User:Kilmarnock228

Kilmarnock228 is a big fan of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, though admittedly he never expected to be. He enjoys shipping various characters (but not interspecies pairings like FluttershyxDiscord) and speculation.

My Sandbox

Things I Would Change

 * Equestria Girls would not be a thing, and thus Clover the Clever would be considered a mare.
 * Some characters are rather underrepresented in merchandise-Sombra, Tirek, Pharynx, and so on; someone should fix that.
 * Ditch various plots involving mind control/hypnosis: hate that kind of stuff.
 * In Twilight's Kingdom - Part 1: clarify that Tirek and Scorpan are brothers in a sense of comradery; the idea of a centaur and a gargoyle being biological brothers is as weird as a dragon being in love with a pony.
 * In Flutter Brutter: Zephyr Breeze either needs to not exist or get a serious overhaul.
 * In My Little Pony The Movie:
 * Ditch Capper and Klugetown (leaning towards this), the pirates, or both, or else have Capper be part of the pirate crew from the beginning.
 * Spend more time on the Hippogriffs; actually have them arrive in force to help battle the Storm King's forces.
 * Might also be nice to get more of the ponies in on the battle sequences, like the Princesses and the royal guards-particularly Luna's set.
 * Might have been fun (in a How it Should Have Ended type development) to have Shining Armor and the Crystal Ponies, Ember and the Dragons, Thorax and the Changelings, Prince Rutherford and the Yaks, and Chief Thunderhooves and the Buffalo show up at the end to help out. Discord would have been a handy addition as well.
 * In Shadow Play and Legends of Magic: get rid of the Sirens and either focus entirely on the Pony of Shadows, or else have the Legends face off with a different villain like Tirek or even Discord prior to Stygian's fall.
 * In School Daze-I know it's a bit soon, but I think Sandbar would have been a better addition were he...oh, I don't know...a Thestral? We have a surplus of Earth ponies.
 * Instead of a Ponyville Mysteries comic, I would either continue Legends of Magic and get into more history, or else started a series covering various alternate dimensions/timelines introduced in the series, such as Reflections Equestria and the Cutie Re-Mark realities.
 * Certain comments by various creative staff for the animated series and expanded merchandise would be utterly disregarded-there's no evidence of it in the material itself anyway, so far as I've seen.

Inconsistencies I've Noticed

 * Pointed out to me by Xannot: FIENDship is Magic Issue 5 indicates that Chrysalis and the first Changelings were born without the holes through their limbs, and only gained them after being attacked by Celestia. However, at least one subsequent Changeling generation-namely Thorax's-was born with the holes in their bodies. Given our lack of knowledge as to how new Changelings come about, I'm tempted to attribute it to some kind of duplication process that created eggs containing mini-duplicates (physically) of the original Changelings, down to the scars.
 * Pretty well known one: Celestia and Luna commenting that "The birth of an Alicorn is something Equestria has never seen!" and "It is beyond even our understanding." This seems to contrast the claims of The Journal of the Two Sisters that the pair were born as Alicorns; however, I look at it as a case of no Alicorns having been born in Equestria previously-meaning Celestia and Luna came from somewhere else-and/or to an Alicorn who was not herself born an Alicorn, i.e. Cadence.
 * In Friends Forever Issue 38, Celestia claims to have watched over the dreams of Equestria during Nightmare Moon's banishment. However, in both Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? and A Royal Problem, Luna asserts that Celestia's magic has no power in the realm of dreams.
 * In, Sunburst finds Star Swirl's journal among the materials he's taking from Star Swirl's private study to the Crystal Empire, while in Uncommon Bond he finds it in a barrel he bought at an antique store in Ponyville, which is also where the Pony of Shadows book was in.
 * In Siege of the Crystal Empire it's indicated that Lightning Dust is very bitter against Rainbow Dash for getting her kicked out of the Wonderbolt Academy. And yet, in Fluttershy and the Fine Furry Friends Fair, she and Rainbow Dash apparently get together to go on a roller coaster, making it seem like no grudge exists between them at all.

