Huh. Well. THAT happened.

((Spoilers for the season 3 finale ahead))

As a writer, there's a whole bunch of new canon and rules that came with the new episode. Apparently one does not simply create a new spell, magic=poems, apparently (dammit), the elements of harmony and thier bearers are linked in such a way that changing one affects the other, becoming an Alicorn involves going to some kind of cosmic existence plane, and I think Twilight was actually legitimately dead for a few moments there, and got reincarnated as an Alicorn. Also, apparently alicorn always = princess.

I can see how the episode would fail to assuage the worries of the fandom over Alicorn Twilight. To be perfectly honest, if you didn't know what was going to happen, it came completely out of the blue, and exactly none of the episode was dedicated to the implications of such a major change. The whole thing was kind of... rushed, because of the 22 minute time slot.

All of that being said, we did get a tweet from someone on the show's staff that the next season opening would run on from this. With an additional 44 minutes to explore exactly what the buck just happened, I'm sure this can be made good again.

All in all... I can't help but feel the last lyric of the song was done on purpose. Everything's going to be fine.

I'm about five hours late to this party, but this was posted on EQD recently.

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/02/mlp-spin-off-series-confirmed-rumor.html

As a quick look at the comments will tell you, there's a whole lot of colon-collapsing, angry 'meh's, and, rarely, a few excited voices. Personally? I'm not sure this is legit. It looks kinda... low quality. All of the characters are in almost the exact same pose, they don't have shadows, and I think I remember reading a tutorial on how to draw anime-style heads that looked just like that online a long time ago.

That being said, if it turns out this is a thing, the prudent thing to do would be check it out and see how it goes. In my mind, the coolest thing they could do with this is have it be a magical-girl style thing, where they're trying to blend in as highschool students, but all still have their magical powers (or absurd strength/endurance in AJ and Pinkie's case). But then, that sounds like something I would write, and I can't even get EQD to post my stuff.

I cannot, for the life of me, write verse.

Zecora is an interesting character. She's wise, level-headed, and surprisingly kind-hearted, for a hermit. As a character, she's useful as a mentor-type, and is also the most likely canidate for finding something particularly strange in the Everfree forest. However, for all of her good points as a character, she has one trait that makes it really, really difficult to write her.

She speaks in verse.

I've seen a lot of bad Zecoras on this site. They're not necessarily bad because they snap into something like "Zecora doesn't rhyme to underscore how dire the situation is", although there is a lot of that, but there's a lot that are bad because people don't realize Zecora doesn't just talk in rhyming couplets. Her speech has a certain cadence to it; I think the fancy writer word is pentameter.

"For your cutie mark, you will have to wait.

We must fix that tooth before it's too late.

Now drink down every little drop,

and this mixture will mend that chip on top!" -Cutie Pox

"A dragon's heart is prone to greed,

a steady diet to make growth speed.

Then, the resulting bigger size

only makes their hunger rise.

If this trait should go unchecked,

if Spike continues to collect,

more growth will certainly occur – he is going to turn into a monster." -Secret of My Excess

As I've stated, I can't poem. I often try to avoid writing Zecora, at least in major roles, because literally EVERY time she opens her mouth, I need to write a poem. And it's terrible.

Maybe spoilers for the newest episode?

Well, seems as though my fic's been kneecapped by the show's cannon now. Ah well. It was a good episode anyway, and freed up an interesting character without coming across as super-lame, so I can't say I'm too upset. I'm wondering how it is they're going to have real problems around without Discord either causing them or just snapping his fingers to fix them, though.

And as the chat was saying, here comes the fluttercord shipping~

I've been mulling over a lot of thoughts recently, trying to work out what to write, and thinking about the stories of things I've already read or seen, Ponies among them, and pony fics among that. Excuse me for a bit while I use my soap-box to conspiracy-theorize for a while...

(Source: http://dougjonesismyhero.deviantart.com/ )

There are a lot of Twilight-becomes-an-alicorn fics. There are a lot of Twilight-becomes-third(fourth?)-princess fics. Whenever this is the case, I've noticed that whatever she's the princess of is always, well, right there in her name, Twilight, the time between the day and the night. But what purpose would this serve? Equestria has a twilight time already. Celestia lowers the sun and Luna raises the moon in a slow, natural arc, not like Daytime! Nighttime! So, what exactly would a princess of twilight do? Act as a sub? That seems kind of underwhelming for Twilight Freakin' Sparkle, the most OP unicorn in the show, and also the main character.

However, that doesn't mean that this isn't the direction cannon might actual be leaning to. In fact, preening her for the throne is one of the few reason I can think of for Celestia to be giving Twilight (and her family, apparently) such preferential treatment. She might be powerful, sure, but that's hardly a reason for Celestia to take such a special interest in her. This may have been Twilight's destiny from before she or any of her immediate relatives were born. Fate does seem to have a heavy hoof like that in Equestria. I mean, what are the odds that there would be six mostly unrelated mares, born within probably a year of each other, and twenty years or so before the proverbial shit was getting ready to hit the fan in Equestria, all with the spirits of the elements of harmony within them, who would get their cutie marks, which can also be interpreted to represent their element, as a direct result of the same event? But anyway, I digress.

If Twilight's being preened for the throne, but not as a 'princess of twilight', then what for? Well, once again, the hint's right there in her name, but people, much like when Twilight tried to solve Discord's riddle, only took in the first part. I'm going to backtrack back to the very first episode of FiM. When I was first watching it, I thought that Twilight was going to do something, out of the best intentions, to release Nightmare Moon. Why would I think that, when the prophecy said the stars will aid in her escape?

