................................................................................................. 35

Pegasi ................................................................................................................................................................... 35

Unicorns ............................................................................................................................................................... 36

Bat Ponies ............................................................................................................................................................. 37

Implementation in individual population centers ............................................................................................................... 37

Cloudsdale ................................................................................................................................................................. 38

Las Pegasus ............................................................................................................................................................... 38

Canterlot ................................................................................................................................................................... 38

Population Breakdown............................................................................................................................................ 39

Hierarchy............................................................................................................................................................... 39

Recent History: Era of Peace .................................................................................................................................... 40

Hierarchy, revisited: ................................................................................................................................................ 41

Long-term obesity effects and health ...................................................................................................................... 42

Foaledo ...................................................................................................................................................................... 43

Population Breakdown............................................................................................................................................ 43

Hierarchy............................................................................................................................................................... 43

Recent History: Era of Peace .................................................................................................................................... 43

Hierarchy, revisited: ................................................................................................................................................ 44

Long-term obesity effects and health ...................................................................................................................... 46

Ponyville ................................................................................................................................................................... 49

Population Breakdown............................................................................................................................................ 49

Hierarchy............................................................................................................................................................... 49

Recent History: Era of Peace .................................................................................................................................... 49

Hierarchy, revisited: ................................................................................................................................................ 50

Long-term obesity effects and health ...................................................................................................................... 50

Manehattan ............................................................................................................................................................... 50

Population Breakdown............................................................................................................................................ 50

Hierarchy............................................................................................................................................................... 51

Recent History: Era of Peace .................................................................................................................................... 51

Hierarchy, revisited: ................................................................................................................................................ 53

Long-term obesity effects and health ...................................................................................................................... 53

The Crystal Empire ..................................................................................................................................................... 54

Population Breakdown............................................................................................................................................ 54

Hierarchy............................................................................................................................................................... 54

Recent History: Era of Peace .................................................................................................................................... 54

Hierarchy, revisited: ................................................................................................................................................ 57

Long-term obesity effects and health ...................................................................................................................... 57

Fattest population centers in Equestria ........................................................................................................................ 57

Outside of Equestria........................................................................................................................................................ 58

Saddle Arabia............................................................................................................................................................. 58

Kirin Lands ................................................................................................................................................................ 58

Dragon lands ............................................................................................................................................................. 59

Griffon lands.............................................................................................................................................................. 59

Mobility assistance devices ............................................................................................................................................. 59

Mobility carts ............................................................................................................................................................ 60

Amulet of weight loss ................................................................................................................................................ 61

Closing remarks ............................................................................................................................................................. 62

FOREWORD

Welcome, traveler. Whether you have arrived here from another world, another land, or simply find yourself curious about how our fair land of Equestria and our near neighbors have changed from a land of Harmony to a land of Harmonic Obesity, let this compendium be your guide. My name is Sweet Scribe, and I have spent the past year traveling all over Equestria and our nearest neighbors learning and compiling how things came to be the way they are now. Please excuse any oddities in the writing or organization of this book, as my editors have had to transcribe many of these pages from my original drafts, after they had become stained with food or beverage. ABOUT ME

My name is Sweet Scribe, historian and author. I hail from Cloudsdale, home of my people, but quickly moved to Canterlot to pursue my interests, which are academic rather than militaristic or athletic. On this day, the finalization of the final draft of this book, I turn 27 years old. It has been just over 10 years of this new era of Equestria. After many years of study and a full year of in-person visits, I am ready to take a long break, find a stallion, and enjoy the joys of being a young mare before embarking on another quest such as this. My next research subject certainly will have nothing to do with food or obesity in any way, as I have had enough sampling dishes for a lifetime. At least, that is what I wished for. Instead, I believe I may need to dedicate research to Quik-Gro (I will explain this later) and its effects, as I am certain there is something sinister involved.

This paragraph has been included by decree of Princess Celestia. It was written at the start of my research project, and printed with updates as time has progressed. The following sentences, in quotation, are written precisely as dictated by Princess Celestia herself – she will deny it, but I swear it to be true. “I, Sweet Scribe, am a rather cute young Pegasus with a coat of gray and a mane of purple and pink. As I am digging into personal affairs and printing many town secrets for the world, I will hereby be declaring my body weight, up to the point at which I finish and publish this book. I, Sweet Scribe, weigh 250 295 340 370 412 480 (thank you very much Foaledo) 515 540 570 582 pounds.” I will note that I miss flying, but my last diet attempt amounted to me gaining that final twelve

pounds. At least these days, my stallion-in-waiting won‟t find that reprehensible. I am a citizen of this era like everypony else, after all!

An assistant of mine, Quick Writ, has accompanied me in my travels and provided these wonderful illustrations of the various locales and events around our new Equestria. Even with the technology of photography, there is something to be said about hoof-drawn depictions, and not just how much easier it is to put them to print! (I swear he drew more illustrations than he provided to me in the end. What could he be hiding?)

Figure 1: Author Sweet Scribe and Artist Quick Writ

A ROUGH TIMELINE

As cataloged later in this book, the capital of Equestria is a Ground Zero for the enlargement of the lands. Further study on the timeline and intricacies can be obtained by perusing my chapter on Canterlot later.

The eastern cities – Baltimare, Manehattan, and Fillydelphia – were the first to adapt the new culture, owing to their very large populations, abundance of resources, and local automated transport. The farmlands that provided the food for these urban areas were given blueprints for the spells and technology that Canterlot‟s farmlands used for rapid mass-growth of crops, and very quickly the prices of food in the cities dropped while the quality and irresistibility increased. The more advanced state of these cities allowed them to rapidly receive and spread news from Canterlot. Before citizens even had a chance of getting concerned about the slowly, but noticeably, expanding population, the lowliest worker and wealthiest executive alike were informed about the new, fashionable trend of excess blubber and overindulgence. It didn‟t take long after that for the new Canterlot culture to be universally adapted, though Baltimare remains somewhat less oversized than the others. Manehattan, meanwhile, is in an unannounced competition with Canterlot for which population has the most, and fattest, citizens.

Ponyville did not lag far behind the major population centers. With its near proximity to Canterlot, back and forth visitation, and farmlands, the culture and technology spread quite rapidly. The farmers and other physical labor ponies are simultaneously the fattest and most physically fit ponies in the town. Despite being further from the epicenter than many places, the Crystal Empire was next in line, owing to familial connections within the royal caste.

The rest of Equestria followed suit in a fairly linear fashion, dependent on the physical distance from Canterlot. Smaller villages and poorer locales adopted the new culture to a lesser degree. Even with the spells and enchanted items (a later invention to help spread the rapid and enhanced crop growth tech to locales with few or no unicorns) spread to every settlement, the quantity and effectiveness is rather low in such places due to various circumstances. A small settlement needs as many able bodied citizens as possible to maintain functionality, the tech costs money, etc. Larger population centers can afford to adopt it more strongly for the same reasons: they have the population and finances to adopt the new culture to a much greater extent. Surprisingly, some cities that are very far away from the Ground Zero of obesity adopted it even more strongly than anywhere else, with obesity rates nearly reaching 100% in cities such as Foaledo and Istanbull.

Neighboring nations to Equestria have adopted the culture as well, as evidenced by the aforementioned cities south of Equestria and in Saddle Arabia. Kirin, Zebras, Moose, Changelings, Yaks, and Dragons have willfully accepted the technology and cultural exports of Equestria due to a combination of positive advertising propaganda and a desire not to be seen as threats to the global peace all are currently enjoying.

AGRICULTURE, MEDICAL SCIENCE, AND HOW BEING FAT CARRIES FEW CONSEQUENCES

Author‟s note: Some of this information may also be present in later sections.

Details on the exact timing is obscured, but shortly before this new era, Princesses Celestia and Luna ordered Canterlot‟s Research and Development departments, both magical and scientific, to create an “agricultural revolution” that would make it trivial to quickly grow crops in utterly devastated land. While a potential doomsday scenario had never ultimately come to pass, this technology was released into the world shortly after the series of feasts that marked the beginning of the era of peace.

This invention, Quik-Gro, comes in spell, potion, and modified seed formats, as well as sounding like half the name of an Orc from the popular The Ancient Texts tabletop role-playing game series. Crops grown with either format – each works precisely the same, and differs only in format: spells for unicorns, and for earth ponies and us Pegasi, the potions are for existing crops and seeds for new crops – will grow in unprecedented ways. Crops will be 2-4 times as large, producing an equal amount of boost to their edible portions, and will grow from seed to harvestable plant in less than a week. They are greatly boosted in calories as well. Eating an equal portion of old and new plants will net you more than double the calories, while eating the whole of a new plant will net you 4-8 times the calories. In laymen‟s terms, consider a standard orange, grown in the forests south of Tartarus – roughly 300 calories. These fruits – already large in their original form – if grown with Quik-Gro, they could be as large as a standard watermelon and roughly 1200 calories. These oranges are very easy to eat and not very filling in any form. Anypony who has seen a bat pony, very fond of fruits, knows how many of those Quik-Gro oranges can be eaten in one sitting.

An unintentional side effect, which still has no identified root cause, caused this food to be irresistible. Nowhere is remotely as heavily affected as of Foaledo – we will discuss that cursed city more later – but it is undeniable that a good portion of the reason all of us eat like only the most gluttonous of ponies past ever had, with the expected effects on our bellies and rears, comes down to the mysterious features of Quik-Gro plants. Not even the creators or princesses have any idea what the cause is. It is indisputable that they are telling the truth, as they have testified their innocence under oath, while wearing the Amulet of Truth. By this point, it was already too late. Nopony but the most health-conscious citizens of Cloudsdale wanted to halt the Quik-Gro project. While outside the scope of this document, I believe it utterly terrifying, the possibility that a limited form of gluttonous mind control is applied to any creature that eats Quik-Gro food.

Author‟s note: Before any reader of a particular persuasion gets any ideas – no, drinking the potion will not make you gain weight at a rapid pace. It only affects plants in any positive way. A pony, or other creature, drinking it will only find themselves falling ill for a week. Sadly for me, this didn‟t work as a diet tool either. I lost weight from not eating for a whole week, but I just gained it back the following week, with interest.The Amulet of Truth, for those unaware, has also been proven to be an arbiter of absolute

truth. Even the strongest spellcasters known to ponykind have attempted to nullify the power of the amulet, going so far as to use the magic siphon (See: “A Study of how Cozy Glow and Tirek Nearly Damned Equestria” by Galerion the Wise) in a controlled environment. Even with zero magical power apparent in the sealed room, the archmage was unable to avoid telling the truth to any inquiry he was given.

While a scary bedtime story for foals in the modern era, for some time the overindulgence and weight gain caused a number of medical issues. Heart issues, circulation issues, blood sugar issues, even simply pain from skin struggling to grow to match the amount of fat many ponies were gaining from their excessive diets. The Canterlot Research & Development team was pulled off further work with Quik-Gro – just as well, as they seemed more intent on increasing the size, calories, and growth speed more than investigating the gluttony-inducing aspects (it is of note that they too engage in a diet of Quik-Gro food) – to work on a cure. While initially this medicine also came in spell and potion formats, these have largely been phased out entirely, with potion formats exported to areas outside Equestria that have only recently begun to use Quik-Gro and expand like we Equestrians have. Instead, this medicine is mixed in with the seasonings and oils we cook our food with, and integrated with Quik-Gro itself.

This medicine, “Gro-Assist”, has thankfully been very effective. Even in extreme cases among us, a perfectly clean bill of health is granted by doctors. Once again, testimonies given under oath, with the Amulet of Truth, provide credence to these claims. Now, the only health issues anypony has to worry about are careless eating leading to choking, and vastly overreaching one‟s own stomach capacity. Gro-Assist has since been updated to help with that. Choking can‟t be prevented with magic or medicines – only being mindful can – but a pony can be stopped from unintentionally killing themselves by bursting their stomach open if they‟re irresistibly thrust into a food coma before they reach that point. A terrifying thought, I know. Thankfully, I was not able to find a single record of any pony ever bursting their insides in Equestrian history, though a few had come dangerously close, with no choice but to wait perilously until their bodies digested the whole of the stomach‟s contents. While I cannot legally name the specific ponies in question, the extensive stretching of their stomachs had, as you can imagine, set them upon a path they have no hope of ever returning from. Of that group, only two ponies are even able to move at all, while the others have grown so fat as to lose all mobility years ago.

Author‟s note: I spoke with all ten of these ponies. What I am allowed to reveal, under condition of anonymity, is that not one of these ponies has any regrets. They do not wish to have any attention brought to them by this book, and only feel comfortable being included in any manner because the number of ponies in an immobile or near-immobile state is large enough these days to provide an adequate smokescreen. They were scared by the predicament, but are overall actually happy that they can eat so much and have grown so massive they fill entire rooms.

Another pony, separate from this group, is a graduate from Celestia‟s School of Magic. He gained 200 pounds in 1 year after his graduation. I happened to be present when he walked into the laboratory both before and after starting Gro-Assist in its trial stages. The difference was like night and day: He was practically on death‟s doorstep the first visit, while the next his only negative symptoms were being drenched in sweat and out of breath – from walking to the laboratory all the way from the other end of

town. He had also gained over a hundred pounds more. He invited me to lunch after the test. I went. He ate like he was trying to put on a hundred more before year‟s end. He was nice, and seemed to think I was cute even though I was around 350 pounds at the time. Unfortunately, he‟s much, much too large for me.

Unfortunately, I cannot go into detail about this either, as it is currently in development. In addition to objects like mobility carts that I can mention in detail (this is covered later on), enhancements are being researched to assist with mobility for our decreasingly mobile population. EQUESTRIAN FOOD, DIET, AND CULTURAL IMPACT

I‟m sure few are not already aware of this particular aspect of modern life in Equestria. However, it is worth documenting as anything else – both for historical record and for greater knowledge. Much of the knowledge contained here, in this edition of the book, is admittedly learned primarily from Canterlot. With only two weeks spent in each city I visited, plus travel time, there was little time to find significant differences in other population centers that are worth specifically pointing out. All that could really be mentioned is that Manehattan and Foaledo, especially Foaledo, are much stronger in suggesting larger portion sizes and quantities.

Restaurants, cafes, and bakeries were commonplace even before the era of peace. With obesity becoming commonplace, their importance has skyrocketed. Chefs, bakers, line workers, farmers, and grocery store employees gain a level of respect previously reserved for doctors and nurses. These businesses are even more important than grocery markets, particularly for the exceptionally large Equestrians who may be too lazy or encumbered to wander around a market, stocking multiple carts of food while refraining from eating their fill right then and there. For this reason, designated shoppers, thinner (but still quite plump) ponies hired to perform the shopping and deliver the goods to their employers‟ homes, have also become respected working class members.

Figure 2 A Chef at work, with assistance from his much thinner wife.

The full diet of food from our old world is still a staple of our new diet. However, the portions are considerably larger. A pony that would previously eat a daisy sandwich with a side of apple slices for lunch may now eat four or six daisy sandwiches, with double the amount of daisies in them, with a side of apple slices from a half dozen apples. Add a couple slices of cake or pastries on top of that. Food has a considerably higher tendency to be prepared in a calorie-boosting manner. Using the same lunch example, those daisy sandwiches may deep fry the daisies and/or drench them in dressings such as oil and vinegar or ranch. Those apple slices may be deep fried as well, and/or served with a large bowl of delectable caramel. Of course, some ponies have taken to diets that consist of hayburgers and cake. I‟ve even met a few who legitimately eat nothing but desserts. You‟d be surprised to hear they aren‟t exclusively in the 99th percentile! FOOD INTAKE

The Equestrian Diet, as mentioned, has undergone a significant cultural change regarding the quantity of food that is considered appropriate to ingest, and the acceptability of overeating. Being a glutton is no longer considered uncouth or troublesome, though taking that to an extreme has a similar reaction basic gluttony created in the old system. Examples are provided as guidelines for the level of fullness are derived from the old ways, as most ponies recall those times and can more easily draw comparisons from that.

Exact numbers are a complex calculation based on the individual pony‟s size, stomach capacity, and willingness to overindulge, so we will focus instead on defining stages by percentages of one‟s stomach capacity. Each stage will be defined according to three groups: average, gluttonous, and exceptionally gluttonous. These are: Regular everyday ponies in the new paradigm, ponies that like and eat more food than usual, and those culinary hedonists that you may know of as “gainers”.

Regular ponies will be designated by a filled dot. Gluttons will be designated by an unfilled dot. Extreme gluttons will be designated by a filled square. Coming up with ways to describe some levels for the latter categories without simply repeating myself was difficult, so some stages are written as if a pony from that group were describing their feelings.

 0%: The stomach is empty. The pony is hungry.

o The stomach is empty. The pony, rarely reaching this state, is very hungry, and afflicted by hunger pangs. Mood worsens, and the pony feels weak. Recovery is as simple as feeding the pony.

 The stomach is empty. The pony, rarely reaching this state, becomes voracious and may experience psychosis as well as intense hunger pangs. No known cases exist where a pony in this state has tried to eat another pony or non-edible objects, but a pony in this state will seek out whatever food it can find, even if it has to break into another pony‟s house or business to get it. Discarded food in trash receptacles, rare as that may be these days, can be a target as well. They have strength and agility unusual for somepony of their stature, attributed to the body undergoing an extreme fight-or-flight adrenaline rush due to its gained reliance on extreme consumption. Again, this is an exceptionally rare situation.

 30%: The stomach is mildly sated. This is like eating a granola bar: it will stem the hunger and keep you going, but it‟s hardly enough.

o The stomach may as well be empty. The pony is used to eating another meal or snacks by the time this stage is reached, and is going to want to eat very soon.

 The stomach may as well be empty. The pony is used to eating another meal or snacks by the time this stage is reached, and is going to be depressed or miserable if not fed very soon.

