Dear Baby Ribbon:

How come there can be three (or is it four) different Ivy's? Are they twins, sisters, related, or just freaks?

Silverdawn

Dear Silverdawn,

There are, in fact, 4 Ivys, each the "glamour girl" (gaaag).

Excuse me if I come across as socially aloof, but I don't often venture into Friendship Gardens.  For one thing, I feel rather tall--ha HAA!  Ah haa, ah hee, ah hahahaha!  Ah . . . *snif* . . . Well now . . . where was I? Sorry.  Couldn't pass that up.  For another thing, I have never quite understood what makes some of those, um, interesting characters in Friendship Gardens tick. 

The only representative of that culture I have run across that I can truly relate to is my friend Hip Holly. I met her last month after she wandered into our back yard to eat the mushrooms, and I actually found I liked her.  Maybe it's because she seems to somehow represent the Friendship Gardens counterculture (or maybe because her demeanor is so transparent--in fact, I can see right through her!  HAAAA! Hoo hoo hoo! Oh . . . the puns are getting worse, okay, okay.  Starglow would demolish me for that one).  So anyway, in order to answer your question, I put on my biggest, goofiest smile and trotted off to Friendship Gardens to see Hip Holly.

Her small, lopsided house was decorated with garish colors, the grass was overgrown, and there was a motley assortment of rocks, dreamcatchers, and windchimes au naturelle hanging from the windows. Upon opening the trapezoidal door, I was greeted with the slightly bizarre glow of a fish tank and several lava lamps, and a pungent smoke was heavy in the air.

"That had better be incense, Holly." I called out.
"Hey . . . like, Baby R! Man . . . " came a voice from the back room.  Out came Hip Holly, in all her, well, glory, if you could call it that.  I had to squint to keep my eyes open at all.

She gave me the lowdown, or as close to it as possible, on the four Ivys.  " . . . Y'know, Ivy's like . . . uhhh . . . she's four people and she's one person too . . . y'know?  Like . . . she does her hair, and she gets a dye job on her skin . . . and . . . [Meanwhile, I'm feeling really light-headed and thinking, aren't skin dyes illegal in Ponyland? Oh well.  Nothing is illegal in Friendship Gardens] . . . y'know? She's still the same, beautiful pony, no matter who she, like, is at any one time . . . . And like Light Heart?  And  . . . they're all beautiful too.  Such bright pretty colors . . . But Ivy, she's four people.  Get it?"

My eyes were glazing.  "Uhh . . . sure, Holly.  Thanks."

Okay, why do I go to Friendship Gardens for anything?  After a wasted afternoon, I made an appointment to see Princess Star Gleamer, chair of the Department of Unexplained and Paranormal Activity at Dream Valley University at Ponyland--if anything ever qualified as being unexplained and paranormal, it was Friendship Gardens.

Even Princess Star Gleamer seemed to take on a distressed appearance when I mentioned Ivy and my conversation with Hip Holly.  "I was hoping the question was to be about aliens, or the Bermuda Triangle, or the third gunman on the grassy knoll, or something simple like that."  She then reluctantly outlined the current theories as to the seemingly duplicate ponies.

"The most popular theory is that Ivy is one pony who is a bit overindulgent in cosmetic procedures, resulting in the appearance of four very different appearances.  She is widely known as the "glamour girl."  There are many instances of, let's call it "multiple personas" in Friendship Gardens, but Ivy seemed to set the trend, and unscrupulous practices such as skin dying run rampant over there, making drastic appearance changes much easier to obtain.

"The second most widely accepted theory," Star Gleamer continued, "is that there really are four ponies named Ivy--four distinct ponies, all born within a period when Ivy was a very popular name, who think it is hilariously funny that they all have the same name and like to pretend they are all the same pony.  Or, perhaps they were four sisters whose less-than-brilliant mother named them all "Ivy."  But, to be honest, who really knows?"

Well, I do now.  I am Baby Ribbon, Knower of Everything, and I now know for certain that the answer is . . . uh . . . that Friendship Gardens is weird.  The end.  And if I ever meet someone else named Baby Ribbon who pretends to be me, I will kill her.