Thestral Appearances
If you haven't figured it out from the above sections, I'm a big fan of these bat-winged Pegasi and want to see more of them; so far, they've only shown up in:
 * Episodes and Books
 * Luna Eclipsed (debut)
 * The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2
 * Princess Luna and the Festival of the Winter Moon (probably their most prominent appearance to date)
 * Comics
 * On one of the Nightmare Rarity covers (not in the actual story unless I'm mistaken)
 * Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair (cameo)
 * Micro-Series Issue 10 (a brief but awesome cameo including a Looney Tunes reference)
 * Convocation of the Creatures! (actually shows up a few times across pages two and three)
 * Other
 * My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - The Game
 * Castle Creator
 * A minifigure with Luna's chariot.

Could definitely use some more love-a focus episode or three (perhaps explaining why they've appeared so seldomly), some trading cards...

Antagonist pattern
So with the revelation that Tirek will apparently be returning in the upcoming season, it seems to me that a pattern has been established, consciously or unconsciously, with regards to the introductions of major villains in the franchise. By major I'm talking villains who were so bad that they debuted in a two-part episode and/or were defeated in a two part episode-not one time troublemakers like Lightning Dust or briefly escalating nuisances like Trixie. The pattern seems to be this: major villains introduced in odd-numbered seasons seem to end up being redeemed or eliminated (either way they're done being a villain) while major villains introduced in even-numbered seasons survive to make a pest of themselves down the road-in ANOTHER even numbered season:


 * Season 1: Nightmare Moon is introduced but cleansed by the Elements of Harmony in the series premier, and thereafter confined to flashbacks, nightmares, illusions, alternate timelines, and the occasional comic appearance that ends with her quickly reverting back to Luna form.
 * Season 2: Discord is introduced but defeated, and starts on the path to redemption in season 3. Queen Chrysalis and the Changelings are also introduced but expelled by Shining Armor and Princess Cadance's combined magic.
 * Season 3: King Sombra is introduced but is quickly defeated; if you confine yourself to the animated series he is for all intents and purposes dead at this point, whereas the comics featured his return followed quickly by his redemption.
 * Season 4: Tirek is introduced but eventually defeated and returned to Tartarus. Discord also makes a return to his antagonist role in season 4, both with his instigation of/apathy towards the whole Plunderseeds situation and his later alliance with Tirek. However, he does break the pattern somewhat-what else do you expect from the Spirit of Chaos?-by actually becoming a redeemed character, albeit a mischievous one.
 * Season 5: Starlight Glimmer is introduced, and actually becomes the first villain to appear in two different two-parters, but these serve to bookend the same season and result in Starlight being redeemed. The other major villains from previous seasons also make brief appearances, but these are confined to brief appearances in presumably nullified alternate timelines.
 * Season 6: Chrysalis and the Changelings make their return after an absence of FOUR SEASONS (not counting The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2), but their return culminates in the majority of the Changelings choosing to share love and Chrysalis being deposed as their leader.
 * Season 7: The Pony of Shadows is introduced as a full-fledged villain rather than a Headless Horse/Olden Pony type fable, but proves to be a Unicorn possessed by darkness. That darkness is separated from him by the Elements of Harmony and trapped in limbo, leaving the Unicorn himself as a redeemed character.
 * Season 8: Chrysalis will be returning after a much shorter absence, but also minus her previous entourage, and Tirek will be returning after being absent for FOUR SEASONS-funny how that seemed to be his and Chrysalis' magic number.

A Higher Evil
So it's occurred to me that there are a number of unanswered questions regarding some events around the villains of Equestria:


 * The stars aiding in Nightmare Moon's escape-how was this accomplished? Nothing indicates that Luna or Nightmare Moon have or had power over the stars, and if she did why would she have waited a thousand years to do so?
 * King Sombra escaping his imprisonment just as the Crystal Empire made it's return-seems rather convenient, doesn't it?
 * Cerberus being lured away from Tartarus, which enabled Tirek's escape-how was it done?
 * How is it that Star Swirl's journal ended up in Ponyville, and just happened to be in the barrel bought by Sunburst in Uncommon Bond, leading to the events of Shadow Play? For that matter, who constructed Ponhenge or the Well of Shade, and who scattered the Pillars' talismans across Equestria?

You could chalk all of these up to happenstance...but what if there is another power involved? A power that has been unleashing all these menaces against Equestria to pave the way for it's own emergence? And could this darkness have been responsible for the corruption of both Stygian and Luna?