 55%: The stomach is decently sated. This is like eating a bowl of cereal or a sandwich. It can be enough, but the pony will want more.

o The stomach is lightly sated. After eating enough to reach this level, the pony feels like they‟ve only eaten a small appetizer. The pony wants more.

 The stomach is lightly sated. After eating enough to reach this level, the pony feels like they‟ve only eaten a small appetizer. The pony really wants more. They‟re desperate for more, and can be moody if they‟re only fed this much.

 70%: The stomach is pretty full. This is like eating a bowl of cereal with pop tarts, or two sandwiches. The pony is ok, but will want more.

o The stomach is decently sated. After eating enough to reach this level, the pony feels like they‟ve eaten an appetizer and the first entrée. They will expect at least two more entrées after this.

 The stomach is decently sated. After eating enough to reach this level, the pony feels like they‟ve eaten an appetizer and the first entrée. They will expect at least three more entrées after this. Or four. Or five. Plus dessert.

 90%: The stomach is full, but won‟t feel full for a few more moments. This is like eating a double cheeseburger with a side of fries, and preparing to wash it down with a banana split. The pony can, and likely will, eat more.

o The stomach is full to its normal capacity. The pony will still expect dessert, and maybe another entrée or second helping of dessert. Many ponies in this category will attempt to never be less full than this level.

 The stomach is full to its normal capacity. The pony will still demand more. They are not satisfied yet.

 100%: The stomach is more than full, and the mind has caught up to that fact. This is like finishing that banana split and going home. The pony is generally done eating, unless compelled to continue. (Example: a friend is pushing you to eat some dessert.) Because the stomach is past its normal capacity, it will technically begin stretching its capacity over time.

o Fullness is no obstacle.

 Fullness is part of the fun.

A note for this level of fullness: due both to the Quik-Gro plant ingredients and the delay between being “full” and the brain becoming cognizant of this fact, just about everypony eats until they‟re this full. For that reason, this is labeled “100% full”, despite being full enough to slowly expand our stomach capacities and gradually continuously gain weight.

 110%: The stomach is stuffed. The pony doesn‟t want to eat anymore. At this level and above, the stomach‟s regular capacity is exceeded, but is able to safely (if uncomfortably) temporarily expand further. This does lead to permanent capacity expansion, but not to the exact extent the temporary expansion reaches.

o The pony is done with their meal, but has dessert to look forward to. I‟m so full, but so hungry. Where‟s dessert? Don‟t hold back!

 The pony still has an entrée left, let alone multiple dessert servings. I‟m not even close to finished yet. Many ponies in this category make an effort to never be less full than this level.

 130%: The stomach is engorged. The pony is so full it hurts, and wanted to stop eating a while ago. This is sufficiently full to prevent a restaurant from believing the pony is being rude.

o The pony finished their dessert, and is completely satisfied. The pony may still want some extra dessert.

 The pony has dived into the dessert portion of their meal, no less voracious than before even as their belly shows signs of strain.

 150%: The stomach is pushed to its real limits. The pony wants to know why you‟re still feeding it. It hurts. Some ponies that are fed this full may convert into one of the other two groups.

o The pony has overdone it, even for their tendencies. Ponies in this group usually only go this far on very special occasions. While painfully full, it can still feel pleasurable.

 The pony has finished an appetizer, an eight course meal, three courses of dessert, and still wants more. You think the pony is crazy. They‟re ecstatic. Aroused, even.

 200%: The absolute, real limits. The pony‟s stomach is actually going to burst open if they eat any more. Even breathing more than shallow breaths is a great concern. While levels above 100% can be reached by normal ponies on special events, restaurant visits, or eating with a pushy gluttonous friend, fullness level 160-200% are only reached by this group if the pony is under hypnosis or is being genuinely forcefed. Deviousness that does not exist in this world anymore would be needed to push past this point. This will lead to a considerable increase in stomach capacity and subsequently considerable weight gain.

o The pony is in pain and has gone far beyond what even they thought possible. Gluttons that eat themselves to this level will invariably re-evaluate their lives, and choose between two options: Quitting their gluttonous ways, or going even further beyond. The former option rarely lasts long, and the pony returns to being a glutton- but will still be more wary of reaching this level of fullness again. The latter option is a slower process, where the glutton slowly becomes more and more of an extreme glutton.

 Any fullness-related pain is received instead as sexual pleasure. The pony is overcome with orgasmic pleasure and may express it in that way, depending on the publicity of the location and how shameless the pony is. The pony is going to gain weight. The pony‟s stomach capacity is going to stretch even larger. The pony, even if they‟re a beginner and barely 40 pounds fatter than the old ways‟ average weight range, is temporarily immobilized by their sheer mass. And yet, the pony still wants more. In occasional fits of delirium, the pony may imagine continuing to engorge themselves, growing bigger than the room they are in in real time. To date, no pony has managed to actually eat more

than this and die as a result of the rupture, while less than a dozen cases exist where a pony had managed to shove another piece of food down and had to be rescued by emergency medical staff. Each case happened to involve a unicorn and a team of unicorn medics that had been alerted before the pony had eaten this much.

Author‟s note: I have personally experienced that final category. Unsurprisingly, it was during my trip to Foaledo. Ok, a few times in Manehattan as well. With the amount of weight I‟ve gained in the month I‟ve spent back here in Canterlot, as well as the weight gained after Foaledo, I can certainly attest to the permanent stomach capacity increase.

In summation, a scale between lightly overeating and moderately stuffing one‟s self is considered normal. Heavily stuffing one‟s self is seen as gluttonous, but not particularly in a negative light. Overzealous gluttony is regarded with an abundance of caution and concern, with a near-equal amount of awe.

Contrary to how it may seem, this ultraglutton “gainer” group isn‟t a disease, mental illness, or form of possession. It‟s easily possible for an extreme glutton to cut back to either of the other categories, and many do once they reach a goal weight. This does not, however, stop ponies from believing the afflicted pony to be in one of these states. For sure, one that goes to this extreme certainly appears possessed or ill, and often a large percentage of their personality appears to fade. However, there is no solid evidence supporting this in most ponies or locales. The lone exception appears, once again, to be Foaledo. That is, however, a theory. FOOD SERVICE TYPES

FAST FOOD

A staple of any glutton‟s diet, the fast food restaurant is a highly popular choice for its low price, almost addictively delicious offerings, and its contribution to the new preferred body shape of choice. The food isn‟t very filling, true to what you may know about fast food, and its cost savings can easily be outweighed by the sheer size of the order a pony may place. Delivery services are available. A meal can cost from 5-80 bits, depending on how gluttonous a pony is.

Figure 3 The logos and signature dishes of the two most popular fast food restaurants.

 Burger Princess: A hayburger franchise that is home to the Princess Burger: an 8 deepfried haypatty feast smothered with ketchup, melted cheese, mayonnaise, and layered with horseshoe fries between each patty; 4.5 pounds , 5,100 calories. The franchise and its famous burger are named for Princess Twilight, and is the go-to place for hayburgers, fries, and thick milkshakes.

o It is rare to see a regular patron of Burger Princess that weighs less than 600 pounds. As crazy as it sounds, a significant number of Princess Burger fans order two or more of these monstrocities, and finish them in one sitting!

 Hay Burger: An older, more established hayburger franchise. Its menu is largely the same as Burger Princess, albeit with slightly different recipes and cheaper food. This franchise is bigger in

more rural locations like Ponyville. Hay Burger held a contest to get a Princess Burger competitor in hopes of getting an upper hoof over Burger Princess. The winner was the Big Macintosh, named for the Sweet Apple Acres patriarch. A collaboration between the Apple family and Big Mac‟s wife, Sugar Belle, the Big Macintosh combines 10 haypatties completely drenched in cheese and mayonnaise arranged in a dual-layer pentagon, with two large buns made of cream-filled cake. 6 pounds, 7,800 calories. The cake buns, of course, are made with apple juice in place of water and the cream contains small diced pieces of apple.

o Author‟s note: I will admit, to my embarrassment, my preference for this franchise, as concerns fast food dining. The cost savings are minimal, but present, and the Big Macintosh is surprisingly compelling. Even I have felt tempted to order a second after somehow managing to cram down the first. Luckily, my mind has, so far, been able to recognize that I‟m more than full before I can make it back to the counter to place the order.

 SubsExpress: A railway-themed sub shop offering “healthier” deli subs. The healthiness is suspect at best, as each sub is a footlong for the foal‟s meal, and a four foot long sandwich smothered in a variety of dressings and served with sides like large bags of chips and gallon mugs of very sweet tea. Some “health conscious” ponies might smugly smirk at some fatter pony wolfing down a 9,000 calorie meal at another restaurant while snacking on their 6,000 calorie lunch.

o Author‟s note: This would be my favorite place, were it actually healthy as advertised.

 General Blaze‟s Kirin Buffet: A highly successful Kirin delicacy restaurant, created by Blazing Spring (not a real general), General Blaze‟s Kirin Buffet was the first introduction of Kirin food to mainland Equestria. Offering everything Kirin from curries to rice dishes, the buffet grew to such popularity; the restaurant became a franchise, available all over Equestria. Prices are cheap, portion are enormous, and despite being called a buffet, only the most gluttonous can stomach their first portion in one sitting, let alone get up for more. Blazing Spring and his son Spring Volcano, weighing over 880 and 940 pounds respectively, adorn all branding, intending to show just how irresistible the restaurant‟s offerings are. Meals, if one can even finish them, can range from 6,000 to a whopping 30,000 calories. Regular customers are, without exception, exceptionally rotund.

CAFÉS AND DINERS

A diner in Era of Peace Equestria is just like a restaurant, but cheaper and far more casual. Diners cover each of the primary trio of meals, even in an era where a pony may engage in 6+ meals a day. While casual in atmosphere and prices, diners are serious in portion. For a cost higher than a Princess Burger run, but less than any given full-fledged restaurant, a patron may find themselves relaxing for hours after their meal ended, or asking somepony for help squeezing out of the undersized booth or strained stray seat they got wedged into. Diners also omit any form of snooty minimum intake requirements a restaurant may have.

A café has a similar casual atmosphere, but is more intended as a place to hang out and chat or work on projects. Coffee, tea, and smoothies are the primary selling points of these places, but they do offer pastries, sandwiches, and other lighter delicacies. Of course, it would be wholly inaccurate to say it‟s difficult for a pony to engorge themselves at a café. A “light” sandwich still weighs a minimum of 800 calories, and the beverages can and will be filled with enough sugar and creamer to be fattening on their own. A particularly popular coffee made with beans from Saddle Arabia is so stuffed full of creamer, sugar, and whipped cream, a large mug is worth 3,000 calories.

Famous diners and cafés:

 Café Hay

 The Tasty Treat

 Joe‟s Donut Shop

 Tealove‟s Tea Room

 Cinnamon Chai‟s Tea and Cake

Author‟s note: Cinnamon Chai‟s Tea and Cake is a personal favorite, and where I get a lot of my writing done. Recently, they‟ve been running a special: you get up to three complimentary slices of cake per visit, so long as you purchase something

RESTAURANTS

Big prices, even bigger portions. These sit-in restaurants are designed for customers who want the best of the best, an astoundingly large meal, and are willing to pay for it- and soak in the atmosphere for a few hours. Loved by the wealthy and particularly large for the quality and quantity of foods, these places unfortunately do not offer delivery services, and can be cumbersome to reach, enter, or fit in for particularly large customers. This makes it a bit odd to consider: these establishments operate as if the entire intent is to fatten their customers up and appeal to the very wealthy and very, very portly, but do little to make it easier for their clearly intended patrons to partake. Some ponies I‟ve spoken to claim it‟s part of the experience, to make the “whales with floor-touching bellies” really, truly feel as big as they wish to.

Author‟s note: My publisher took me to one to celebrate the completion of this book and its impending publication. While I‟ll admit the food more than lives up to its reputation, and the place we visited was “safe” (the chef was wider than three of his ovens side by side!), my publisher and myself (I‟ve got a hundred pounds on him, regrettably) were measured to be the thinnest patrons to visit the restaurant, a stone‟s throw away from the royal palace, My publisher could hardly fit in the booth, while I couldn‟t fit at all. The waiter had to lead us to a table with small, if at least structurally sound, chairs , after making loud remarks teasing me about the size of my belly. How embarrassing! Even surrounded by patrons that had to sit on cushions on the floor or their own bellies, my face was beet red until the meal started.

Each restaurant is independently owned and staffed. Borrowing ideas from old sayings and the popularity of General Blaze‟s branding, chefs are expected to engage in frequent taste testing and maintain very portly bodies. The average chef, as a result, weighs over 700 pounds, even if it impacts a non-Unicorn chef‟s ability to work.

A skinny chef is considered a sign either of poor quality food, or of devious intent. In the latter case, this is a very real concern: There are restaurants with thin chefs who will knowingly and intentionally do such things as quintuple the amount of butter in a recipe and “encourage” patrons to glut themselves into a food coma, then gaslight the fattened, sleepy pony into eating a dessert nearly as big as the meal itself, despite having never ordered it. Most patrons are taken by surprise and never return, but there exists a sizable (in at least one way) minority of patrons that rather enjoy the experience, and make return trips as long as they‟re physically capable of doing so.

A meal at a restaurant can cost 150 bits on the low end, and can reach such heights as thousands of bits at the higher ends. A regular restaurant will fill you with 10,000-25,000 calorie feasts, while those secret devilish restaurants can and will push you as close to 100,000+ as ponily possible.

Figure 4 A unicorn greatly enjoying a feast at a restaurant. This depicts both the portion size one can expect at a restaurant, and what one can expect a common patron of a restaurant to look like.

BAKERIES

Bakeries: The cream of the crop. The other staple of any glutton‟s diet. Candies, cookies, cakes, pastries, pies, delicacies of all kinds- and boring, everyday things like bread. Some bakeries operate like restaurants, providing in-house seating, but most offer a small front-end meant for grab-and-go. All offer delivery services. A small handful of franchises technically exist in the bakery category, but they are factory bakeries that churn out product for grocery markets. Otherwise, bakeries are like restaurants: independent shops only.

Bakers are held to the same standards as chefs, if not more stringent. They know, with the way ponies eat in the modern era, that their food is meant to be practically addicting and definitely fattening. Constant taste testing is in demand. A baker can easily weigh over 850 pounds, with some Unicorn bakers opting to grow so fat they physically can‟t do their jobs without using magic to do everything. Like with chefs, a skinny baker is trouble. They‟re seen as either poor at their craft, a health nut making snacks for a shrinking minority of other health nuts and the rare dieting pony that felt being winded walking from one room to another was a bit overboard, or a devious devil feeder.

Famous bakeries include:

 Sugarcube corner

 Canterlot Confectionaries

 The Dragon‟s Den: a combination nightclub and bakery, home of the one-ton baker, sexy pole dancers that make the poles and stage tremble under their weight, and a variety of musical performances, including an up and coming DJ whose popularity is growing almost as fast as her gut.

 Silver Whisk Café

BARS

Who could forget one of the longest living pastimes in any society‟s histories? A bar, tavern, saloon, whatever name you choose, has not changed too much since the days of old. Tired ponies drag themselves in after a long day, and stumble out with a belly full of liquor and trashy food. As I‟m sure you‟ve already guessed, the ponies these days are much bigger, drink almost exponentially more to get the same effects, and now it is exceedingly rare for one to not order food with their drinks.

A visit to a bar is second only to a restaurant or a particularly excessive dessert binge in terms of fattening potential. The liquor hasn‟t changed one bit since the old days, but the calories certainly add up after ingesting enough mead, beer, or hard liquor to get that drunken feeling you‟re seeking. The food, on the other hoof, is very deceptive. The type of food served at these locations has long been trashy, greasy, unhealthy slop that goes great with beer. In terms of appearance, taste, and feeling, that hasn‟t changed. What has changed is under the hood, so to speak. Like any other form of food production, bar food uses the new Quik-Gro and Gro-Assist technology. As concerns caloric density and healthiness, this food was,

for a period of time, on par with fast food restaurant food. However, to keep the level of greasiness needed for it to go well with beer and other such drinks, bar cooks have taken to adding sticks of butter, sticks of lard, or even both to just about everything. A triple cheeseburger at a fast food restaurant can run around 800 calories, with a side of fries around 450. The same meal at a bar can easily run over 1600 calories for the burger alone!

Figure 5 A particularly portly pony who brought his Canterlot body and appetite to an Appaloosan saloon. At the time, Appleloosa had not adopted the culture and technology more populous areas of Equestria used, and were not used to anything depicted here.

GROCERY MARKETS

Grocery markets, as one may expect, are standard grocery stores by another name. Compared to other food markets, these have changed the least with the culture shift – That is, a pony freed from some form of stasis would be less taken aback by a grocery market than they would at the sight of ponies engorging their rotund guts at a restaurant.

Open air markets, colloquially known as farmers‟ markets, have booths placed further apart with a greater amount of stock in each booth. Enclosed stores typically remain in the same buildings they used before, rarely expanding. Instead, the back storage rooms have been converted to additional aisle space. Aisles are bigger to accommodate the larger citizens, and are packed with more snacks and fatty foods to accommodate the expected changes in diet. Aisles are twice as wide as the standard grocery store market

you might be familiar with, but are considered to be held to a one-way travel system to make it easier for everypony to get through. Carts have also been expanded to hold considerably more food and fill more of the aisle space, helping maintain this one-way traffic flow. Even still, many shoppers carry along two or three carts.

Despite the accommodations, especially those provided by the rare new supermarket with huge buildings, grocery markets encounter issues with the size of their patrons. Some ponies are too fat to waddle around the store to gather everything without depleting their stamina reserves partway through, while some are too fat to even fit in the larger aisles. In response to this, two industries were born: Shoppers and Delivery.

