Giant Crystal and Giant Spider

Well, my sisters haven't been nearly as restrained this week as last. First culprit: Julie. She and Xanadu went and fluted this crystal-colored Orlov Trotter on Crystal Isle this Thursday.






He is 5/6, and his stats add up to +79, which is one point shy of that magic +80, the minimum number of stat points we look for when deciding to keep a non-6/6 equine. So I was like, How nice, Julie. Close but not quite there. Put him in the livery, and I bet he'll be adopted really quickly. But does she do it? No, instead she shows him to Bethany and Felicity, and next thing I know, they're saying stuff like: 
"Can't we make an exception? He's only one stat point short."
"We don't have an Orlov in the herd yet."
"C'mon. He's a crystal horse from Crystal Isle!"
"Look, so tall and shiny and Christmas-y!"
"We could call him Tchaikovsky!" 

I tried to be the voice of reason. I pointed out that we are short on mares right now, not stallions, and that it didn't make much sense for a horse from a snowy isle to be so lazy that he refuses to be ridden in snow. I reminded them that the Orlov artwork leaves much to be desired, that we already have several light gray horses, and that we only have 3 empty slots left. I even showed them how similar the Orlov's avatar is to Edoras's:

Orlov

Edoras, Bethany's white gray Andalusian

They're insisting the two are different enough: Edoras is more golden-toned and has yellower golden   hooves than the Orlov. *Sighs* 

Realizing I was fighting a losing battle, I offered a compromise. If we don't find a higher-stat wild horse before the end of the year, he can stay as our December horse. But if we do, we only keep him until he reaches 1,000 exp and then put him up for adoption. That seems more than fair, right?

Later on the very same day, Felicity was playing when one of our buddies came online. We don't message her or see her online very often, but I believe we had a conversation with her once about our mutual love of Plateau Persians. I think we also admired her Plateau Persian, a mare named after a monster spider in The Lord of the Rings. 

Well, apparently, the buddy had since decided to sell her Plateau Persian but hadn't been getting any offers. She asked us if we'd be interested in buying her, and when Felicity went to view her, there it was in red. 




Yes, the horse is absolutely gorgeous. Yes, Felicity, I know you love the raven black ones. And yes, it's good to help out buddies. But those stats...  +9? Really? *Shakes head.* I'm hoping I can convince her to retire her to our Millennium Fields. We shall see.