The Castle of the Two Sisters
So back in Power Ponies the Mane 6 were apparently working to clean up and repair the Castle of the Two Sisters. The question is, why? The place lay abandoned for a thousand years, and it didn't seem like anybody needed to use it for anything; it hardly seems likely that Twilight was looking to use it as her own castle. If that wasn't what they were going for-and undoubtedly it's even more so now that the Castle of Friendship is in place-then what were they doing? And is the project still ongoing; Friends Forever Issue 35 seemed to indicate as much, but how much stock can we put in that?

One possibility that comes to mind-but one that seems unlikely-is that the Castle of the Two Sisters might have been intended for reconstruction into Luna's personal castle, with the one in Canterlot serving solely as Celestia's, but even that seems a bit of a stretch. Having seen Shadow Play - Part 2, it seems that the castle may have been intended as a base of operations for some group of Equestria's defenders. I could potentially see it reassuming that role now that the Pillars of Old Equestria are back on the scene, assuming that they wish to remain a group and don't take up residence in their former abodes. But whatever Twilight and co. were doing is a mystery-one of a number that we'll probably not get an answer to.

Absent characters from My Little Pony The Movie
So while it's fairly impressive how many minor/supporting characters from the show made their way into the film, it's also interesting to note how many characters were absent. Now, obviously there are real world technical reasons why this is the case, but I'm more interested in what the in-universe explanations for said absences would be. Some that stick out to me:


 * Shining Armor and Flurry Heart: kind of funny that they're absent while Cadance is present, though I could imagine that Flurry may not do so well with big crowds. I would guess that they probably stayed back in the Crystal Empire, possibly with Twilight Velvet and Night Light staying with them-which serves to explain why THEY aren't present in the film.
 * The Pillars of Old Equestria: since the film apparently takes place AFTER season 7, the Pillars should be present in Equestria. In reality, this is probably due to the movie starting development prior to the season (or at least I would assume that's what happened). In-universe, the Pillars were either going to explore Equestria (in Star Swirl the Bearded's case) or check out the state of their old homes, which means they're probably all away from Canterlot when the movie plays out.
 * Various relatives: while a number of members of the Apple family are present-from what I remember-I don't recall seeing Grand Pear and Braeburn anywhere. For that matter, there was also no sign of Hondo Flanks and Cookie Crumbles, Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles, the Pie family (apart from Maud's photograph), or Mr. and Mrs. Shy (Zephyr Breeze's absence is a blessing in my opinion). Can't really think of particular reasons for their absence-I suppose most of them have jobs that might have prevented their attendance at the Friendship Festival.
 * The Changelings, Yaks, Griffons, Dragons, and Buffalo: for a Friendship Festival, the event seemed to be pretty pony-centric; funny that they didn't seem to involve anyone else. The Buffalo I can understand, as the ponies seem to have little to do with them, but the other three groups seem like they have had closer ties, at least recently.
 * Royal guards: this one is frankly kinda weird; I don't remember seeing a single one of them present during the festival or subsequent events, which is really weird considering the big invasion. It would make sense if the Storm King's forces went after them prior to the invasion, but that kind of subtlety doesn't really seem like the Storm King's style.

Founders of Equestria
So the whole storyline of Shadow Play got me thinking about our old friends the Founders of Equestria, and got me wondering about a few things:


 * Why haven't the Founders been utilized or talked about more?
 * Might there have been any connections between them and the Pillars of Old Equestria?
 * Might there be any connections between the Founders and the Mane 6?

So far as the first question, admittedly they lived a thousand years before the time period of most of the show, they weren't Alicorns, and they weren't-so far as we know-prevented from aging by magical means. However, it does seem a tad odd that the ponies credited with finding the land that they established as Equestria don't have more influence. I mean, so far as I've seen their appearances are limited to Hearth's Warming Eve, The Journal of the Two Sisters, and various throwaway references, apart from whatever goes on in Equestria Girls.