“Shoppers” are ponies who, while varying levels of blimpy themselves, are capable of walking the aisles pushing the carts all day and delivering them to ponies stationed outside, be they customers or Delivery employees. The customers in question tend to be those who are able to get to and from the store but are either too fat to fit in the aisles or too fat to have the stamina to walk in the store, or just too lazy to do either. Shoppers are employed by the grocery markets themselves, in a similar capacity to the employees that return and clean grocery carts. Shoppers are a mix of each pony race: Earth ponies for their strength and endurance, Pegasi who can still fly (or have gotten too fat to fly and want to try losing weight), and Unicorns who abhor physical labor, but can cheat most of the heavy lifting with magic.

“Delivery” are ponies who, as you‟d expect from their name, deliver groceries to the homes of ponies that are too fat, too busy, or too lazy to go shopping on their own. Delivery are staffed exclusively by Earth ponies, being the only race with the strength and endurance to drag heavily loaded carts and their own bodies across town. Delivery employees work for independent courier businesses or larger shipping companies as a subdivision dedicated to food delivery.

Grocery markets undergo nightly restocking, as needed to prevent a total loss of stock. The rearmost aisles, formerly the stock rooms, are restocked throughout the day directly from shipment caravans. As I‟m sure you have already guessed, these aisles are the snack aisles. A pony may go grocery shopping 1-3 times a week, and unless they‟re the rare health nut or a Cloudsdale Pegasus, the amount of food purchased in each trip is staggeringly high. The volume purchased per pony, let alone the volume purchased for a family or household, is so high one wouldn‟t expect there to even be room to visit any type of restaurant. One would clearly be wrong. With Quik-Gro in place, prices are so low even an intern‟s salary allows them to easily purchase a week‟s worth of meals with snacks galore without impacting their budget.

LONG TERM EFFECTS OF THE NEW EQUESTRIAN LIFESTYLE

After a decade of the Era of Peace, the lifestyle of culinary hedonism has become so normalized that it is treated as if it were the way of life for centuries. While an oversimplified statement would be

“they got fat”, the combination of normalized gluttony, nearly octupled agricultural output, and recipe changes has set Equestria on a potentially indefinite weight gain reality. Even a “normal” food intake is technically enough to exceed an individual‟s BMR and slowly increase their stomach capacity. It is not currently known at which point these will plateau, and at the moment everypony from newborn foals to the elderly alike is continuously gaining weight. No small level of concern exists regarding this fact, considering the population is already very significantly elephantine after a single decade.

While regional weights are more strongly defined in individual region documents, an overall look at the effects on each race at this point is presented below. The weight ranges listed are the most commonly reported ranges. Excepting Alicorns, some ponies exist below the listed ranges. This section focuses on the three primary races and our Alicorn leaders, while subsequent subsections will detail some other races and species.

Whether natural or influenced by other means, the reaction to the new normal is nearly universally positive. There are many ponies like me who abhor being so fluffy (yet somehow can‟t seem to shed the weight), but the majority are quite happy with their new forms and the lifestyle they now get to enjoy. Admittedly, it is refreshing to no longer have to watch what you eat or mind the size of your belly to avoid negative reception from your peers. However, the opposite problem has appeared in some small groups: some ponies now face negative reception from being too thin.

 Alicorns

o There are a total of five Alicorns as of this writing. Due to the small population numbers, each known individual will be listed. All of the Alicorns have provided, in writing, permissions to publish this data in this book, although Celestia added the condition that I publish my own.

 Celestia: 1892 lbs

 One would expect her love of cakes to make her even fatter. She is still steadily gaining weight.

 Luna: 2142 lbs

 Luna lives a lifestyle that explains her size quite well: In addition to “catching up with” 1000 years of culinary trends she missed, she lives her new life as a layabout, for lack of a better term: Spending all day eating and playing games. She is still steadily gaining weight at a brisk pace.

 Twilight: 2875 lbs

 Princess Twilight has been a huge feedee ever since that fateful day at Sweet Apple Acres, and is very happy to be able to freely engage in it. Even at her stupendous size, she is gaining weight at a fairly quick pace. She is first in line for a top of the line weight loss amulet, both because she wants to bear a few foals and so she can “relive the experience again”.

 Cadence: 1912 lbs

 Shining loves „em big, and who can say no to love? Of course, he‟s hardly thin himself these days.

 Flurry Heart: 850 lbs

 The appetite of a young mare/older filly knew no bounds even in the old days. She has been gaining weight rather quickly.

 Unicorns

o Old weight range: 175-275 lbs

o New weight range: 300-2000+ lbs

o Most common weight range: 600-850 lbs

 Unicorns are the fattest non-Alicorn race, owing to their ability to compensate for mass with magic and their lack of inherent need to use physical force. Unicorns‟ magic prowess varies just like any other kind of prowess, but every Unicorn at least knows basic spells like telekinesis. With the ability to eat an eight course meal without ever leaving the bed, it‟s unsurprising this race has become the fattest group possible. No Unicorns exist that with any body type other than fat, with the lightest unicorns still being considered chubby by old standards: 25 pounds heavier than the highest tier of the old accepted weight range. However, the only ponies that weigh any less than 400 pounds are small sections of the Canterlot upper class. While some muscle development occurs as a result of a unicorn having to move their own body weight around, 99% of their weight past the 175-275 pound range they would have in another timeline consists of pure lard. Two 800 pound Unicorns will look nearly identical, with their differences in body shape determined only by sex, height, and their body shape (e.g. apple vs pear).

 Earth Ponies

o Old weight range: 250-350 lbs

o New weight range: 550-2000+ lbs

o Most common weight range: 680-950 lbs

 Earth ponies are second only to Unicorns in terms of sheer gluttony and obesity. Their lack of magic or special appendages makes the more massive weights considerably more unwieldy, but technically speaking they are not as fat as the Unicorns, despite weighing more. An Earth pony‟s natural strength comes with higher muscle mass, so a considerable amount of their weight, even if they‟re ravenous layabouts, comes from their musculature. Earth ponies are more varied in body type. While all of them would be considered portly, Earth ponies have a considerably higher muscle mass due to their primary occupations. Two 800 pound Earth ponies could look completely different: One may very visibly be a lazy gluttonous blob, while the other could have strongly defined musculature that is visible even with his excess blubber, while having a big spherical blubbery belly that extends past his knees.

 For comparison purposes: A 2000 pound Unicorn blob might remain mobile if he has a heavy duty cart to place his belly on, and has the magical prowess to cast a strength buffing or feather spell. A 2000 pound Earth pony is no less of a blob, and may still need a cart to move his belly out of the way and allow his hooves to each the ground, but can still move purely of his own volition.

 Pegasi

o Old weight range: 125-225 lbs

o New weight range: 125-2000+ lbs

o Most common weight range (Cloudsdale): 125-350 lbs

o Most common weight range (Elsewhere): 230-700 lbs

 Pegasi are the most varied race, and the only race to still have a sizable portion – let alone existent – population that hasn‟t grown fat at all. Our culture, lack of physical strength or magical powers, and reliance on being able to fly for our racial abilities, leads most Pegasi to remain somewhat fit. However, even in Cloudsdale, some Pegasi have been growing between chubby and mildly porcine- but only enough to make flight more difficult and tiring, not impossible. Due to the requirement of Pegasi to modify the weather, it has become law that Cloudsdale citizens must be physically capable of performing weather manipulation duties without issue, with a strict weight limit of 280 pounds.

 As a way to strongly encourage maintaining a large population of fit Pegasi to maintain weather cycles, fatter Pegasi are given a choice of losing weight with an enforced diet and exercise plan, moving to the small villages near weather factories, or being exiled to the rest of Equestria.

 A Pegasus can weigh around 600 pounds without encountering issues with walking on clouds (though they will sink in significantly, especially their belly), so Pegasi between 280 and 580 pounds have the option to work in the weather factories, something that doesn‟t require much flight. These are usually Pegasi that are objectively fairly gluttonous, but aren‟t intentionally fattening themselves up and “can‟t help it”.

 Pegasi that grow to 600+ pounds are almost exclusively the actual, genuine gluttons of the race, and may or may not care about being able to fly. These ponies are exiled from Cloudsdale and stripped of all worldly possessions, allowed only to return if they lose enough weight. This is enough to discourage most Pegasi from becoming gluttons. Even the fattest Pegasus can still “fly” with enough cloud mass holding them up, but the potential climate impact of fabricating sufficient clouds to allow each enormous Pegasus to continue flying, plus the effort and pony-hours required, put that idea off the table. Pegasi that are so gluttonous

and enamored with obesity they‟d be willing to give everything up for it are rare, but also account for some of the fattest ponies in Equestria, let alone their race.

Doctors and scientists all over Equestria estimate that given the current trends, Equestria will grow even fatter. For fun, here is an estimate for the state of Equestria in 20 years.

 Alicorns

o Celestia: 2450 lbs

o Luna: 2985 lbs

o Twilight: 4875 lbs

o Cadence: 3912 lbs

o Flurry Heart: 3850 lbs

 Unicorns

o Classic weight range: 175-275 lbs

o New weight range: 600-3000+ lbs

o Most common weight range: 800-1250 lbs

 Earth Ponies

o Classic weight range: 250-350 lbs

o New weight range: 750-2000+ lbs

o Most common weight range: 880-1050 lbs

 Pegasi

o Classic weight range: 125-225 lbs

o New weight range: 125-2000+ lbs

o Most common weight range (Cloudsdale): 125-450 lbs

o Most common weight range (Elsewhere): 285-900 lbs EVERYDAY LIFE

Despite what one might think, reading this or seeing our fair land in person, Equestrian life involves more than lazing around engorging one‟s illustrious self. Some very rich ponies can do that, but most still have obligations and employment to contend with, each impacted in its own way by the exuberance of adipose. Chronicling each individual profession would be excessive even for this document, so we will stick with some examples.

 Bakers and Chefs

o As previously detailed, these positions are expected to have a surplus of corpulence. The ideal member is so large it becomes difficult to fit in or move around the kitchen or manipulate cooking utensils, but everypony makes do. They are now considered “heroes” by much of the population.

 Author‟s note: It is not currently known when or even why the concept of “never trust a skinny chef” evolved into such an extreme state that a chef is all but

legally required to weigh so much their apron-adorned bellies drag on the floor. Interestingly, every chef and baker I‟ve spoken to is bothered only by the extra effort required to work in the kitchen, and the cramped kitchen spaces. None are bothered by their size. Even an old friend of mine, who was quite the athlete just a decade ago, is all smiles about weighing over 900 pounds and scarcely being able to waddle between the kitchen and her bedroom mere yards away. Is this related to Quik-Gro?

 Desk jobs: librarians, accountants, computational positions, teaching, etc.

o These jobs are very easy to gain weight in, involving little to no physical labor while sitting in place for 8 hours a day. Difficulties involve fitting in chairs without breaking them, contending with their bellies getting in the way of the desk.

Author‟s note: as I write this, I lay on a couch and balance this book, an ink well, and the top of an old school desk on my belly, waiting for a replacement desk. With all our advancements, seating rated for a 400 pound capacity is still only good at holding up 400 pounds.

 Farming

o This profession is fairly considerably impacted by the current era. Many Earth ponies that would otherwise perform farming work have grown too fat to do any of the in-field work. Unicorns that used to do farming (primarily small farms or personal gardens. Both Unicorns and Pegasi were able to be self-sustainable before the alliance with Earth ponies, as you should recall) have universally grown too fat to do any proper farming. With the abundance of food and work done by Earth ponies, Unicorns will at most tend to a personal decorative garden through magic alone. Pegasi are as equally split with still tending to sky gardens and farms, and with being too fat to do so. Those that are too fat to do so are also too fat to stay in Cloudsdale or its weather factories.

o This remains primarily a profession of the Earth Pony, among those who haven‟t grown themselves to 4/5 of a ton or larger. The slowness of their work is made up for by the rapid crop growth. These tend to be the heaviest earth ponies around, combining enormous muscle mass with a glut of corpulence and an appetite that rivals the fattest Canterlot citizens. The fattest farmers that still work the fields, ones whose bellies are nearly reaching or lightly reach the ground (as in, it doesn‟t spread heavily across the ground between all four legs like they‟re sitting on a balloon filled with 900 pounds of fat) will shamelessly use their guts to pack seeds into the soil, which doubles as a sort of mating ritual for any interested onlookers.

o As previously mentioned, Quik-Gro has made much farmwork relatively trivial. The rapid growth speed and crop turnover has quite prominently canceled out this benefit, and most farms have taken to adopting technology to assist with planting and harvesting crops. EFFECTS ON LIFESPAN

While it is currently too soon to make a definitive statement, the effects of this new lifestyle are not currently projected to negatively impact expected lifespan. With Gro-Assist in our food, it is theorized that there may be a positive impact by some doctors, citing the additive‟s effects as healing and preventing health issues that existed previously. Suffice to say, significant negative health effects and decrease of life expectancy can be expected if a pony fails to properly take care of themselves. Luckily, even Foaledo citizens still have the sense to bathe properly. REPRODUCTION

Life wouldn‟t be possible without reproduction. We wouldn‟t survive a single generation were we to stop. How dangerous would this era be if we all stopped having sex? Luckily, whatever the cause of the mass-expansion, our natural drives haven‟t been extinguished. How, however, is this doable? The most poignant response is: “with great difficulty”.

Figure 6 A couple attempting to engage in intercourse. Due to reasons, this is considered "safe for publishing".

Many ideas have been thought of regarding the process of reproduction, including using artificial insemination in place of sexual intercourse. As living creatures, we are generally preferential toward engaging in the “fun” aspects of reproduction – for recreation as much, if not more, than for bearing foals. It is of no surprise that many who have grown too large for intercourse have substituted that pleasure with… culinary hedonism. There is disparity between the sexes with regards to limitations of capability. With the malleability of this excess blubber, up until a certain size it becomes more a concern of whether or not whomever is on the bottom can handle the weight of the one on top – and if their bed can handle that combined weight plus all the thrusting.

 Mares

o Mares are the more limited of the two sexes, in a sense. Sex itself is possible at considerably larger sizes for the mare, but it becomes necessary to limit that to recreational sex only once a mare grows so large that delivering foals, or even carrying them, would be dangerous. Of course, these are recommendations, not enforced by laws, so many still try.

 Stallions

o Stallions are also simultaneously more and less limited by their size. While their main requirement is “sticking it in”, with no concerns afterwards, they also need to be able to “stick it in”.

As one may expect, many aspects of sexual reproduction have changed beyond simple matters of size and weight. A fast-growing kink in the bedroom is foodplay – different from what you may recall from other cultures or time periods. Very often, this comes down to at least one of the couple engorging themselves during the act. One would expect this to be a choking hazard, but so far there have only been reports of a certain other kind of choking.

Figure 7 Two lovers kissing.

Pregnancies have always come with gained weight separate from the weight of the foal that sometimes sticks around forever. What‟s now more common is mothers practically ballooning up – first timers or otherwise, a mare rarely puts on less than 80 permanent pounds per pregnancy these days. While they‟re left out of demographic readings for reasons explained elsewhere, a newborn foal‟s weight is practically an order of magnitude higher than it was just a hoofful of years ago. TECHNOLOGICAL IMPROVEMENTS

Where would we be without technological improvements? Struggling harshly, indeed. While some of these, such as mobility assistance, are covered in a later section, many of the tools we u se in our day to day lives are covered right here.

TRANSPORT

Transport of old consisted of the rail system, self-propelled movement (walking or flying, in laymen‟s terms), or paying Earth Ponies to pull a carriage that you could ride in. With some of these becoming increasingly difficult, motorized transports are becoming available in some regions. Primarily available in large, modernized urban centers such as Manehattan, carriages equipped with magic-powered motors and manually manipulated (or magically, if you‟re a unicorn and too enormous and/or lazy to use your hooves) control mechanisms are available. Elsewhere, these are scarcely available as anything other than transport you can rent and use to travel to other cities and villages. It is considered enough of a struggle to adjust infrastructure for wider, heavier ponies to not want to redesign long-established population centers for these automated mobile carriages.

BATHING

A very simple thing taken for granted by anypony, bathing technology has emerged in response to the difficulties anypony other than Unicorns and Alicorns face: it‟s very hard for us to wash up normally, if not impossible. They can use magic, while we would otherwise have to have helpers or try reaching around our bodies. Lounging in a bath is easy, assuming you can get into it. Getting clean is another story. Luckily, baths have been upgraded to do all the work for you. While they now all come with an enclosure, they are also fitted with multi-use sprayers that will spray down your entire body with soap and rinse it off. For those of us over 500 pounds, it‟s actually more efficient to lay on our bellies and spread our limbs out for part of the wash, then lay back like you were relaxing in a hot tub and let some of the sprayers take care of washing your belly.

MEDICAL

Our advancements in medical technology have come under fire for a variety of reasons, many of which are reasonable when you think about it. Sure, advancements have been made to the point I can sit here writing this with only an inability to fly as a consequence of my near-addiction to sweets. Where, you might ask, is the issue? Our medical technology has all but stagnated in all other areas! Ponies such as myself, and those larger than us, may suffer only impacts on our mobility and ability to fit into things even with a diet consisting of butter and grease, but every illness and disease under Celestia‟s Sun is as effective as ever! Hospital beds, chairs, medicine dosages, and especially the uniforms, have all been scaled up to support increased sizes and weights, so we‟re not completely up the river. However, I will use this book to proclaim that our medical industry needs to step up and tackle the challenge of eradicating disease and illness! Of course, an investigation into Quik-Gro and its psychological effects should be performed as well, as I‟m sure there is something to it.

