Sort of like this?◊

She's just a random background filly in Apple Bloom's class, right? They don't tend to get much fanon attached to them.

I'd rather apply granular jamming to how ponies hold a bow like that :V

if you'll look closely at the comic I posted, you'll notice that her bow is actually tied to one hoof and she has a band on her other hoof for latching on to the arrow.

but she has a bow and arrow cutie mark! The only weapon cutie mark on the show! That has to count for something!

edited 26th Sep '12 10:26:05 AM by Blissey1

@Lurker Yes, but her special talent is archery. And she's an earth pony.

edited 26th Sep '12 10:26:40 AM by PurpleDalek

What if her special talent is match making?

Just throwing it out there.

Oh my God, so cute!

As for how a pony would use a bow, I'd imagine it similarly to how they use cameras. There's a special harness that the bow is mounted on, with a secondary drawstring attached to the one on the bow looping around to the other side of the harness, The pony reaches back with their mouth to grab and pull that string to draw the bow, and either releases to fire, or uses a locking mechanism similar to a crossbow so that it can be fired while on the move.

Russian Fluttershy is adorable :3

@ Lurker

Would the bow be held horizontally? I think I could draw that...

@ Russian Fluttershy

HHHHNNNNGGGHHHH!!!!!

edited 26th Sep '12 10:34:01 AM by ApplelightLimited

*squees at Russian Fluttershy*

*looks around*

No one heard that, right?

@Apple It could be mounted horizontally just behind the pony's head, with sights coming up in front of the pony's eyes like a badass eyepiece, or vertically with the bow mounted in front of and to the side of the pony, similarly to how a human would hold a bow. The important part is that the secondary drawstring is put through a few pulleys so that it pulls directly backwards on the bow's actual drawstring, and that the pony is able to knock an arrow easily, probably by having a swivel joint on the bow mount to bring the bow into an easier position to load the arrow.

@D Roy: Yeah, something like that. But cuter.

And Vinyl Scratch is just an extra with about 5 seconds of screentime, same for Octavia. Lyra and Bon Bon are just background characters with wildly inconsistent characterization. There's no real rhyme or reason to why some background ponies accrue lots of fanon.

Oh, cool.

@video: Wow, Russian Rainbow Dash sure sounds girly.

edited 26th Sep '12 10:41:02 AM by Bluespade

@Bluespade = Yeah, Kidomaru is ugly.

edited 26th Sep '12 10:41:54 AM by dRoy

Archer is a Scootaloo recolour isn't she? You could throw in some fanon about them being sisters.

@Vodkashy HHHNNNNGGGGGG

edited 26th Sep '12 10:41:52 AM by PurpleDalek

@ Blissey: What about Archer? The colt with the bow and arrow cutie mark?

Edit: Archer's a girl? And we were already talking about it? Curse you Thread Hop!

edited 26th Sep '12 10:42:37 AM by Badwolfwho

Nah pony archery involves having a crossbow starpped to one leg, theyn use the other to put in the bolt and draw it back, then flex their hoof just right to hit the trigger and shoot.

@Purple Dalek -

Russian Fluttershy cheer is cuter.

French Flutterguy is sexier. Yeah, I posted this before, but damn!

edited 26th Sep '12 10:42:38 AM by dRoy

@Seraph Perhaps, but a leg-mounted crossbow would severely limit both the size and power of the weapon and the mobility of the pony wearing it. I prefer my back-mounted bow harness idea for more mobile, but less compact usage.

heh now I'm picturing a pony with a massive ballista mounted on their back and a team of seige ponies loading and firing it.

Today is Yom Kippur, so day is off from school. Not sure why, since I'm not Jewish. Oh well.

Drunks.

Indeed.

Pony-mounted belt-fed machine-crossbows!

That's kinda why I put the nanogun as a synthetic horn on my pony!Iji.

Partly because the pony stance of lowering the head is a pre-established physiological stance, and because it gives her better aim control than side-mounting on a battle saddle. In fact it's proportionally smaller than the in-game nanogun.

dual-mounted gravity-fed chu-ku-no crossbows!

edited 26th Sep '12 10:55:44 AM by AceOfScarabs

I'm mostly just extrapolating from two instances of harness adaptation we've seen on the show for these kind of tools, the first being the camera harnesses, and the second being the side-mounted lances depicted on the jousting Crystal Ponies in the history book illustration.

I went with the choice to use a reasonably plausible pre-existing stance and adapt it.