With regards to relations between the Founders and the Pillars, the only one we can designate with any certainty is that Clover the Clever was a student of Star Swirl the Bearded. As far as the other members of each group, the most likely connection would seem to be between Flash Magnus and Commander Hurricane and Private Pansy: I would guess that all three were probably members of the Royal Legion, with Hurricane presumably being the Supreme Commander of the organization while Pansy and Flash were soldiers. Any other connections seem a bit unlikely to have occurred before the two groups actually formed, by which I mean they could have met after the Pillars came to the Castle of the Two Sisters if the Founders were still hanging around at that point. That's unless the Mane 6's portrayals of various founders didn't include attempting any accents.

As to whether the Founders and the Mane 6 have any connections, it would admittedly be pretty distant-a thousand years worth of interspersing generations. However, I could definitely see Celestia keeping track of the Founders' descendants, which would certainly explain her familiarity with Twilight before her acceptance to magic school and with the other five prior to them becoming the Elements of Harmony. Plus, it would be a funny twist if Celestia intervened or arranged to have each Mane 6 member cast as their ancestor in the show.

Additional question: why are they the only major group of six ponies-versus the Mane 6, Power Ponies, and the Pillars-to consist of three sets of two unicorns, Earth ponies, and pegasi that doesn't have a seventh member/sidekick? The Mane 6 have a dragon, the Power Ponies have an Earth pony, and the Pillars have a unicorn-maybe there's an unsung pegasus in the history of Equestria?

The Thestrals
As stated above, I'm quite a fan of Luna's Guards/the Bat ponies/the Batwinged Pegasi/whatever you want to call them-I know Thestrals is out officially because that name is copyrighted to J.K. Rowling, but I'll use it until we have a decent alternative, if ever. Now, sadly, the creative staff have apparently not expressed a lot of interest in them, but if they ever get around to it I would be interested in seeing an explanation for why they haven't appeared more often in-universe. Some ideas:


 * The Thestrals may be keeping their distance from the other pony breeds for reasons of their own. Maybe they were living in Equestria already when the other breeds showed up and decided not to get involved, or perhaps they have some great task to which they have confined themselves which they feel mingling with the other ponies would distract from.
 * Maybe there's some bad blood between the Thestrals and the other ponies, stemming either from some conflict we're currently unaware of-perhaps between them and the Pegasi-or else from their association with Princess Luna. In the case of the latter, if any Thestrals were serving her when she became Nightmare Moon, perhaps the others ponies feared they would rebel against Celestia and they have thus been forced into hiding, with the rift awaiting mending.
 * It's also possible that the Thestrals are a rare breed of pony, and/or they live in areas other ponies don't typically frequent. Lauren Faust and M.A. Larson were of the opinion that they were nocturnal, though that seems like less of a barrier given that ponies-rather like real world humans-have advanced to the point where they're up all hours.

Ineffectiveness of Princesses and Royal guards
So it's become a fairly common pattern in the My Little Pony franchise that-with a handful of exceptions-some or all of the Princesses end up being neutralized/absent whenever a major threat shows up
 * Celestia disappears when Nightmare Moon returns, and both she and Luna refrain from challenging Discord upon his escape.
 * Celestia and Cadance are both captured with relative ease in A Canterlot Wedding.
 * Celestia and Luna refrain from traveling to the Crystal Empire to face Sombra, while it's all Cadance can do to try and keep him at bay.
 * Celestia and Luna are captured in Princess Twilight Sparkle, while Cadance is away in the Crystal Empire.
 * All three transfer their magic to Twilight rather than confronting Tirek in Twilight's Kingdom.
 * Twilight is captured along with the others in To Where and Back Again.
 * Celestia, Luna, and Cadance do not get involved in the conflict of Shadow Play.
 * The three older princesses are quickly petrified in My Little Pony: The Movie.

Now, there are fairly legitimate reasons in-universe for why these occurred:


 * Celestia apparently couldn't cure Luna herself, and once Twilight and co. connected with the elements she and Luna apparently couldn't use them against Discord, against whom their own magic was apparently inadequate.
 * Cadance's magic is based on bringing out love, so it's unlikely unsuited/untrained to use in combat, while Celestia was overpowered due Chrysalis feeding on Shining Armor's love for Cadance.
 * Celestia felt that Twilight could handle the threat of Sombra, and perhaps didn't want to simply banish him again only to have him pop up in another thousand years.
 * The Plunderseeds were a threat that no one was apparently aware of aside from Discord, and had the particular effect of disrupting pony magic.
 * Tirek had Discord on his side, and presumably thanks to his aid was able to attain greater strength in his second campaign than he had during his first attempt to steal Equestria's magic.
 * The Changelings are admittedly a difficult adversary to deal with due to their disguise ability, and the ambush permitted by this is clearly effective.
 * The Mane 6 and their allies were so concerned with dealing with the threat of the Pony of Shadows as quickly as possible that it makes some sense that they wouldn't take the time to contact the other princesses.
 * The Storm King's forces appear to have been well prepared to deal with pony magic, both with their petrifying orbs and magic-resistant armor/shields utilized by the Storm Guards; notably, the latter were not so helpful against dragon fire.

Additionally, in the case of Celestia and/or Luna, I could see their apparent vulnerability as a sign of rustiness. A thousand years ago they were dealing with every major threat that popped up-excepting the Sirens and the Pony of Shadows-after Equestria was founded. However, after Luna's corruption and exile-so far as we know-Equestria seems to have enjoyed a centuries long period of relative peace. As a result, it's somewhat to be expected that Celestia and Luna's combat skills would degrade, as they weren't using them. Similarly, the EUP/royal guard/Equestrian military seems to have become more about pomp and circumstance than about actual defense in that same time period:


 * The royal guard are absent/ineffective in virtually all of the scenarios regarding the princesses above. The Canterlot Archives guards are also oblivious to the intrusion of Twilight and her friends in It's About Time, unless the fact that it's Twilight means that they literally are not concerned at all.
 * The Wonderbolts have apparently become more of a performance team/weather control unit than a fighting force; the one time I can think of where they actually try to take on a threat (namely greed-transformed Spike) they are fairly handily defeated.
 * No other military force I can think of even seems to be present in Equestria, given that every major threat seems to come directly against Twilight and her friends. Presumably this means that groups like the Cloudsdale Royal Legion and the Mighty Helm are either long defunct or have been absorbed into the EUP.

I also find it rather sad that the royal guards under the princesses are seemingly an all male group, whereas at least the Wonderbolts are apparently equal opportunity. It makes it seem like either the guard doesn't accept mares, or else mares have no interest in joining, which is pretty sad when you consider that there were mares among the royals guards of Sable Spirit and alternate timeline Nightmare Moon despite their evil alignments. Granted, they could have been pressed into service, but if that's the case it's kind of sad that the royal guard of the present/main timeline is apparently an organization that no mares want to join. I figure you could kill a couple birds with one stone if they decided to write Tempest Shadow in as joining the guard now that she's no longer in service to the Storm King: you'd get at least one female guardspony, and she could definitely whip those boys into fighting form.

Friendship Ambassadors
So given Pinkie's appointment as Official Friendship ambassador to the Yaks and Spike's apparent identical appointment to the Dragons, I figure others of Twilight's friends would probably serve in similar positions. Twilight herself I don't see taking on an ambassador role-she's already the Princess of the Friendship-but I figure the following appointments make sense:


 * Fluttershy-the Breezies, for fairly obvious reasons.
 * Applejack-given her Appleoosan relatives' ties with them, the Buffalo seem a good prospect.
 * Rarity-kind of tough to nail this one down, but her friendship with Capper could always segue into her being ambassador to the Anthro-Cats.
 * Rainbow Dash-since she's the closest to Captain Celaeno, she seems like a good pick to be ambassador to Ornithia.
 * Zecora-were they ever to introduce other zebras in the series (apart from Braze) I figure Zecora would probably be a good pick. The deer also seem like a pretty good possibility given their shared residence in Everfree.
 * Starlight-the changelings; sure, Spike may be friends with Thorax, but Starlight actually helped them throw off Chrysalis' reign.
 * Scootaloo-the griffons, given her friendship with Gabby.
 * Apple Bloom-perhaps the seaponies/hippogriffs, based on Surf and or Turf.
 * Sweetie Belle-not sure, though perhaps if the seaponies/hippogriffs consider themselves separate groups she could take whichever one Apple Bloom doesn't represent, or she could be ambassador to the genuine seaponies and mermares while Apple Bloom handles the hippogriff group.
 * Tempest-the Storm Creatures...assuming she isn't already ruling over them or something now that the Storm King is out of the picture.