ENTERTAINMENT

Exceeding even the pace of weight gain, advancement of entertainment technology has skyrocketed eras of advancement in a short few years. While recorded audio has been around for quite some time, we now have technology to view and listen to music, videos, entire plays, anything you once

had to attend physically can be experienced from the comfort of your own home, live and pre-recorded! Games can be played on these “computer” devices as well as word processing. From what I hear, we soon may be able to communicate in real-time with ponies on the other side of Equestria with these devices. For now, remote communication is handled either through one-way broadcasts or the “old-fashioned way” – mailing letters. I pen this book by hoof, and printing will be done using duplication spells. Future editions may instead transcribe my writings into computerized text and print copies with that technology.

FURNITURE

From what‟s been written in much of this book, prior to and succeeding this section, you might think we haven‟t updated seating and doorways to adapt to the situation at all. Perish the idea! Depending on who you ask, the answer may range from “not being wasteful” to actually having fun getting stuck in doors and breaking furniture. Essentially, furniture from the old days is kept around for those rare few that can still safely use them, and otherwise until they‟re broken. Broken furniture is deposited into recycling containers and sent to factories for rebuilding in the new ways. If you ask around, you‟ll find many a pony that enjoys their posterior bulging over the edges of the seat, or enjoys hearing seating creak and groan under their weight.

There is even some debate between which is more satisfying: breaking a seat (of any variety: chair, sofa, bench, you name it) just by sitting in it, or breaking it during the course of a meal. For doorways, anypony will get a wider replacement at least when they find themselves unable to squeeze through at all, but some actually enjoy getting stuck or struggling to go through a doorway! The one exception to this rule is, of course, bathroom furniture. I‟m sure many would have fun breaking these devices, but ceramic cuts and the mess of which I need not elaborate put even the most depraved among us against this idea. A near-universal replacement of larger facilities with materials of a much sturdier quality has occurred. Such things may still break, but they will at least bend and deform rather than shattering.

Surprisingly, bedding has had relatively few advancements or changes. Mattresses, boxsprings, and frames have ceased to be sold at any size lower than Queen, with new sizes being created past the previous king of bed sizes: King. While there are structural improvements being made like anything else, a lot of ponies opt to just leave their bed flat on the ground once they break the frame.

Other furniture, such as tables, shelving, and cabinets are often changed out first. While they don‟t quite have the same breakage as seating furniture, they become inadequate in other ways. Shelving and cabinets get moved or replaced to be more easily accessible and with greater storage capacity, while tables are largely adjusted to account for bellies. Typically, this means raising the table closer to face level, allowing the belly to fwomp freely beneath it. For desks, from student desks to professional desks, the same concept applies.

Author‟s note: I have personal experience with the desk issue. I await a replacement not only because the chair comically flattened beneath me, but also because my belly has gotten so large I can‟t actually use my old desk. It just squishes into it.

The recycling concept becomes a little questionable when you consider the build of new furniture. New furniture uses entirely new materials with a considerable improvement in durability – and size. Consider a normal old world chair, maybe it has a weight capacity of 300 pounds. A chair with the exact same build quality and price can now hold double that, and is twice as wide. I would buy one of these if I wasn‟t already within 20 pounds of reaching its limit. Seating furniture is not only stronger and wider in many cases, it is also shorter. Designated as an assistant to allow ponies to more easily enter and leave a seat, some chairs, stools, sofas, etc. are shorter than the old designs. This is most easily noticeable in bar stools, which have all but completely shrunk from their original height to the height of a regular chair.

What has been all but lost is the concept of shared seating. Spectator stands, expanded to fit expanded residents, are practically all that‟s left in that regard. Benches, sofas, couches? Oh, they‟re still around, but they‟re what I call “decadent seating”. They are rather comfortable, those couches and sofas, but they are considered to be personal seating now – built for one pony. Even if there is space for others, “there won‟t be for long” – so goes the saying. Newer versions expand the seat area and reinforce the supports, but are otherwise the same.

Author‟s note: As mentioned, I pen much of this book on my sofa due to outgrowing my desk. I still have an old sofa, and it‟s getting a bit creaky, but still holds up. I like to think I‟m on the smaller side of things in this new world, though the mirror may say otherwise. In my case, sitting on the sofa normally leaves a bit under half the seat unused, just enough space for my illustrator Quick Writ to sit. While laying, as I am now, I am admittedly spilling over the edge. It‟s quite comfy despite that, and I have a coffee table of snacks within foreleg‟s reach.

While currently rarer and kept for the exceptionally large and wealthy, a new form of furniture is rapidly making its way through the markets and will soon be as common as having a lamp in one‟s dwelling: personal cranes! As ridiculous as it may sound for many of us, it‟s an advancement that‟s as handy as it is necessary. What uses these may have in the future is to be determined, but right now it helps ponies of unusual size enter and exit their beds, I‟m a bit embarrassed to own and use one myself, but I‟ll admit: they have their uses. It was kind of fun to play around with them in Foaledo. PONY SUBSPECIES AND OBESITY

Most of the pertinent details are described in the previous sections. For brevity‟s sake, and the listing of some other species you might encounter, Some information is repeated in its own section. Each percentage listed is a percentage of the whole population, rounded to the nearest integer (of values that have been reported, for adult ponies).

 Alicorns

o Combining traits of all three races, though flight is not exactly used anymore. They are separate from “fattest vs thinnest” rankings due to the small sample size.

o 100% obesity rate

o 100% weigh over 500 pounds

o 80% weigh over 1000 pounds

o 80% weigh over 1500 pounds

o 40% weigh over 2000 pounds

 Unicorns

o Dating back to pre-Hearthswarming days, there were jokes about unicorns all being fat layabouts. Nowadays, that joke has become truth. Unicorns are the fattest race in all of Equestria, bar none. Even the thinnest unicorns are fat enough to be medically considered obese. Earth ponies may have many unicorns beat in terms of raw weight, but keep in mind earth ponies have more muscle mass contributing to their weights. Among some circles, being exceptionally whale-like and unable to perform normal daily actions easily is a sign of prosperity and status.

o 100% obesity rate

o 90% weigh over 500 pounds

o 25% weigh over 1000 pounds

o 5% weigh over 1500 pounds

o 1% weigh over 2000 pounds

 Earth Ponies

o Earth ponies are the second fattest race in Equestria. While they outweigh unicorns in most cases, their higher muscle mass is a major contributing factor, compared to unicorns‟ weights being almost exclusively body fat. They have nothing but raw strength to contend with their ballooning weights, but see that as nothing more than a challenge to fight and win.

o 95% obesity rate

o 90% weigh over 500 pounds

o 15% weigh over 1000 pounds

o 5% weigh over 1500 pounds

o 2% weigh over 2000 pounds

 Pegasi

o Pegasi are the thinnest race, mostly thanks to Cloudsdale. Among other population centers, we‟re often not far behind others. Our ability to fly is negated when we get fat enough, but at least our wings can be used to grab things and rub our bellies, I suppose. The daytime royal guard mostly consists of Pegasi with a few unicorns, and all of them are over 400 pounds and flightless.

o 45% obesity rate

o 15% weigh over 500 pounds

o 3% weigh over 1000 pounds

o 2% weigh over 1500 pounds

o 1% weigh over 2000 pounds

 Bat Ponies

o Bat Ponies, a nocturnal subspecies, is nominally a fruit-loving, night-time equivalent to us Pegasi. Not much is known about them, other than serving as Nightmare Moon‟s army in the old days and the night guard in the current era. Many ancient texts are locked away. Without a need to maintain or work with the weather or Cloudsdale-style restrictions, they have grown quite fat without any qualms about flight or duty.

o 70% obesity rate

o 50% weigh over 500 pounds

o 4% weigh over 1000 pounds

o 1% weigh over 1500 pounds

o 0% weigh over 2000 pounds

 Changelings

o The only known hive of changelings is the reformed hive lead by Thorax. Changelings consist on love, and historically only ate pony food when undercover. Due to a delivery mishap, crates of Quik-Gro seeds were sent to the hive instead of Yakyakistan, and the hive is now double-dipping with an overabundance of love and food.

o 100% obesity rate

o 100% weigh over 500 pounds

o 20% weigh over 1000 pounds

o 2% weigh over 1500 pounds

o 1% weigh over 2000 pounds

 Crystal Ponies

o While nominally a more stylish Earth Pony, these ponies are even fatter, rivaling Unicorns in that department. The laborer caste, who are all fat but not quite fat enough to be counted as medically obese (yet), are all that keeps the overall population obesity rate from being 100%.

o 80% obesity rate

o 80% weigh over 500 pounds

o 20% weigh over 1000 pounds

o 7% weigh over 1500 pounds

o 3% weigh over 2000 pounds DEEPER STUDY

EARTH PONIES AND CRYSTAL PONIES

Dating as far back as recorded history shows, Earth Ponies have been the kings and queens of physical strength. It stands to reason that Earth Ponies would handle excess weight the best of all the subspecies, up to a point. The physical strength that allows this type of pony to remain mobile and comparably unhindered by excess weight in respect to the other subspecies. Earth ponies are still subject to the expected physics and pitfalls of size, from issues fitting through doorways and into furniture to a sufficiently large belly impacting walking leg movements. Even a lazy, unexercised Earth Pony would be able to walk across Canterlot without significant fatigue while boasting a BMI of 40-50.

Where Earth Ponies will fall behind, however, are at the point of near-immobility and the point of immobility. In the former, their strength still gives them a slight edge, but in the latter they‟re on equal footing to Pegasi and lose to Unicorns. In total immobility, some device or assistant is required for acquisition of food and other bodily needs. Total immobility is generally reached only when the hooves of the pony in question are no longer able to reach the floor. In some cases, very limited mobility is maintained so long as one set of hooves can reach the floor.

Crystal Ponies are, in all recorded ways but appearance, practically identical to Earth Ponies. In study of the Crystal Empire in these days, it becomes apparent that somehow (perhaps powers from the Crystal Heart?), they are even stronger than their less shiny cousins. Their handling of heavier weights is better, but are otherwise impacted equally.

PEGASI

Pegasi, sadly, are the most prominently affected by obesity. We are stronger physically than unicorns on average, but become effectively weak Earth Ponies with wings that only function outside of their intended roles when we get fat enough. Combining my own personal experience, and other scholars‟ studies, Pegasi are affected by beign overweight as such:

 Pegasi up to 100 pounds overweight would be similarly burdened to fit Pegasi carrying light ponies, but with a lower maximum flight height and stamina. A flight from Cloudsdale to Ponyville would be mildly tiring.

 Pegasi 100-200 pounds overweight would be similarly burdened to fit Pegasi carrying heavy ponies, but with a lower maximum flight height and stamina. A flight from Cloudsdale to Ponyville would be exhausting.

 Pegasi 200-300 pounds overweight would be similarly burdened to fit Pegasi carrying 350+ pound ponies, but with a lower maximum flight height and stamina. A flight from Cloudsdale to Ponyville would be almost impossible without breaks.

 Pegasi 300-400 pounds overweight can fly, at most, a couple feet off the ground and only for a short period of time. A flight from Town Hall to Sugarcube Corner in Ponyville would be like a marathon. A flight in the opposite direction might be impossible if the Pegasus happened to acquire some goods from that bakery.

 Pegasi 400+ pounds overweight are permanently grounded. Their innate physical strength pales in comparison to Earth Ponies, but is moderately higher than Unicorns.

Pegasi that are heavy enough to be either incapable of, or barely capable of, flight are already at a very high level of obesity, with bellies hanging close to the ground. Similar to Earth Ponies, mobility is maintained even when the belly reaches the ground and spreads outward between the legs on all sides, but speed of movement and stamina are much lower. Total immobility, depending on the Pegasus‟s strength, can sometimes be reached while the pony‟s hooves are still able to reach the floor. In total immobility, some device or assistant is required for acquisition of food and other bodily needs. Wings, useless for their primary task, are still helpful for other needs.

UNICORNS

A Unicorn is simultaneously at the greatest advantage, and at the greatest disadvantage in this field. Magic can counteract any effects of weight gain, to certain extents, but Unicorns are physically the weakest of the three species. They don‟t have the raw strength of working Earth Ponies nor the athleticism and lean muscle needed for flight that Pegasi have. On raw strength alone, a Unicorn‟s stamina, mobility, and carrying capacity would be lower than all others, though I would presume it‟s as rare as it is for Pegasi for total immobility to be reached while hooves are still capable of touching the ground.

According to the suppositions I‟ve laid forth so far, it can be assumed that Unicorns would have the lowest metabolism of all the subspecies, and as such would gain weight the most rapidly and/or easily. An Earth Pony or Pegasus could easily be a lazy glutton and fatten up quickly, but their inherent subspecies metabolism designed for physical labor and flight, respectively, would have a measurable impact. Conversely, a Unicorn is not an athletic nor laborious subspecies, and even in the theoretical case, mostly thought up in certain fetish circles, that mana pools are fueled by fat, the efficiency of magic use is such that regular spellcasting wouldn‟t burn a major amount of calories the same way labor or exercise would.

In addition to Unicorn life being more leisurely on average, nearly all actions that would otherwise require physical labor can instead be performed using magic, requiring no physical effort on the Unicorn‟s behalf. As such, another duality is presented: Unicorns will both feel the effects of their weight gain earlier and later than other subspecies. A Unicorn could, theoretically, laze in one spot all day long using magic for interactions and having eating be the only physical effort they endure. Excess weight has a greater effect on a unicorn‟s weaker physical strength, but this is only noticed by the relatively sedentary population on the occasion they may have to walk a long distance or a busy day at work.

A Unicorn‟s magic is its strongest feature in any form, and that is no less true in the land of obesity. A Pegasus or Earth Pony will always have to get up to obtain more food and drink, or have a friend or servant help. A Unicorn can, whether he‟s just started to sprout a potbelly or hasn‟t been able to touch more than his belly to the floor in a decade, simply use magic to obtain more food, clean himself,

scratch an itch, or invite guests in. While mobility is still available, a Unicorn can cast a strength enhancing spell to make walking around town an only mildly exhausting effort, even if a lifetime of excess and indolence has left her with a belly she can hardly keep from touching the ground.

As a whole, while Unicorns, on a raw strength scale, will fall behind Earth Ponies and even Pegasi in physical capabilities, their magic use gives them an edge above the rest. This is also a very telling reason for why they are the fattest, laziest ponies of all races.

BAT PONIES

Bat ponies are, in many ways, similar to Pegasi. They are a little stronger, both physically and in flight capability. Even in the old times, they were a little heavier on average as well, which all calculates to equal ability in flight, and are impacted by obesity in the same way. As previously mentioned, most information is unavailable even to a scholar of my standing, potentially due to their historical role in the civil war, so long ago. Information available on this race is based on the night time royal guard, their families, and extended families. While there are sure to be more than a couple hundred bat ponies in existence, it is not entirely known where they are, or if they have joined the new Equestrian way.

Of significant note is the extent at which the known Bat pony population has – quite willingly – sacrificed flight for fat. As noted, 70% of the population is corpoulent. Half of the population weighs between 500 and 1000 pounds, most of which are too fat to fly. 30% of the population, those not fat enough to be considered so portly, simply haven‟t gained that much weight yet. I was told by every Bat pony I questioned that they “deserved some relaxation”. They are impacted in the same ways as Pegasi, so there is no need to simply repeat data.

Author‟s note: my roommate is a bat pony. With enough liquor, fruit pies, and – shall we say, intimate favors, I was able to convince her to tell me what she knows about Bat pony history. Alas, all I was able to learn was that nopony in the known Bat pony population knows much more than anypony else. The entire known population, technically living outside Canterlot, are descendants of Nightmare Moon‟s army that remained loyal to her during and after the banishment. Of course, as payment, she has demanded that I mention I now outweigh her by 20 pounds, and that she thinks I would look even cuter if I gained forty more. IMPLEMENTATION IN INDIVIDUAL POPULATION CENTERS

Author‟s note: The first portion of this section only covers a sample of the known existent settlements in Equestria and beyond, due to limited available information from most locations our information gatherers have been sent to. Many settlements have no interesting information or stories beyond just accepting what everypony else is doing, so such settlements will not receive any write-ups to save space and effort. There are only so many ways one pony can write “a settlement followed Canterlot‟s lead and grew fat,” after all. Population centers with a considerably higher amount of non-redundant data are covered afterwards.

CLOUDSDALE

This city, while large and wealthy enough for full-scale adoption, has primarily avoided more than a very limited adoption of the culture and technology for various reasons. The clouds the city lives on are not conducive to high weights, and high weights are similarly not conducive to flying. While it is not illegal to be overweight in Cloudsdale, it is strongly discouraged. Pegasi that wish to trade their flight and overall abilities for gluttony are encouraged to move elsewhere, where there is no risk of falling through the clouds to the ground below. LAS PEGASUS

Despite Cloudsdale‟s concerns, the famous vacation resort has heftily embraced the new normal. Flim and Flam, still owners of the resort, funneled a significant portion of their ventures‟ earnings into both building a ground-level resort and advanced airship technology to support the famous cloud-level areas. While it appears to be in the clouds just like Cloudsdale, the entire floating city exists on a series of cloud-covered airships that can stay afloat perpetually and handle the weight load through classified means. The brothers themselves have gained nothing but age and wealth, but are more than happy to accommodate the well-paying guests. Even the ponies that considered the duo a harsh villainous pair due to some of their ventures have been forced to admit they are doing a lot of good for the citizenry, and very visibly are pouring the overwhelming majority of their profits into both levels of the resort and into advanced scientific research. CANTERLOT

I will begin the in-depth exploration of individual population centers with my home of 20 years, Canterlot.

Figure 8 A concept sketch of a city. My illustrator has told me the completed city sketches have been misplaced somewhere.

