Nostalgia's Drawback · 5:06am Jul 15th, 2015
What with the last two episodes being concerned with the very earliest pieces of FIM's lore, and this being July, roughly around the time I got into the fandom four years ago, (Sweet Celestia, it's been only four years?) I decided to show you this:
Made way back when, I found this royally shitty drawing sitting buried deep in my computer. Even after all this time, I recall that it was associated with the second fanfic I ever came up with regarding this show* - and let me tell you, it's one I'm glad never got written. While it was an attempt to counteract the trend of "Twilight is sent to the distant grimdark past due to a badly-cast spell" fics on Equestria Daily at the time, the way I chose to go about it... left a lot to be desired. Long story short, it instead featured Twilight being sent to a grimdark future due to an intentionally planted spell. Because, you know, that's so much better.
Admittedly my story concepts have barely gotten better these days, but I digress - it's the specifics of the story that count, and it's in that department that I feel I have improved considerably. For back then, my thought process was something along the lines of this, if the image is anything to go by:
"Even though everyone in Ponyville is of more-or-less uniform size, clearly the Mane Six are youngish and therefore smaller. Oh, what's this? I don't know how to write Celestia, Rarity, and Applejack, so let's kill them off. Then we can have Luna in all her sock-y glory be in charge of the resistance, which I will call the New Lunar Republic because heck yeah. Derpy and the other background ponies will of course play huge roles, because they are of course totally relevant, right? And Pinkie is clearly better when she's depressed and murderous, so let's make her be a crazed prisoner who escapes halfway through to make things darker and therefore clearly better. And there will be a figure in the background who will be implied to be Zecora, but will turn out to be Fluttershy. It's the perfect plan!"
Past me: 
Present me: 
As much as I like to whine about the good ol' days of Season 1 and how much better the fandom and fanfic culture was back then,** as far as my personal views and approach to the show back then goes, there was a lot of room for improvement.
*If anything, the first ever fanfic idea was even worse, but that one I was at least able to salvage a few good concepts from to be recycled in the TAS Continuity.
**Though to be fair, Rainbow Rocks and Season 5 have caused a marked upswing in present conditions.
I don't see anything wrong with the inclusion of background ponies in significant roles, but the rest...
Well, at least you can look back on how much you've improved.
3239687 Well, the problem there was more my justification for it, but yeah.
At least there's that.
The cover art isn't actually that horrible; it's really good! Derpy, Luna (is that a pen or a cigarette in her mouth?), and Fluttershy (whom I didn't even notice until you pointed her out, she's so small) are the only issues I really see. That and sizing issues of everypony in the foreground.
As for the story, I think it sounds pretty good. There are some flaws in logic (why would they be younger if they're in the future?), but I think it could work. Then again, that's just me.
3240569
Pencil. Apparently I failed to realize Equestria still mainly uses quills.
Perspective thing; she's waaaaay in the background.
Actually, the idea there was that the Mane Six are older now and therefore bigger; as Twilight hasn't aged, she is much smaller than everyone else.
But that is of course dependent on the flawed notion of the Mane Six not being of age in FIM's time.
Eh, maybe...