Headcanon about Magical Mstery Cure

Ok, so I watched Bronies React: Season 3 finale and it was brought up several times how changing the cutie marks changed the entire personality of the ponies and what this could mean. That got me to thinking of a way to make it make some sort of sense. Now, this is convoluted and complicated and will most likely be contradicted by the show at some point. But for now it's what I like to think.

Firstly, how magic works in Equestria. This is important. My headcanon is that magic comes not from a source, but from a connection. You can think of it like a string connecting the elements / forces/ ponies together and by plucking or vibrating this string, magic is created. In this way we can understand that earth ponies are connected to the earth and through this connection they are build sturdier and have an easier time farming. Pegasai are connected to the sky and this is what allows them to manipulate clouds and such. Unicorns could be connected to something more abstract. Perhaps knowledge, the mind, or perhaps the ether world that Twilight went into to become an alicorn. Whatever. The important thing is that these connections and vibrating them is what creates magic.

Now, there are of course, other kinds of magic. The magic of friendship, for example, is the connection between friends and can be used to create magical energy. This energy is what the Elements of Harmony use to power themselves. Then there is the magic of love. This is the domain of Cadance and changelings. There is, of course, other connections which could be used. For example, familial relations, acquaintances, loyalty from one person to another. There are also negative connections such as hatred towards another, disdain for another, or the cold killing intent that one soldier has towards another. But those aren't needed to explain MMM.

Now, we know that all the cutie marks were messed up by Starswirl's spell that was unfinished because "he didn't understand friendship." We can also assume that the spell was the final spell needed to be mastered for a unicorn with a cutie mark for magic to become an alicorn. (for my headcanon on ascension and becoming an alicorn check Headcanon about Alicorns and becoming One)

Now, let's assume that Starswirl was trying to make an alicorn making spell, how would he go about it? Well, he would have known that an alicorn was all three types of ponies mixed together and as such must mean that an alicorn is connected to all three 'planes.' So the answer is obvious, all he had to do was connect himself to the earth and sky to become an alicorn. He did not, however, know the part love played in becoming an alicorn and as such he spell never worked and thus was left unfinished.

(quick note, he probably died before Celestia or Luna could inform him that this was the case and put him on the same path that Celestia put Twilight on so that he COULD learn the magic of friendship. I say this because Celestia seems to have not disliked Starswirl but also knew that it was his inability to understand friendship that stopped the spell from working. She could have learned this later, though, so it could have just been that at the time no one knew what was needed to become an alicorn)

Now, on to the episode proper. When Twilight gets the spell she (like an idiot) tries it out. Now, the spell is unfinished and only formated to work with the three connections. Twilight, however, draws on four connections when using magic. Now, this makes the spell complete, technically, but the spell proper isn't complete because it's like sticking four hoses into a machine with only three inputs and all the extra energy messes with the spell. At this point I think the spell backfired and overloaded the weakest connection: that of the mane 6's friendship.

Now I know that most see the magic of friendship as the most powerful, but I don't think it's more powerful than the innate connecton of ponies to the respective plane.

Now, what would this have done if they weren't the Elements of Harmony? It could have killed them all. Or perhaps erased their friendship from the universe and rewritten history as if they had never become friends, who knows?

But they are the Elements of Harmony and as such there was a fail safe stopping the spell from destroying everything. Unfortunately, something else happened: Everything got mixed up. The chaotic magic needed to go somewhere and do something lest it destroy the connections the Elements drew on for power and as such it needed to be channelled in a less destructive way that still allowed the Elements to draw on power in case they were needed. With this needing to happen, there was only one thing that could be done: use the energy to flip about the elements of harmony's 'souls.'

This ended up with mixed and rewritten memories. Thus, all their cutie marks are changed and THEY TAKE ON EACH OTHER'S LIVES. That's important. They don't just trade talents, they trade lives, and no one seems to notice, or at least no one makes too much of a fuss about it. This leads me to believe that everyone's memories were tampered with, if only to fog out who was who before that night. But why is it important that they traded lives instead of talents? Because it supports the hypothesis that your cutie mark is not some be all end all to who you are. If this were true then AJ would have become a miner and Rarity would have become a racer when their cutie marks switched.

That didn't happen, and why? Because they knew who was supposed to have that cutie mark. The spell had messed with their minds, but AJ still knew that the mare with the three diamond's cutie mark was a dress maker that lived in Carousel Boutique and thus concluded, subconsciously, that that mare must be her. The same goes for the others, they knew who the mare was that had that cutie mark and concluded that they must be that mare and as such took each other's lives even though they were miserable.

Thus, fixing the problem is easy enough, just remind them of who they are and it should all come back. Thus we come to fixing the spell. After the mix up Twilight is able to understand where the spell wasn't working and fix it, thus creating the alicorn creation spell. The whole beams out of the Elements thing was just a visible representation of the connections being used to create an alicorn.

Feel free to nit pick and point our flaws in this headcanon, I appreciate the feedback,
Bye!