POPULATION BREAKDOWN

 Unicorn: 95%

 Earth Pony: 3%

 Pegasus: 2.99% (rounded down to the nearest hundredth)

 Alicorn: 0.01% (rounded up to the nearest hundredth)

HIERARCHY

The Hierarchy of Canterlot follows a structure similar to the castes seen in use centuries ago, during and prior to Princess Luna‟s banishment to the moon. The current castes have little difference in power and status as they had in the past. Instead, the differences, in most cases, involve levels of wealth. The castes are as follows:

1. The Reigning Princesses

2. Royals

a. This caste involves relatives of the reigning princesses, closely related blood relations, and marriage-based family members. For example: Prince Blueblood

3. Lords

a. This caste involves the rich and powerful. Successful businessponies, high class rich families. Businessponies in this caste tend to own large businesses that span across Equestria, or very rarely Canterlot-specific businesses that perform exceptionally well. Example: Fancy Pants

4. Barons

a. Unlike the Royal and Lord castes, members of the Baron caste haven‟t had real titles anypony was called by in centuries. In the present, the Baron caste is comprised of businessponies and citizens that are quite wealthy, but not nearly at a level worthy of reaching Lord status. Royals and Lords maintain an air of prim and properness, generally speaking, while Barons have significant wealth and a very casual demeanor, fitting in with Citizens, visitors, and Farmers alike. Without extreme luck or marriage, this is the highest level a pony can realistically aspire to.

5. Citizens

a. The average citizen. Average as can be. Laborers, workers, employees. Especially in peacetime Equestria, their lives aren‟t as extravagant as the higher castes, but are plenty comfortable. While they earn more bits, and have higher costs of living, than citizens of other cities and smaller villages, their lives are very comfortable.

b. Royal castle employees and the Royal Guard are technically within this caste, but enjoy a higher salary and more privileges due to their positions.

6. Farmers

a. While on relatively equal hoofing to Citizens, the farmers in the lower district are technically the lowest tier with the lowest income and most simple lifestyle.

In the current era, each caste below the royal caste is on legally equal grounds. Groups typically stick to their own, but no Lord is considered superior to any citizen or farmer. Higher castes enjoy more privileges by virtue of having more finances available.

RECENT HISTORY: ERA OF PEACE

Canterlot is known as the “ground zero” for Equestria‟s shift into corpulence. Following the vanquishing of Equestria‟s final threat, the reigning princesses shifted focus to maintaining peace both internally and with other nations, and building a more utopian society.

Due to the limited space in the city for agriculture, a small village, complemented with vast farmlands, was erected in the land below Canterlot‟s mountain home for the purpose of providing self-sustaining agriculture to the capitol. Trading goods and services with other settlements such as Ponyville continues to occur. Many earth ponies migrated to this village, considered to be a district of Canterlot rather than a separate named entity, to enjoy the higher than average wages and opportunities. Freight elevators and cable car transports are used to traverse the steep climb. Despite the initial cost, this proves more time and finance-efficient than importing food product from Ponyville across the railways.

Celebrating Canterlot‟s expansion, and Equestria‟s new era of peace involved a series of grand feasts, each bigger than the last. The princesses indulged excessively at each one, and eventually began to visibly gain weight. After the last of the dozen feasts, the castle‟s chef team grew by six members. The princesses publicly denied gaining any weight, even as their bellies grew to reaching their knees and their flanks grew wide enough to make fitting in their thrones difficult. Only after growing so fat, approximately 600 pounds overweight, that they broke a particularly heavy duty pair of ceremonial seats at the Gala did the princesses admit to growing rather fat. They were also, as quoted, “having a little fun” with the media and fashion magazines, something many suspected with the way they would flaunt their bodies around and “accidentally” brush their flanks or bellies against servants or guards. Some of the princesses‟ family was seen following the same weight trend during this time.

Author‟s note: Yes, this paragraph is why Princess Celestia required me to include that paragraph in the About Me section.

As the elites are wont to do, the Lord caste decided that very same day to follow the trend set by the princesses. Little by little, the elites of Canterlot grew more and more porcine, an act made easy not only by their wealth and non-strenuous lifestyle, but also by the vast overabundance of food the lower district farms provided the capitol city. It became common for an elite to require suit tailoring weekly. Some took it upon themselves to believe their girth should match their status.

With the princesses pushing half a ton, and Lords doing their best to surpass 500 pounds quickly, the Barons followed suit. To this day, Barons are the fattest caste on average, with plenty of wealth to finance a decadent lifestyle, and no qualms about glutting themselves at any given greasy spoon diner or failing to maintain an air of properness while tripling their daily caloric maintenance intake. It didn‟t take long afterwards for the citizens and even the farmers to join in.

HIERARCHY, REVISITED:

As of present day, a decade into the peace era, the average weight of a pony is as follows. The princesses are Alicorns, and, generally speaking, nearly all ponies in Canterlot are unicorns, excepting the farmer caste earth ponies. Keep this in mind regarding how the weight is handled, and how fat a pony is at that weight. Recall that earth ponies are naturally heavier and have more muscle mass. Some Pegasi live in Canterlot. In their case, their weight ranges either match the below numbers or trend significantly lower, depending on the individual‟s personality and how much they value being capable of flight. Note that there are still ponies that are fit, thin, or average by the old standards.

Note: the weight ranges listed here account for adult ponies only. While fillies, colts, and younger foals are in no way excluded from the increase in portliness, including their weights would vastly expand the weight ranges to the point the lower end would have little meaning. They are excluded from weight gain metrics as well, as it is scarcely possible to accurately discern weight increases from their natural, normal growth from the increases influenced by overindulgence.

1. The Reigning Princesses

a. Anywhere north of 1000 pounds

2. Royals

a. 300-900 pounds

3. Lords

a. 300-700 pounds

4. Barons

a. 500-2000 pounds

5. Citizens

a. 400-700 pounds

b. Royal Guard: 300-800 pounds

6. Farmers

a. 550-900 pounds (Earth Ponies)

LONG-TERM OBESITY EFFECTS AND HEALTH

With the significant increase in body weight and gluttonous diet, various health issues began to appear. The princesses ordered Equestria‟s top scientists to find a cure. Within weeks, a tincture was created that clears any heart, circulation, or other medical issues culinary hedonism and gluttony may cause. The tincture was created using easily gatherable or synthesizable materials, and could be mass produced to the extent all of Equestria could have their monthly dose and still have leftover stock during the time it takes to synthesize more. Using the tincture as directed, even a pony whose diet consists of pushing their stomach capacity beyond its normal limits with greasy deep fried fast food every meal is as healthy as a fitness guru.

Due in small part to how the princesses treated their weight gain, and in large part to the sheer logistics required, adaptation of clothing, furniture, and housing to the new sizes of Canterlot‟s citizenry lags far behind. As you know, ponies wear clothing for fashion, special events, combat armor, and cold weather, otherwise opting to go natural. It is rare for an article of clothing to not be under considerable strain or torn. The Royal Guard are no exception, uncomfortably squeezed into undersized armor despite being little more than ceremonial positions.

Restaurants, despite making record profits in these times, face significant issues with their patrons increasingly being unable to fit in booths or other seating arrangements, and/or breaking seats by vastly exceeding weight limits designed for the old normal. Other public venues and domestic furniture alike see similar issues. The most prominently affected are the Baron caste. While the princess(es) are rather massive themselves, they are given furniture and regalia that fit their sizes. Barons are documented as becoming the most gluttonous hedonists in all of Equestria in the peace era and have bodies to match. Furniture, doorways, clothing, even fitting into many smaller rooms in general are the most difficult for this caste. Great effort is expelled finding ways to expand the city with larger buildings

to accommodate this caste, alongside creating reinforced furniture that‟s better suited for extreme weights.

Celestia and Luna alike have rubbed off on their royal guards. Dayshift guards, consisting of Pegasi and some Unicorn spellcasters, as well as nightshift guards, consisting of bat ponies, have both grown considerably adipose. None can fit properly in their armor, and most end up wearing it like a small cape. Each princess has gone on record stating their guards should “adequately represent their princesses and the citizens”. FOALEDO

For reasons that will become apparent very soon, Foaledo is both the greatest, and worst, location I visited during my entire trip. Were there any hope of these wings of mine ever being more than belly scratchers and appendages I can grab things with, my visit here took that hope away.

POPULATION BREAKDOWN

 Earth Pony: 70%

 Unicorn: 20%

 Pegasus: 10%

HIERARCHY

The Hierarchy of Foaledo is a fairly loosely defined series of castes, mostly designating what one‟s job is:

1. Government

2. Bakers and Chefs

3. Police

4. Citizens

5. Migrant Workers

All but the Migrant Workers are relatively equal, with the workers being considered honored guests.

RECENT HISTORY: ERA OF PEACE

Foaledo is the southernmost large city in Equestria‟s continental landscape. The village of New Haven and port of Southstock are further south, but are much smaller and, in Southstock‟s case, it has some population crossover with creatures common to Klugetown. The neighboring Bone Dry Desert is all but devoid of useful resources, leaving the city‟s economy to seek its riches from the sea.

Foaledo has an advanced fleet of sea ships to trade with settlements across the sea, sharing time and trade with Southstock‟s fleets. It also has a fleet of submarines, scouring the Celestial Sea and Neighdan Deep for rare underwater resources, treasures from shipwrecks, and even recovery services for ships lost at sea. Trading these goods at sea and throughout Equestria over the central rail system is enough to leave everypony even wealthier than the Saddle Arabian citizens.

Foaledo continued operating as normal for many years after adopting the culture and technology Canterlot exported. The city‟s culture of “work hard, play hard” applied to its food and alcohol intake seamlessly once irresistible, fast-growing food was introduced. Unsurprisingly, the population grew very rotund at a pace unmatched by any other settlement in all of Equestria. Workers would show up with engorged bellies after a huge breakfast, extend a lunch break to three hours long to accommodate for their huge lunches, and wrap up the day with as much food and beer as they could stomach – over the course of multiple hours. Without a hint of joking or irony, these workers justified their huge food intake by the amount of hard labor they did, even the government workers who sat at desks all day.

Eventually, this began to impact profits significantly. Many ponies had grown too fat to fit in the submarines. Others struggled to adjust sails, move cargo, and perform any parts of their duties. The lifestyle would not be sustainable in this situation, and nopony could stand the thought of reverting to their old dietary system, believing wholeheartedly that they worked hard enough to justify it. The mayor won herself what was effectively a lifetime of guaranteed re-elections: They would hire workers from elsewhere in Equestria, pay them to do the work instead, and everypony would benefit.

It was a win-win situation for everypony involved. Workers from poor, low-cost-of-living villages such as New Haven, Appleloosa, or Canter Creek happily took the jobs and sent their actually quite reasonable pay home to their families and villages, while Foaledo‟s citizens could do whatever they want and make money from it anyway. A hoofful of locals chose to continue doing their jobs in what way they could, but most chose to make their partying become their “work”. Some deep sea divers commissioned submarines that could fit their huge frames, while the rest of the locals that wanted to keep doing their jobs were really just the ship captains, wanting to lounge in their cabins and supervise operations.

With a stunning plumpness rate of 100% and an average weight approaching 1000 pounds, most of Foaledo‟s workforce is actually migrant workers whose homes are in other parts of Equestria. They travel by train or by boat to Foaledo, and are paid well, but maintain a (mostly) fit body due to all the physical labor they perform. Because they are not residents and are only ever in the town during transit between the rail system and the ships they work, these workers do not affect the obesity rate.

HIERARCHY, REVISITED:

As of present day, a decade into the peace era, the average weight of a pony is as follows. Racial lines are not drawn, compared to Canterlot. The ponies in Foaledo, be they Earth, Unicorn, or Pegasus, choose to

feast and fatten equally, differing only in how their racial strength contends with their weights. Their usual weight ranges and activities are as follows:

Note: the weight ranges listed here account for adult ponies only. While fillies, colts, and younger foals are in no way excluded from the increase in rotundity, including their weights would vastly expand the weight ranges to the point the lower end would have little meaning. They are excluded from weight gain metrics as well, as it is scarcely possible to accurately discern weight increases from their natural, normal growth from the increases influenced by overindulgence. In Foaledo‟s case, the young are typically at least one BMI category higher than their peers in any other population center.

1. Government

a. 600-2000 pounds

b. General day to day governmental operations. Rarely do these operations incur more than divvying out the city‟s gross income between expenses, citizens, and the migrant workers. They tend to be among the fattest simply because their lack of physical activity during the entire era of peace had no slowing impact on their weight gain.

2. Bakers and Chefs

a. 650-1100 pounds

b. For reasons that should be obvious, they are considered more important than even the government, though their “official” ranking is lower. They turn the crops delivered by the migrant workers into gut-busting feasts all day long.

3. Police

a. 450-600 pounds

b. The police are the fittest ponies in town due to their tasks of keeping the peace and helping the migrant workers. This means little considering how fat they are, but they are the only resident ponies in town who really travel around and get exercise anymore. The police captain and mayor instituted a policy that an officer must regularly exercise and be able to walk around the entire town without tiring. Considering the fitness of the rest of the town, this is the only physical requirement. Their bodies look rounder and fatter than they really are due to the muscle mass pushing the fat further out.

i. Unofficially, the bulk of the police force‟s actual job is to deliver food to the government workers and to the sufficiently mobility-challenged.

4. Citizens

a. 600-2000 pounds

b. Formerly workers and laborers, citizens largely relax and eat their days away. They are technically less fat than the government caste, but only because the muscle mass from their working days (which still receive some form of use by virtue of waddling around town) accounts for a significant portion of their weight. The rare local worker that still does their job is hardly any thinner than the rest of the population, as they too are very sedentary. For most citizens, their “jobs” consist of taking their free money and spending it on food and booze in a never-ending party.

5. Migrant Workers

a. 200-600 pounds

b. These workers, from various small villages in Equestria - sometimes even creatures from other lands – do basically all the work Foaledo citizens used to do. While their lodgings must consist of the quarters in the ships they work on or railway-adjacent inns, if their homes are too far away to regularly commute from, these workers have little reason to dislike their scenarios. They are paid well, can support their families and friends back home, and have full autonomy of their life choices so long as they adequately do their jobs. A very minuscule percentage of workers have ever been fired or forced to resign. Of those, they were either problematic citizens of their hometowns or happened to sustain an injury. In the latter case, they were given a generous compensation package to assist with expenses, medical or otherwise. On the higher end of the weight range lay foreign creatures that are naturally heavier, like dragons and minotaurs, and ponies that had grown fat while still being more than capable of their workload.

LONG-TERM OBESITY EFFECTS AND HEALTH

As Foaledo‟s expansion happened after the early growing pains of Equestria were resolved, scant negative consequences have afflicted the citizenry. The most obvious example is that of the physical labor workers, all but the police force grew too fat to do their jobs. Beyond that, the only issues that have arisen for most of the population involve mobility and size. The former laborers, even the Pegasi and Unicorns, maintain enough built up muscle and strength that they are physically capable of getting around town, the most anypony other than the police and migrant workers ever moves is within a one-block radius. There is a large tavern-restaurant combo on every block that services the residential houses in that same block. Even the less humungous ponies are fatigued just by traveling to a neighbor‟s house or to the tavern, and choose not to even try going any further. This unsurprisingly lends itself very well to them growing fatter and even less mobile. Doorframes are often widened and furniture replaced and hardened to accommodate the higher weights and larger sizes. Any new house is built as a single-story house, and only those young and/or thin enough to traverse to a second or, Celestia forbid, third floors of older houses. Thought has been given to modifying these floors for external access and renting them out to migrant workers, but nothing has ever come of it. Rumors float around about it creating too much risk of the migrant workers getting too fat to work. However, the more likely cause is everypony is too lazy to bother.

Government workers gave away their old personal houses to the former laborers and simply live in the large government buildings. As the town got progressively fatter, allowing some family members to move out served to assist with space issues – a family of four half-ton ponies can hardly live well in the bottom floor of a single house, but moving two of them to another one made things much easier. Government workers, much more encumbered by their weight, opt to simply live in their offices. While there are two restaurants in each government building, the police force spends part of its shift delivering food from the restaurant to the government workers.

Discounting the police force from the equation, the average weight of Foaledo citizens is much closer to 1000 pounds. Far more severe than getting stuck in doorways, breaking furniture, or cracking floors, a growing segment of the population is growing too fat to move at all. Some ponies are too weak to move more distance within their own home, others can‟t move of their own accord at all, and some have lost the ability to even reach the floor with their hooves. Rather than react to this scenario as a more logical mind may, these ponies continue to happily engorge their bellies to the near-bursting point and gain even more weight.

The bakers and chefs play huge role in the current state of affairs, regardless of other factors. While none started off doing so, every single baker and chef creates meals with the intent of fattening their customers. Proportions have not only ballooned to obscene sizes, each dish has no less than three thousand calories of butter added to it.

Author‟s note: I asked fourteen chefs around town during my stay. While their phrasing differed, each said effectively the same thing: They wanted to make everypony fatter. They were actually disappointed none of the migrant workers ever ate at their restaurants more than twice. I can understand why. During my two week stay gathering information and history on this city, I gained no less than fifty pounds, and certainly more than that. I fear had I not left for the next town when my scheduled visit was up, I would have become just like the largest ponies in town. Though I could not eat a single meal in one sitting, I was nevertheless compelled to eat three meals a day, snacking on the rest or engorging myself right before bed with the piled up leftovers. The food is very good, dangerously so. While I haven‟t the evidence to prove it, I posit there exists a severely addicting, mind altering substance in the food everypony eats. The migrant workers I interviewed who had eaten in town reported the same to me: that it was like some force compelled them to willfully engorge themselves.

Figure 9 Me interviewing a pony who moved to Foaledo from elsewhere. While he is quite happy with himself and his extreme size, he has asked to be depicted anonymously to avoid concern or scrutiny from family and friends back home.

The following is an excerpt from my interview with the pony pictured above, who has agreed to be called “Fatty” for the sake of this interview‟s readability. “I‟ve been into bigger ponies since I first figured out what sexual attraction was. Used to be real rare, but there was a teacher I had who started off thin as a whistle and was about as big as you when I graduated. „Course, she was already married, and [for reasons I was asked not to print] I couldn‟t exactly make my love for her known even if she were single. So I‟m spending all my time thin, working normal jobs, pretending I was into worker ponies and just couldn‟t find the right one, and this huge paradigm shift starts happening. Sometime later, I hear rumors about this Foaledo place. I pretend like I‟m moving out to a distant mining town to get with a girl I met through a pen pal system. In reality, I‟m running my skinny ass down here. I was kind of expecting a reversal of our roles here, me being your size and my wife being mine. Instead, I‟m so big I haven‟t done more than roll over at bath time for years, and she‟s , hmmm, about as big as you‟re gonna be by the time you‟re done in this town. She really has a way of persuading you to eat, you know?”

The mayor, enjoying this life herself, has sought assistance from Equestria‟s most knowledgeable scientists and mages to find solutions for the mobility issue. Self-propelled or manually moved belly

carts, personal vehicles, teleportation devices, anything but diet and exercise to maintain some form of mobility. While ponies all around have become happy to grow excessively immense either way, Foaledo is seen by even Canterlot, Manehattan, and Saddle Arabia as a sort of cautionary tale against taking the concept of supreme gluttony too far. Many see Foaledo as an actually quite terrifying place, believing it to be a story ripped right out of a fetish author‟s book: a city of ponies whose very brains and souls have been rewritten to forever indulge in mindless, endless gluttony, and whom would have very likely died of health complications had such complications not ceased to exist. Ironically, many ponies publicly exclaiming these ideals have floor-reaching bellies themselves, and are often neck-deep in a multi-course meal.

Automobile transport, as is prominent in Manehattan, was considered, but the street sizes would require razing and rebuilding the entire port city to accommodate such transport options. Citizens scarcely feel any desire to move outside of their resident block. PONYVILLE

POPULATION BREAKDOWN

 Unicorn: 25%

 Earth Pony: 65%

 Pegasus: 10%

HIERARCHY

Ponyville can hardly be considered to even have a hierarchy. The mayor and their assistance are, on a technical level, above the rest of the citizens, everypony is more or less on equal hoofing no matter who they are.

RECENT HISTORY: ERA OF PEACE

Ponyville‟s relatively close proximity to Canterlot leaves it second only to the big, wealthy cities to the east in terms of adopting the technology and culture Canterlot generated. Ponyville has a rare distinction of operating nearly identically to how it did prior to the current era. While nearly everypony is considerably fatter, they still do the same jobs and live the same lives as always – just with accommodations made in terms of furniture and doors, self-propelled carts to assist with long distance travel and deliveries, and ponies spending much far time and bits on food.

While Mayor Mare is still the official government official of Ponyville, the town is unofficially owned and run by a surprise alliance: Filthy Rich, the Apple Family, and the Cakes. Mr. Cake and his much, much fatter wife see an unprecedented amount of business from townsponies, while the Apple family‟s farm provides a combination of apple products and raw apple supplies, making enough income to outright buy Ponyville and practically all the land between it and Canterlot. Filthy Rich handles the

business side of things, assisted by Diamond Tiara, who doubles as his conscience to ensure the only arguably nefarious outcome is making the town fatter.

Applejack, athletic as ever, is known to be ecstatic about the change of affairs. She has been caught more than once spiking exported foods with excess butter and “encouraging” some of the larger townsponies to eat even more than they already had, even if their stomachs were already filled to the brim. She owns and runs Sweet Apple Acres with her nieces and nephews, since Big Mac has grown too fat to help out (thanks to his wife) and Apple Bloom, who has also gotten too fat for farm work, is working elsewhere.

HIERARCHY, REVISITED:

As of present day, a decade into the peace era, the average weight of a pony is as follows. Generally speaking, nearly all ponies in Ponyville are earth ponies. Keep this in mind regarding how the weight is handled, and how fat a pony is at that weight. Recall that earth ponies are naturally heavier and have more muscle mass. Some Pegasi live in Ponyville. In their case, their weight ranges either match the below numbers or trend significantly lower, depending on the individual‟s personality and how much they value being capable of flight. Note that there are still ponies that are fit, thin, or average by the old standards.

Note: the weight ranges listed here account for adult ponies only. While fillies, colts, and younger foals are in no way excluded from the increase in paunchiness, including their weights would vastly expand the weight ranges to the point the lower end would have little meaning. They are excluded from weight gain metrics as well, as it is scarcely possible to accurately discern weight increases from their natural, normal growth from the increases influenced by overindulgence.

The average weight range overall is between 380 and 1000 pounds.

LONG-TERM OBESITY EFFECTS AND HEALTH

Like all settlements that adopted these changes after Canterlot, potential health risks never plagued Ponyville. As previously mentioned, Ponyville is practically the same as it always was. The only appreciable differences in culture are that most ponies are quite fat, and Applejack is even worse than before at hiding her fat fetish and feederism.

Author‟s note: Her food is indeed very, very delicious, and as I can, unfortunately, personally attest, the rumors of her very aggressive feeder habits are quite true. Had I chosen to stay in a spare room in Sweet Apple Acres rather than the inn, I fear it would have been like Foaledo all over again. MANEHATTAN

POPULATION BREAKDOWN

 Unicorn: 45%

 Earth Pony: 35%

 Pegasus: 20%

HIERARCHY

As with most locations outside of Canterlot, Manehattan enjoys a more modern form of hierarchy, lacking even a ceremonial depiction of old Equestria‟s castes. Manehattan employs a more capitalistic approach, generating a caste system based purely on wealth rather than position – though local government has the final say on matters that aren‟t superseded by national law. The three castes are as follows:

 Upper class (the rich)

 Middle class (the workers)

 Lower class (the laborers)

RECENT HISTORY: ERA OF PEACE

Manehattan has been an icon of modernity and futurism since its founding, and continues that trend to this day. While Canterlot is publicly credited with many of the inventions that have made our current life possible, Manehattan‟s research firms and wealth provide integral services assisting with those inventions and many of the new ones in current research and development.

As an early adopter, Manehattan suffered a portion of the growing pains Canterlot initially experienced. With that quickly out of the way, it still took some time for the population to truly embrace this era of gluttony, having never been too keen on following Canterlot trends. Ultimately, it was the food that caused ponies to eventually give in. With all food products being made from Quik-Gro plants (with Gro-Assist additives, when they became available), ponies found themselves wanting more than usual, even risking some ribbing for daring to order seconds or thirds.

Mitigating this (albeit pointlessly), portions were scaled up to the point a single normal order was as big as ordering two of the old normal, with options available for larger meals offered. By the time the average weight had increased by 50 pounds, Manehattanites started coming around to the new normal. Within a few months after that, you couldn‟t find a pony anywhere above the lower class that wasn‟t at least a hundred pounds overweight. The night the mayor burst out of his suit and broke the seat behind his podium in one fell swoop at a televised conference, the entire city changed all at once. It isn‟t quite accurate to say they stopped caring about the unstoppable weight gain. They chose instead to embrace it, to an extent. Unlike Foaledo, there isn‟t a particular drive to gain weight endlessly, nor pride in growing heavier and fatter. Most accurately, it can be said that Manehattan ponies embrace their bulk and enjoy aspects of it, and wouldn‟t be particularly saddened if they plateaued at a particular weight.

Manehattan boasts a stunning obesity rate of approximately 95%, making it the second fattest city in Equestria. Stunningly, although not that surprisingly, the only holdouts in that remaining 5% are lower class citizens. Of the ones I interviewed, few had any serious qualms about the idea of growing fatter like their peers. Most cite potential issues doing their jobs if they got as fat as other ponies have. Ironically, a lot of Manehattan‟s automation technology has been exported and implemented in cities like Foaledo, while jobs like sewer, water, and electric maintenance at home is still done by manual labor. I spoke with the mayor during my time in Manehattan. He cites one of the reasons for this is he isn‟t sure what to do with this substantial labor force if all their jobs were replaced by automation. There aren‟t enough middle class jobs available in general, none for their skill sets. Local sentiment appears to be against the idea of providing a universal basic income-like program for displaced laborers, since everypony else would still have to work for their wages. Thankfully, local sentiment is also against sending these poor ponies elsewhere for somepony else to contend with. It should be noted that all but a baker‟s dozen of these ponies in the 5% are fat, just not fat enough to be considered obese.

It‟s easy to see why Manehattan is so large. Automobiles adorn the streets for easy travel around the city at little to no effort. Even thinner ponies are routinely seen using automobile travel options, if their commute is further than a single block. Each neighborhood has no fewer than a dozen restaurants of any variety: Fast food, formal dining, takeout, casual dining, even restaurants that serve exclusively baked goods. Cheap to mildly expensive (yet reasonable) prices, wide varieties, and huge portions. A small pizza here is three inches larger than a large pizza in Canterlot. Restaurants of all flavors, markets, and grocery stores alike all either have delivery services or contract out to a delivery service, meaning even an introvert living on the top floor of a skyscraper can get everything they need without ever leaving their apartment. I can say with confidence that Manehattan food is safe: You will find yourself wanting to eat as much as the locals do because strictly because it‟s so good. It‟s not like Foaledo at all.

Manehattan‟s culture remains rough and coarse, with citizens more than willing to sling insults and curses at others for minor infractions. Things scarcely get rowdy enough for the police to get involved, however. For better or worse, this gives Manehattanites a very thick skin, in the least pun-intended sense of the term. A Manehattanite will simply insult you back if you call them something atrocious, like a “cloven hooved buffoon” or a “featherbrain”. Insulting one‟s family or cooking is grounds for a fight, on the other hoof.

Long considered “fashion central” in the land of Equestria, Manehattan is by far the most clothed place I have ever visited. Everypony, no matter their position, wore some form of clothing, no matter how ill-fitting. Strained or already-burst buttons and seams, tear marks, busted belts, even outfits meant to cover the whole body but left significant belly space uncovered – almost nopony‟s clothes fit well. Even if they did, that didn‟t last very long. Casual or formal attire alike, each are fitted snugly on a pony‟s frame, and it‟s seen as a point of pride to outgrow them. Visiting middle class and higher locations, there wasn‟t a single place without at least one pony popping a button or two during my visit.

Author‟s note: I have a very big, very soft spot for Manehattan food. Canterlot‟s Manehattan restaurants are good, but nothing can beat the original. Manehattan was the last stop on my journey before returning

to Canterlot to write this compendium. Despite my convictions and reservations otherwise, I will shamelessly admit to gaining around 30 pounds during my Manehattan visit. I wore a cute blouse and skirt on my first day in town, and ruined the shirt by lunch time with how much I ate. I was given a new outfit each day for free, and the same fate befell each of them. It was…. Exciting. Perhaps not the act of outgrowing fashion apparel, but the attention I received from a number of nearby stallions each time it happened.

HIERARCHY, REVISITED:

Manehattan does not employ social programs to the extent of many other settlements, such as Universal Basic Income. That being said, it cannot be disputed that even the poorest lower class ponies here enjoy a standard of living much greater than their ancestors, even if the only solid evidence of this is their bodies and the amount of food in their kitchens. Like other population centers, there are some ponies that are thin or physically fit, but here they are exclusive to a small percentage of the lower class. All of the middle class are huge, and the upper class ponies are downright enormous.

1. Upper class: 700-2000 lbs

a. Executives, government officials. In addition to being exceedingly wealthy, their lives are sedentary and highly indulgent.

2. Middle class: 500-1200 lbs

a. Chefs, small business owners, office workers, seamstresses, and reasonably wealthy jobless ponies. These ponies don‟t have particularly physically demanding jobs, and earn more than enough bits to afford their expensive apartments and caloric intake.

3. Lower class: 240-1000 lbs

a. Electricians, plumbers, sewage maintenance, trash collectors, construction workers – all the dirty jobs other ponies won‟t do. Only two known ponies from this group weigh over 500 pounds while still being in the main labor force (one breached 500 pounds the day I visited his construction site, the other is nearly 640 pounds and swears he‟ll keep working as long as he can), while the rest in this higher weight bracket are supervisors, drivers, or work the desk/console jobs in facility buildings. Whether they have families to feed or live alone, their net wages after rent and bills leaves them with cheap groceries and fast food as the only affordable sustenance options.

Surprising as they might be, these weight ranges are accurate. Despite being the physical labor caste, a rather large portion of them are far heftier than one would reasonably expect. Of the somewhat small sample size I could speak to, the ponies nearing or exceeding a quarter ton tended to be managers, single-pony households, and/or worked jobs that didn‟t involve tight spaces or situations that would be dangerous at their sizes, such as window washing.

LONG-TERM OBESITY EFFECTS AND HEALTH

Despite being an early adopter, Manehattan spent little time without the benefits of Gro-Assist additives, with no pony growing fat enough, fast enough, to suffer any significant health consequences before they were all but erased. Given sufficient time, it is possible that at least the upper class, if not all subsequent classes, may grow into a Foaledo-like situation. Manehattanites still very much have their minds to them, but they may need to fully automate systems and provide some form of support to the lower class at some not-so-distant point. THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE

POPULATION BREAKDOWN

 Crystal Pony: 99%

 Unicorn, Pegasus, Earth Pony, and Alicorn combined: 1%

HIERARCHY

1. Royalty

a. The royal family

2. Castle staff and guards

a. Guards, servants, chefs, researchers

3. Citizens

a. Artisans, craftworkers, generally performing their personal hobbies for a living

4. Laborers

a. All construction, maintenance, farming, and other jobs

RECENT HISTORY: ERA OF PEACE

This sovereign nation, far to the north, mirrored Canterlot‟s progression into our new society, though close familial relations between the families ensured quick access to Quik-Gro and Gro-Assist products. Prince Shining Armor apparently had quite a thing for fat mares that he had kept hidden for the longest time. Princess Cadence was happy to oblige for the sake of love, though she grew to love the feeding, pampering, and heftiness independently. Young Princess Flurry Heart became quite spoiled as well. Like anywhere else, the adoption of Quik-Gro and Gro-Assist, as well as a message of acceptance from above, fairly quickly led to the populace to balloon in size.

The Crystal Empire can easily be described as a mirror world of Foaledo. Its labor caste is still comprised of local citizens, while the rest of the castes are positively enormous. The ponies are more like the fatter areas of Canterlot, however. If you recall my theory from earlier, Foaledo ponies may be “possessed” by food and gluttony. The Crystal Empire, rather, merely enjoys those things. Few ponies struggle with mobility, and just like Ponyville, nearly all ponies live their lives almost exactly the same as before – albeit, for all but the previously mentioned trio of occupations, life is like a non-stop vacation,

with ponies freely traveling around the same extensive areas of the empire they always have. Ponies live their lives freely, rather than for the sake of growing fatter. Crystal ponies share physical strength qualities with Earth ponies, and can travel with surprising ease.

Of great surprise, especially to those who have studied Equestrian history, a member of the royal court is none other than former-king Sombra. There is an extensive book of its own worth of details regarding how that happened, but the short version is that he was resurrected a third time in a controlled environment, and given a choice between redemption and being trapped in stone. He has chosen the former, and from what I saw, has very much embraced our new era. He enjoys a job as a researcher, helping royal mage (and part-time tutor for Flurry Heart) Sunburst research mobility assistance devices. Though I doubt job seekers would be using this book as a resource, I was asked to note that they are currently looking for another Unicorn with great magic skill or mana reserves, and a pony of any kind who is highly skilled at alchemy.

Figure 10 Professor Sombra, using dark magic to aid in his own mobility. His magic usage is highly regulated and restricted, preventing past disasters from returning in exchange for his partial freedom.

The royal family commissions research, oversees annual festivals, and generally keeps the empire running. Flurry Heart is the only one of the three that ever travels outside the castle, but only because her parents are too heavy to get around very easily. Servants help feed, bathe, and generally care for the royal family. The guards are largely for show, and are surprisingly some of the fattest members of the staff. I suppose not being able to enter restricted areas because a literal ton of blubber blocks the way counts as strong security.

The citizens, the bulk of the population, are only a little thinner on average than the castle staff. Depending on who you meet, they either live day by day on a permanent vacation, or engage in personal

hobbies as a “career”. Rather than implementing a social payment system, like some other population centers, the Crystal Empire has effectively abolished payment entirely, with everything being “free” or bartered. Even the lowest caste, laborers, need only trade their time and labor for daily necessities.

HIERARCHY, REVISITED:

Crystal ponies and other races alike have become quite enormous, with many even outweighing the princess of love herself. Curiously, the other races – Alicorns, Unicorns, Earth Ponies, and Pegasi – are nearly universally (with precisely two exceptions) in the highest end of each weight range. Prince Shining Armor is the thinnest member of any of these races - Princess Flurry Heart is only lighter because she‟s younger, but her weight is reportedly ballooning. Because I was able to personally meet the royal family and some rather famous ponies here, I was asked to list their individual weights.

1. Royalty

a. 850-1912 pounds

i. Flurry Heart (850), Shining Armor (945), Cadence (1912)

2. Castle staff and guards

a. 800-2300 pounds

i. Sombra (982), Sunburst (1149)

3. Citizens

a. 700-2000 pounds

4. Laborers

a. 300-400 pounds

LONG-TERM OBESITY EFFECTS AND HEALTH

Currently, research into mobility assistance devices is being done primarily for the royal family and exports to Equestria. In due time, it will become needed for even the Crystal Ponies, though it is a flip of a bit whether strength or ability to even reach the ground with their hooves will give out sooner. The labor caste is currently the biggest point of concern, in my opinion. While they comprise the 20% of the global Crystal Pony population that is not elephantine, every last one of them, stallion or mare, filly or colt, foal or adult, is fat. Labor caste weights have gone up no less than 100 pounds between the time Quik-Gro crops have been implemented in the farmlands and last year, the last reserves of normal crops – a staple of the laborer‟s diet – ran out. This year alone, with everypony only eating food made from Quik-Gro crops, the average weight of the laborer caste has gone up 45 pounds. I foresee, within the next decade, the Crystal Empire reaching a 100% fatness rate. Automation will be implemented as all ponies will be too fat to work. FATTEST POPULATION CENTERS IN EQUESTRIA

Countdowns have become somewhat popular in many forms of media as of late. Although this is an academic text, I will include a small Top 5 countdown here as a sort of timestamp of this book‟s

publishing: The Top 5 fattest population centers in Equestria. This metric, although the mathematics are not explicitly listed, accounts both for chunkiness rates and average weight. Note: this list only includes Equestria and its internal territories. If you look at your neighbors and wonder why you are not on this list, consider what that means for the places that are listed.

5. Las Pegasus

4. Fillydelphia

3. Canterlot

2. Manehattan

1. Foaledo OUTSIDE OF EQUESTRIA

This will be a fairly brief section. Due to various constraints, my personal travels remained within Equestria‟s borders. As a result, the information gathered here comes from contacts in other nations and cities who were willing to share some stories through the mail regarding how “Equestria‟s second largest export” has impacted their lands.

Author‟s note: Equestria‟s largest export is, of course, Friendship. SADDLE ARABIA

Most of this island nation is a barren desert populated only by rare, hostile, non-sapient creatures, the two population centers – Istanbull and Aashtethos – are incredibly wealthy and have been more than welcoming of the new ways. Inventors have created ways to fully automate the resource mining and transport that accounts for their primary economical exports. The overwhelming amount of wealth has made it trivial to implement a universal basic income system, to the point there exists no homelessness or poverty in these cities. Even the lowliest citizen is wealthy by any other nation‟s standards. The plumpness rate in these cities is very rapidly approaching 100%, with the average weight currently sitting at 550 pounds. Saddle Arabians are, as you may be aware, taller and larger than ponies in general, so they are not quite as impacted by this sharp increase in weight. KIRIN LANDS

There are two known nation-states on opposite ends of Equestria that are home to the Kirin: Kirin Grove to the East, and Romore to the West. Kirin Grove has a moderate level of recorded growth, while Romore has reached a 90% obesity rate. I spoke with Blazing Spring, the owner of the fairly famous General Blaze‟s Kirin Buffet, here in Canterlot. While he has doubled in size since coming to Canterlot (and his son is currently the fattest non-Alicorn in the city), he and his family were quite large the day he set

foot in our great city. From tales that I was told, Romore – his homeland – has always been rather “fluffy”. Everykirin gained no less than 80 pounds before his family moved here to open a restaurant. Reportedly, crop growth in the stilted city has been unnaturally fast even before Quik-Gro was exported. The average weight was over 400 pounds at the time, and is estimated to be nearing 700.

The Kirin Grove to the east is like most places in the world: completely “normal” by old standards until Quik-Gro became available. Correspondence suggests they are rapidly catching up with some of the heftier cities in Equestria. DRAGON LANDS

As you know, Dragons are naturally greedy creatures, with rare exceptions such as royal adviser Spike. As such, it is no surprise that greed extends to food intake as well. With Quik-Gro introduced, a dragon‟s horde now includes their own girth. Regrettably, like myself, few dragons are able to fly at all anymore. Most are permanently grounded by their enormity, and are quite happy with that. GRIFFON LANDS

Many tales are told about Griffons and their past glories. As I‟m sure you‟re aware, Griffons have been practically depicted in the dictionary under the definition of “poverty” for centuries. Until very recently, Quik-Gro hasn‟t been affordable enough for their lands to import it. As of this writing, Quik-Gro has been available in Griffinstone for just over a month. Reportedly, everygriff has been very eager to enjoy a sudden abundance of food when it was previously quite scarce. A drawing I was sent by a quite talented Griffon artist shows some cutely chubby Griffons next to a pyramid of bread. MOBILITY ASSISTANCE DEVICES

With time, it becomes apparent that the old world‟s mobility assistance factors are not going to be effective any time soon. It would take a new era or significant event to get ponies shifted away from the current culture of culinary hedonism and gluttony. Diets and exercise programs will do little more than temporary weight loss or mild improvement of physical fitness competing with caloric onslaughts and expanding waistlines. Because ponies still need to be able to get around and servants cannot be relied on (mechanical or magical servants wouldn‟t be universally available, organic servants are liable to get too fat to serve), a series of products are invented to make life at extreme sizes much more easily livable. Reaching near-immobility or total immobility are things that would still be mostly limited to the rich and upper castes (and Foaledo), but mobility assistance is considered important for everypony.

There are two forms of mobility assistance that are currently approved for public knowledge, though the products themselves are not currently publicly available. A note, for the curious: Automobiles and standard carts are considered transportation and subsequently not counted as mobility assistance devices. Apologies if the write-ups sound too much like and advertisement; what I was allowed to write and publish was strongly supervised by those in charge of the projects.

Figure 11 A silly looking contraption, used as an ineffective mobility assistance device.

MOBILITY CARTS

A big, rounded square cart made of strongly reinforced materials supported by at least five (four corners plus center) reinforced wheels- At least, that is the prototype design. Changes may be made with further testing.

Figure 12 Prototypes of a mobility assistance cart. Design variants eschew the large wheels and sides in favor of the below-described flat carts with small ball joints for wheels.

It's slid under the belly of those floor-touching-belly ponies, pushing the belly up and toward the sides. The platform is large and shaped well enough to keep the belly out of the way and allow hooves to reach the ground. The prototype is only manually powered, but even a Unicorn or Pegasus that weighs over half a ton could move around fairly easily. The carts are designed so even ponies that are otherwise too weak to move of their own volition could get around at least somewhat adequately, though one should not expect to break any speed records. Think, if you will, of a pony who's so fat their hooves can't reach the ground. If their belly is lifted up or moved around by magic to a great enough extent, their hooves can reach the ground. However, they're too heavy and can't actually move at all, if they can even stay standing.

With the omnidirectional wheels underneath, that same pony would be able to move under their own physical power. Not fast or without rapid stamina drain, but they'd be able to move at all where previously they'd be stuck in one place.

That being said, this kind of cart is a prototype and is just starting to be rolled out as the numbers of ponies that are fat enough to need them reach numbers higher than a handful of very rich ponies. Future revisions and updates to the product will include some form of self-propulsion, both for the current userbase and for those who grow even larger.

The challenges there would be not only securing materials and a power source/engine powerful enough, but also providing a race-agnostic control mechanism for the cart that fits both the sheer mass of these. For unicorns and Alicorns, it would be easy enough to just do direct magic control, but the other races? Those are the questions and adjustments that would need to be resolved before improvements to the design can be publicly released. The corporations behind the manufacture are also looking into better ways to handle loading the pony onto the device, as the current process is incredibly difficult unless the pony in question starts using the cart when their belly is near the ground, then intentionally and quickly gains weight to make the cart act as more of a „permanent attachment‟. AMULET OF WEIGHT LOSS

The Amulet of Weight Loss is a product line of enchanted amulets that provide a “permanent” loss of body fat and weight, so long as the amulet is worn. That is, as long as the amulet is worn, up to a certain amount of body weight and the fat that goes with it will effectively cease to exist. The amulet‟s string can be tightened or loosened to adjust the enchantment‟s power, from maximum to lesser. It begins to work while it is being put on so there‟s little to no risk of being too fat to equip it. With the amulet equipped, a pony could potentially become thin and fit again like in the old days, and this can be used for anything from simple appearances to enabling physical actions that were previously impossible to do, or even just to save a pony from permanent immobility.

The amulets‟ enchantments are designed to work specifically on excess weight from body fat, so there is no risk of damage to muscle, organs, or general body tissue. The fat and weight will return as soon as the amulet is unequipped, so it is never truly gone. The amulet has no power against the wearer‟s own gluttony, either. Excess eating and insufficient calorie burning will amount in the wearer gaining weight like normal, though it will not be apparent when wearing the amulet until the amulet‟s powers are exceeded.

Say, for example, a pony‟s “ideal” healthy weight is 250 pounds. That pony instead weighs 950 pounds. The amulet the pony owns is powerful enough to account for 800 pounds of fat. Wearing the amulet allows the pony to effectively be 250 pounds. That pony can safely gain 100 pounds through overeating and laziness without any apparent issue. Once his real weight reaches 1050 pounds, however, any weight gained after that point will become apparent. At 1150 pounds, the pony will appear to weigh 350 pounds. If the pony continues to be a shameless glutton and does not replace the amulet with a

stronger one, he can circle around to weighing 950 pounds with the amulet on, with a real weight of 1750 pounds.

This magically enchanted device was researched in the Crystal Empire. The lead researcher was Sunburst, who cited the entire Crystal Empire‟s royal family and himself as the reasons for the amulet‟s existence. Even young Flurry Heart has become too fat to move. The mobility carts they received were less than ideal, and the idea of using magic was born from the search for a better solution.

Early development and testing was conducted with the assistance of some currently anonymous unicorns from Canterlot, chosen for their extreme weight and mana pools more than for their magical prowess. Countless unicorns were drained of mana and body fat and sent home to return to their normal lives to research spell composition and level of magic required to create an effective, permanent enchantment effect on gems and precious stones of elite quality.

Due to the extreme amounts of mana required to create these enchanted amulets, mass production is not possible. Amulets of weight loss are currently only available to royalty and the extremely rich. Some weaker variants are in consideration for public sale to other ponies.

Despite the aforementioned research, the actual workings of the enchantment are considered a trade secret. It is reasonably assumed that a combination of illusory and alteration magic is involved in the enchantment itself.

Author‟s note: I very much want one of these. It would be so easy, being able to fly again after all this time. CLOSING REMARKS

Whether a visitor from a foreign land, a current citizen of our times, or somepony from the distant future wondering just what happened to Equestria for a particularly indulgent period of time, I hope you found this book helpful. Keep an eye out for my next book, wherein I will launch a deep investigation into Quik-Gro with like-minded ponies to find the truth about what‟s caused this society to so greatly embrace such a lust for indulgence.

 

Our Elephantine Equestria:

An Addendum

CONTENTS

Foreword............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3

About Me .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Society .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3

The Traditionalists ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

The Gourmands ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4

The Ordinaries ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5

New and updated food solutions ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 5

Changes in places to eat, and get things to eat ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Fast Food .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

elsewhere .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8

Home life ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 8

Furniture .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

FOREWORD

Welcome, traveler. If you have not already, please purchase a copy of Our Elephantine Equestria: A Compendium. This book in your hooves is intended to build upon prior data, rather than be a standalone release. ABOUT ME

My name is Sweet Scribe, historian and author. I hail from Cloudsdale, home of my people, but quickly moved to Canterlot to pursue my interests, which are academic rather than militaristic or athletic. On this day, the finalization of the final draft of this book, we approach 11 years of this new era of Equestria. I had intended to engage in a new field of research, but obtaining access to Quik-Gro data that can be researched and published is proving impossible, and I’ve found myself needing more money.

My assistant, Quick Writ, has accompanied me in my research. While there are no new illustrations for this addendum, Quick Writ has proven invaluable in gathering information. Maintaining the promise Princess Celestia forced me to make with my prior book, I will publish my current weight as 614 pounds.

Figure 1: Author Sweet Scribe and Artist Quick Writ SOCIETY

Pony society has, in addition to its previously existent castes and groups, split into three new castes. Despite the term, there are little more than ideological and physical differences between the groups.

THE TRADITIONALISTS

Although the term carries a negative connotation these days, traditionalists merely adhere to the values Equestria held – in terms of appearance and caloric intake – before what is now known as AliFoods came to be and changed our perception on those matters entirely. This is the smallest group in each way you could interpret that description. A few of them are fairly rotund – there were overweight ponies dating back to the founding of Equestria after all – but generally look just as the rest of us did a mere hooffull of years back. The more outspoken ones try to campaign against the current state of affairs in the political realm and make sure you’re aware of it, but nothing has happened so far.

Rumors have spread that some are even planning attacks on AliFood production facilities and farms. So far, the only rumor found to bear fruit is that many traditionalists only eat food they grow and process themselves. Other traditionalists willfully eat AliFood products. Despite what you may think, you can’t actually tell the two sects apart without seeing their homes and gardens. While I myself have shone a light of suspicion on Quik-Gro and Gro-Assist and their potential effects on one’s psyche as some traditionalists do, I must admit seeing ponies eat a diet consisting entirely of AliFood products without so much as getting a little chubby puts a damper on that particular theory – though time will tell!

There are currently no traditionalists in any position of power.

THE GOURMANDS

This caste is the largest – in terms of volume. Membership, ironically enough, is not determined by one’s size, but by one’s mindset. Those who identify as Gourmands have practically deified the concepts of gluttony and obesity. Most members are excessively whale-like, of course, but you’d be surprised how many ponies who measure their weight in pounds consisting of four digits before the decimal, and are larger than many Gourmands without being one of them. What defines being a Gourmand is glorification of and love of fat itself, and dedication to making the term “overeating” an understatement. Much like the Traditionalists, there are rumors of extremist Gourmands who believe the ideal world consists of magic and automated machinery, feeding and caretaking for a population of exclusively immobile blobs that vaguely resemble ponies.

In the eyes of a Gourmand, overeating is too simple, too easy. As one I’ve interviewed put it, you “just have to eat until you feel full, because the brain gets the fullness signal on a delay”. For a Gourmand, you haven’t eaten enough until your stomach hurts. If you ever feel actual hunger, you’ve waited too long between meals. What is a body type fetish, if that body type is so common as to be the norm? For the Gourmands, the fat fetish lives on by glorifying, and considering as peak attractiveness, ever more extreme sizes. It is among the Gourmands where the concepts of immobility and growing too large to fit

in a house are considered utopic rather than inconvenient and terrifying. One can spot a Gourmand most often at a restaurant, at a grocery market buying up entire aisles of food, or any place that serves food – just look for the pony that looks like a single drop of water would make them burst, yet still go for another order.

Though it is a matter of some debate, the Gourmand caste can be said to include ponies that are thin as well. Thin ponies that have decided the Gourmand lifestyle is for them is a simple enough matter. However, there are thin ponies that are claimed to be part of the Gourmand caste because they agree with every tenant of the Gourmand’s ideals, except they apply them to others rather than themselves. The most prominent examples would be bakers and restaurant chef-owners who look like they’d be part of the Traditionalists, yet take pride in having a lover and customer-base who they intentionally feed into exasperatingly large sizes.

Justifying concerns many have about this group, as silly as it may seem at first glance, former Gourmands who have decided going to such lengths as a Gourmand does isn’t for them, or has caused undue inconvenience, are ostracized and treated with disdain by remaining Gourmands. The stress of having to change lifestyles and their irreparably expansive stomach capacities mean a former Gourmand ends up even fatter than when they left, but will eventually at least plateau at a weight.

Gourmands by nature do not often appear in hierarchy castes below Barons, simply due to the financial resources required to fulfill that lifestyle. They will still appear in the Citizen caste, though their finances limit the extent of their excess. Some I have run into and interviewed will, by necessity, eat relatively normally throughout the week, spending saved up money on special days such as the weekends for a fast food binge so large you’d fully expect them to be unable to finish it. Royalty have so far refused to classify themselves as any group, though their particularly corpulent sizes and enchanting appetites spur many rumors. Lords and Barons, due in part to their wealth, are the most common groups from which a Gourmand will hail.

THE ORDINARIES

The last caste is easily the largest – in terms of population. It is the easiest caste to join as well: You simply have to not be an extremist in either end of the weight scale. Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call traditionalists extremists. They don’t promote starvation or famine, just things like not eating three triple layer chocolate cakes for breakfast. Ordinaries have a wide range of shapes, sizes, and ideals. The only blanket statement that could be accurately made is that an Ordinary’s ideals do not fit in any other caste’s. As mentioned, there are Ordinaries who are even larger and more gluttonous than many Gourmands, but simply have a mindset that differs from theirs. Believe it or not, that infamous city of Foaledo is home to only two Gourmands, while the rest of the enormous population are Ordinaries.

NEW AND UPDATED FOOD SOLUTIONS

As time passes, some things change, while others remain the same. A scant four months have passed since the publication of my first book on the changes of our land, and in that time the AliFoods Corporation, recently incorporated and named as the owners of the Quik-Gro and Gro-Assist technologies, has all but monopolized the food market. Excepting only the farthest reaches of the planet, the most destitute non-pony civilizations, you won’t find a single crop or scrap of food that isn’t created with AliFoods technology.

For any fans of dystopian novels and tabletop systems that involve megacorporation control, cybernetic limbs, and generally hellish conditions, you can remain seated with your no doubt overflowing bowl of snacks: AliFoods has no extreme measure of control or ulterior motives. There’s no chance of them usurping the throne or making it impossible to grow crops without some obscene licensing program. They are not paying me to make such claims either. Don’t think so lowly of me to believe the multiple free meals and hotel they provided me could buy me off. Simply put, there is no other way to generate enough food to adequately feed the extreme appetites most of the population has without their technology. Between you and me, everypony in the company could hardly usurp a vending machine. Not counting my assistant Quick Writ, I was the thinnest pony there!

Generally speaking, the only appreciable change in our food supply is that it has gone from a mixture of natural and AliFoods products to entirely being produced by AliFoods, and the multitude of wonderful farmers and factory workers who are willing to perform probably the greatest amount of physical labor in the world at this point, as well as the bakers and chefs who concoct the foodstuffs we all love from the ingredients provided. Packaging has changed to bear the AliFoods label, of course. Compositionally, the food remains the same as it was before the incorporation: a 750 calorie slice of apple pie from five months ago remains a 750 calories slice of apple pie today. While some of the more extreme elements in our new society may be disappointed, it would be more than a little excessive to pump the calorie counts up even higher than they are now. CHANGES IN PLACES TO EAT, AND GET THINGS TO EAT

The popularity of eating out is higher than ever. You’d be hard pressed to find a single pony that doesn’t get at least one meal a day from somewhere other than their own pantries. Many existing franchises have already expanded to have a location in every city, town, and village in Equestria, as well as some places beyond. Some new competitors have entered the mix as well.

FAST FOOD

 Burger Princess and Hay Burger remain the king and queen of the fast food world. It’s hard to beat a hayburger!

 SubsExpress remains the “healthy” choice, though they have expanded to offering sub sizes up to twenty feet long!

 General Blaze’s Kirin Buffet, with seven locations in Canterlot alone, has expanded so far even dragons, deer, and hippogriffs have access to its excess. Of course, the kirin homeland has recently

obtained some locations as well. General Blaze has added a new meal option: the Endless Buffet! This is a three course meal that is repeated as many times as your stomach can handle. Curiously, the food is brought to you for this meal, rather than you going to the buffet line yourself. Once you finish a course, the next is brought out, so on and so forth, until you signal you are finished. Drinks are complimentary and provided on demand.

o Course 1: One of everything on the original General Blaze’s menu

o Course 2: A selection of new foodstuffs that are designed to compact greatly in your stomach, while also being sufficiently calorie dense. This consists of fruit salads, pudding, gelatin (rumored to be sourced from Everfree slimes, but unproven), cottage cheese, and applesauce.

o Course 3: Dessert. Much like course 2, this course is hardly related to kirin cuisine, though you shan’t find anypony complaining. Cake, pie, cupcakes, donuts, and ice cream, all in multiple varieties and great portions.

It would be poor journalistic integrity to simply write about the endless buffet and not try it myself. I must admit, I lasted two rounds before my stomach was packed too full for even a wafer-thin mint. I don’t gorge myself like most ponies my size and larger, making that a surprisingly high volume of food for me.

I would be remiss not to mention the newest player in the field: up and comer Hip Burger. While it lacks a signature dish like Burger Princess’s Princess Burger or Hay Burger’s Big Macintosh, Hip Burger offers hayburgers by the bag for the price of one regular burger and fries at other places. It’s a bit of a tossup of what you’ll get each time, but the paper bag is filled to the top either way, so it’s not like you’re missing out. Typically, you will get anywhere from three to eight burgers in a bag. If you get a lower quantity, don’t fret – each of the burgers are bigger than they would be if you got a larger quantity.

Hip burger likes to keep things cheap and simple. They offer three things: Hayburgers, fries, and milkshakes. Every hayburger is a double with cheese, mayo, catsup, mustard, diced onions, and pickles. Fries come in a large paper bucket, soaked in vinegar and drowned in catsup, Milkshakes come on one size: huge! It’s a simple chocolate milkshake, but 64 ounces for two bits is hardly worth complaining about. The prices can’t be beat. Everything costs two bits a piece.

I don’t want to give the impression that Hip Burger is just a cheap joint to overindulge in, or meant for our poorer citizens. On the contrary, the clientele have been as varied in wealth as they have been in size! If it seems I am heaping on the praise for this new runner, it is only because it has become a common visit for me since opening. As big a fan as I am of the Big Macintosh, for the same price I can buy three bags of burgers, two buckets of fries, and two milkshakes. The mysterious owner allowed me to publish this secret, just for being a common patron: The secret is in the cooking oil! All the hay for the burgers and potatoes for the fries are fried up in cooking oil. That’s normal, right? Where Hip Burger differs, is they place a stick of butter between the two haypatties right as they’re taken out of the fryer. All the butter that inevitably melts out and pools around the burger before it’s placed in the bag, it gets pushed into the cooking oil. That means not only is there buttery goodness soaked into the double hayburgers themselves, the very oil everything is fried in is at least 70% liquid butter!

ELSEWHERE

Restaurants, bakeries, bars, cafes, diners, and grocery markets have all largely remained the same over the past few months. The food and drinks are just as good as ever, and restaurants in particular will feed a wealthy enough patron as much as ponily possible. The changes one will see in any of these locations are as follows:

 Unsurprisingly, clientele and employees alike tend to be even heavier than before.

 Doorways, aisles (in the case of grocery markets), and kitchens have been made larger and wider, owing to a few too many stuck door incidents, at the cost of the buildings undergoing expansions and renovations.

 Furniture, while sometimes lacking in size, is better capable of supporting ponies. You may still need a booth or two chairs to fit properly, but at least you’ll have space and not end up on the floor unless you’re particularly huge. Rather than booths sitting dusty and unused because hardly anypony older than a foal could fit in them, the tables have been raised, and there’s a larger risk of one’s belly pressing another’s, or the other seat, than of not being able to fit.

 Grocery markets have rearranged their bigger, more spaced out aisles. Fruits each get one aisle, while desserts and snacks each generally have no fewer than five aisles dedicated to them. Carts have been replaced with wagons, and a one-way traffic flow has been implemented to avoid congestion. Often times, ponies fill up their shopping wagons with desserts, snack foods, junk, prepackaged meals, and find themselves out of room by the time they get to the fruits and veggies. It’s rare for anypony outside the baking trades actually bringing home anything from those last two aisles, and even then it’s just to use them as ingredients.

o Is it intentional? I believe so. Without exceptionally strong willpower, going grocery shopping will lead you through all these delicious treats that you just can’t resist! The old saying “don’t shop while hungry” won’t save you unless you’re a traditionalist. I can say, based on both experience and observation, any pony who has delayed eating long enough to feel hungry is going to eat until they feel proper full, which for most of us is enough food to make going out and doing physical activity and shopping quite a bother. HOME LIFE

One’s own domicile is no less changed than anywhere else. Once enough ponies properly woke up, we’ve collectively managed to realize just how fat we’ve all gotten. It’s not like we were unaware before, but in my personal opinion, carpenter and seamstress alike must have had to break enough of their own fashion and seats to realize we were in dire need of an update. Home remodeling has rarely gone beyond furniture replacement and the occasional doorway widening thus far, though an increasing amount of ponies have been shifting their essentials to the ground floor and renting their upper floors to comparably fitter ponies. In exceptional cases, some ponies have purchased a plot of land and had a large, single-story house built, with all the supports on the side walls so they don’t have any interior walls getting in the way. I for one find that silly, for a pony to be large enough to need or even desire that, I

can’t imagine them being able to move much at all. For reasons described below, many opt to dismiss the concept of a formal dining room in favor of using other rooms and seats for in-home meals.

FURNITURE

As with the furniture mentioned in the food service section, home furniture has undergone a similar overhaul in recent months. Where home life differs, other than the obvious inclusion of things like beds, is that the concept of a regular chair or stool is almost entirely written off.

 Chairs: Reinforced (and extra wide) chairs are still in use for purposes such as desks. Even dining room tables, for those who eat at home and don’t just eat on the couch or at their desk, have replaced chairs. The extra width needed for modern chairs happens to be enough that it homeowners and renters have opted to just use naturally wider, more comfortable options where applicable.

 Couches: Whether in their normal habitat or living as the replacement for what a chair or recliner would be used for, reinforced couches have become the most popular seating choice. Even dining room tables are surrounded by 2-3 seater couches these days. A popular, though more failure-prone option for living rooms and other locations, is a type of couch that operates as a full recliner replacement: pulling the handle to extend the leg rest does so for the entire length of the couch, rather than just one seat. Most commonly, a two-seat couch is used for a single pony, while a three-seat couch is used for two ponies, or one particularly wide one. Of course, the three-seat style remains popular for laying on the couch as well, though many ponies will use the recliner-style couches and extend the leg rest for their belly. As you can imagine, dining rooms can feel rather cramped between the couches, the quantity of food, and the raw mass of the ponies eating one of their many meals.

 Beds: Bed frames have been redesigned entirely, often out of reinforced steel or even concrete, with support spanning the entirety of the bed rather than just the posts and some wooden slats like older beds had. I think you can understand the reasoning on your own. Some ponies opt to simply have their mattress lay directly on the floor, so as to not incur the extra effort needed to lift themselves a mere few inches.

 Mattresses: Unsurprisingly, mattresses themselves have changed to better accommodate the larger population. The most obvious example is the current use of sizes. Less obvious is the replacement of springs with enchanted foam that operates the way bedsprings do, but without the risk of some sharp metal breaking through and wounding some poor soul.

o Newborn and very young foals are the exclusive users of the old “twin” size mattresses. At such an age, they aren’t particularly fat or anything; I shudder to think how far gone our society would have to get for somepony that young to be fat enough to need such a large mattress. No, this became common practice simply to use up old stock. Worryingly, manufacturers have chosen to produce and market twin size mattresses for foals and discontinue crib mattress sizes entirely, citing an easier manufacturing process.

o Fillies and colts share the double size mattress with the traditionalists. By this age they’ve weaned off their mothers’ milk, no longer need cribs, and are eating AliFood products like the rest of us, so I suppose it’s not much of a surprise that the youth are fat enough for a twin mattress to be too small. Those mares and stallions who could easily fit on a twin mattress? They choose doubles even when single just to avoid the stigma that quickly became attached to buying mattresses “meant” for newborns.

 A note: while the youth are on track to lightly be fatter than their parents are by adulthood, the concept of “fitting in a twin mattress” does not imply they’re wider than the mattress, or that laying on their side leaves their bellies hanging off the mattress. A proper fit for most ponies young and old is considered to be one where you can comfortably roll from one side, to your back, to the other side without leaving the mattress. It’s something of an old world concept, considering most ponies don’t want to upgrade all the way to a king size bed to make this work, and will instead stick with just being able to fit on the bed in any orientation while laying in the center of it.

o Queen size mattresses have become the new standard for single mares and stallions. Traditionalists and those who aren’t quite as heavy as many have become will still use this mattress size as couples, but an increasing portion of the population simply can’t fit a second pony in their bed.

o King size remains the largest mattress size available. This is popular among couples, and the particularly elephantine singles out there. In the case of singles that use a king size bed, their standard for fitting is just being able to fit on the bed at all. Couples at this size, and singles who are exceptionally adipose, simply combine multiple mattresses as needed.

 Bedding and clothing: What is there to say? I considered omitting this entirely, but I need a certain page and word count to justify printing costs. Sheets, blankets, comforters, and clothing are all, obviously, bigger.

 Desks and tables: These are only a little more interesting than the previous section. An outside observer who sees a modern desk or table on its own may think pony society has merely grown bigger and taller, a same-proportion scaled up version of traditional bodies. They’re all taller, to give more belly room under the table or desk, and wider to give more room for things on the table, or more belly room between a desk’s drawers. Where one may previously have briefly considered a diet or found an excuse to put off paperwork for struggling to sit in a booth or having one’s belly press into, and flow over, the table or desk top, with the table raised higher, there is a greater chance of one’s belly touching the floor than getting in the way.

 Kitchens: Stoves and fridges are larger and can hold a much greater amount of food. Even an amateur can cook a meal meant for a dozen easily in these expanded ovens, without even involving the stovetop. A fridge alone, not even counting foods that can be stored unchilled in pantries, is now able to stock at least two weeks of food for an average pony, assuming four meals a day.

 Bathrooms: Sure, it’s not a pretty topic, but unpleasant details aren’t going to be mentioned, don’t worry about that.

o Toilets have changed to more resemble an outhouse, I suppose to make it easier to make one able to hold a modern pony. Other than the bowl and plumbing, the entire toilet base is a rectangle of reinforced concrete, with some much more comfortable tiling layered on top. The flush tank is typically mounted on the wall some distance away.

o Showers and tubs largely haven’t changed, except to be bigger. With the exception of some traditionalists, just about all bathtubs have been recycled and replaced with versions that use a door mechanism for entry and exit. I’m sure you can infer why it’s become popular to enter the tub through a door rather than climbing over the side, no? Models without multiple sprayers have been discontinued, not that anypony would want one.

 Stairs: As mentioned, multi-story houses either house only the ponies thin and fit enough to be able to take the stairs in the family upstairs, or rents it out to those who can take the stairs. Other types of staircases, like those leading into a public building, have been replaced with ramps. Still, with the point of abandoning basements and upper floors being the point a pony’s belly makes it too difficult to transcend them, stairways have been modified with reinforcements ranging from professionally done to cobbled together. FOALEDO

I never wanted to return to this cursed city, but circumstances demanded it. Foaledo gets its own special section, because it has changed a bit more than everywhere else. Everywhere else, all that has changed is the AliFoods incorporation and everypony getting a bit fatter. Foaledo is another story entirely.

REVOLUTION

While fairly small in scale, any armed conflict is major news in this era. While the migrant worker caste did not appear to be treated poorly in my previous visit, that changed at some point. A contingent, led by some prominent Traditionalists (which is why the term holds such a negative connotation; without this situation, they would simply be seen as annoying), took up arms – disaffected by performing menial labor for little pay in service of ponies that can scarcely move at all. With the latter group hardly being capable of combat, even in the case of the unicorns who had magic on their side, outside help was clearly needed, at the very least to stop a slaughter. Both the royal guard (at least, the guardsponies who were still capable of guarding more than the royal food store) and mercenaries hired from foreign lands were dispatched.

What followed was a bloody, terrible war the likes of which have been unseen for decades. Civilian casualties were minimal, while the majority of the rebels were wiped out. Of those left alive, some are serving sentences in Tartarus (I do not intend to question our Princess’s ruling, but typically this type of sentence is reserved for much higher tiers of criminal activity), while others have begrudgingly returned to work. Some, including at least one of the leaders, have escaped to parts unknown.

RECOVERY

After the short-lived Migrant War, the Foaledo government focused on recovery, a return to the status quo. The mercenaries and royal guardsponies, those who were not shipped back home to tend to injuries, stayed behind to help with the rebuilding process. Foaledo provided free meals and board in the city for the soldiers and mercs, owing to the excessive amount of free, unutilized second stories in citizens’ houses. This proved to explain why Foaledo kept its migrant worker caste segregated into out-of-town colonies with their own food sources: guards and mercenaries alike found themselves gaining quite a lot of weight, and had to be dismissed well before the reconstruction project was complete as they were quickly losing the ability to fit into their uniforms, let alone work.

With Foaledo continuing to look like a disaster, Canterlot offered a great deal of funding in place of their soldiers, who were allowed to keep their jobs but greatly diminished the amount of guards who were truly combat-ready. Out of desperation, and knowing a pony workforce would very likely lead to another revolution, Foaledo looked to foreign mercenaries. Strange, bipedal creatures from Klugetown and griffins from Griffinstone were hired to replace the Migrant Worker caste, working alongside the ponies from that caste who were opposed to revolution in the first place.

With lessons learned, all the migrant workers were once again housed outside of the city, with food provisions far less excessive and calorically dense than those found within the city. This was found to be a boon: To the poverty-stricken griffons and Klugetown creatures, the lackluster lodgings and relatively light offering of food were luxurious compared to their homes. Occasionally, a griffon or two have gotten greedy, but generally things have been peaceful.

EXPANSION

It’s impossible to discuss Foaledo without mentioning expansion in some way. With the population growing even fatter than they were before, the city has been running out of room. Even accounting for the population loss from the war, Foaledo was in desperate need of more housing. That isn’t to imply the population has been exploding with newborns. Nay, it would be more accurate to state the majority of the expansion plans stem from the population growing so large that households get too cramped to fit them all.

While all houses in Foaledo sport a second story, it has been mentioned already that the bulk of the populace can’t access the second story. In fact, even if they could, most would cause the floor to collapse and plummet to the ground floor. As a result, the second floor of a Foaledo house is reserved for the youth. A youth in Foaledo tends to be as fat and heavy as an adult Canterlot citizen, but somehow they’re able to make it up and down those stairs just fine, despite often having bellies as acclimated to the floor as their parents.

To acclimate the unique situation, a still-ongoing project was presented: Demolishing the walls surrounding the city, except around the western front where the migrant houses are, creating new walls much further out, and filling the new empty lots with more houses. Breaking tradition, the new houses

are all single-story homes, built bigger and wider than the existing buildings. While the original proposed idea was to move all the larger residents to the new buildings, leaving the original buildings for a proposed cycle, a lot of families that made the move chose to just have their foals in the new house anyway. The proposed cycle was as follows:

1. Parents live on the bottom floor, their foals live on the top floor

2. Foals grow to adulthood

3. Parents move to one of the new houses, while their now-adult children move to the ground floor

4. New generation cycles between homes pertaining to their relationships, eventually ending up with their marriage partner

5. Cycle repeats

The cycle itself seems reasonable, but trying to get it all to work can be difficult, especially with those who haven’t obtained a partner yet, or do not end up obtaining one in general. It gives a way for the already-existent houses to be fully utilized instead of the top floor being dusty and unused until disrepair causes collapse, but makes a lot of assumptions.

What remains to be seen is how this change affects the average size of a Foaledo resident. Until now, the prospect of having much more limited living space caused at least some level of restraint. I know, it’s hard to believe the fattest city in all of Equestria exercises any form of restraint. With a planned expansion north toward the Forbidden Jungle, west into the Bone-Dry Desert, and south roughly half of the distance to Southstock, there may even be enough homes for every single pony to have their own living space. The youth of Foaledo will no longer need to maintain the ability to climb stairs for fear of having to prematurely move into the already crowded downstairs, while those older will no longer necessarily need to share a single floor with multiple other ponies. If I may be bold enough to make a prediction: Foaledo’s citizenry will fall into a weight range of 1000-3000 pounds, youth included.