Well, tell me... what is it that sparkles in the twilight?

first person to say vampires gets a boot up their ass

So, I think that Twilight would, in fact, become a princess of stars, which would explain Luna's somewhat suspicious behavior during the season 3 premiere (she may perceive it as a portion of her charge being taken from her). But what are the implications of this? Celestia moves just one star around Equestria, Luna even less, just a huge chunk of rock in the sky. If Twilight had control over the stars, she would have a hundred thousand suns at her command. She would ascend into godhood in a way that even Celestia never seemed to manage. She would rise up to be equal with macro-creators like a lot of people's fanon Celestial parents, or SS&E's Cosmic Matriarch. This brings up a whole mess of questions surrounding everypony involved, and I think typing all of this out may have given me an idea for a new fic.

On an off note, how 'bout that bronystate getting hacked? Kind of ironic considering the subject matter of today's particular episode.

So, how about that season premiere, everyone? Since this is the closest thing to a soapbox I've got, I'm going to post my thoughts on the episodes here. Spoilers ahoy, by the way, so if haven't watched it yet, stop reading my ramblings and go watch the work of actually skilled writers :P

The theme of this episode, rather than being on friendship and solving problems through working together, seemed to be personal growth and advancement. Solving the crystal kingdom's problems was presented to Twilight as a test. The real question is why Celestia was testing Twilight. Luna was shown acting rather suspiciously as well, but we'll have to see where and if that goes anywhere.

King Sombra was kind of a boring villain, literally just a looming back smoke cloud on the horizon, threatening in only the vaguest of ways. Kind of a disappointment compared to Discord. He did, however, whomp Shining Armor's ass and screw up his horn so he couldn't cast magic. Even that, though, wasn't nearly as concerning as it looked like it should have been.

Cadance was rather absentee throughout the episode, although I guess she had an excuse what with the magic love shield she had to keep up ("Not so easy, is it honey?") It was rather interesting how she was still able to fly and use telekinesis after using the very last drop of her magic (quite literally. Apparently magic is fluid in nature. Fair enough).

It was really great that Spike was actually a participant this time around. Actually, he played quite a big role. He even got his own stained glass window in Canterlot Tower. The dark angry magic that Celestia and Twilight displayed was kind of interesting. Twilight continues to have hax, which was actually pretty awesome. Apparently Shining Armor is capable of pitching Cadance like a javelin. I'm also interested in why they had a train station near where the Crystal Empire appeared. That kind of implies Princess Celestia had been planning for this.

Since True Chaos ended, I've been trying to come up with a new story for myself to write. I haven't had a lot of luck, since I got stuck on the Twilight Princess crossover, but I do have about... I dunno, 15? story ideas that I've been working on. It came time to clean up my desktop, so I rifled through them. I came across this gem, and then realized, months after I had wrote it, the implication.

*pop! Squeeeeelch...thud*

With a tremendous grunt, Queen Chrysalis squeezed out the last of this latest batch of eggs. Her last remaining broodmate hovered them and began to spray them with a misty green liquid. Once they were thoroughly doused, the changeling collapsed to the ground. Two worker changelings buzzed in and hoisted the carcass off to be recycled into gelatine.

The queen scowled as another worker began to form a gelatine hex around the eggs to keep them contained. She survived the blast from Canterlot, although the majority of her soldiers had not.  Without soldiers, not only were her remaining children defenseless, but they would soon starve. There hadn't been a single soldier changeling in the last batch, or the batch before that, and non-soldier changelings were either too physically weak, mentally dimwitted, magically stunted, or some combination of the three to defend the hive or hunt. If some soldiers didn't come out of this batch, the hive was doomed.

To say she hadn't planned for defeat would have been a lie. She was not so flippant as to presume her victory would have been inevitable. In fact, it had even surprised her when she'd managed to overpower Princess Celestia in a direct contest of wills, what amounted to a magical hoof-wrestling competition. No. While she had brought every soldier to the battle, she had expected to be able to sound a retreat if things started to go south. But, as victory was within her grasp, she never got that chance.

She sneered. The hive would recover. She would give birth to more soldiers. It would take a long time; Long enough for most ponies to forget her and her children. But Shining Armor, Princess Cadance, Princess Celestia, and the six Elements of Harmony... She would have their heads on a platter while their bodies were pilfered for whatever love they were worth.

As I said in my last post, Zelda and Ponies is a hard mix because of their thematic differences. But one thing I don't understand? There are plenty of Kingdom Hearts crossovers, but none of them seem to have been done to completion. Of the first five results of a search for Kingdom Hearts, only two have an overwhelmingly positive like/dislike ratio, and none of them have been updated in at least a month. Why is this? Friendship is a central theme in both stories, so it should be obvious that the two stories would play nice, right?

Kingdom Hearts itself is practically built on crossovers, if you think about it. I mean, how many times do you go to a world in KH and play a direct role in the events of the relevant Disney movie? The premise should be a simple matter. Sora and the gang land in Ponyville at around the same time Twilight does, trails behind her and cleans up the mess heartless leave behind, until Nightmare Moon arrives with an army of the little blighters. We go through the events of the first two episodes, slightly modified so that Sora doesn't have too heavy a hoof in the proceedings, but isn't just along for the ride either, until they get to the castle, where Luna's almost surrendered her heart completely to darkness. Sora applies shounen-style therapy, and then she gets blasted with the Elements of Harmony. When Celestia and Luna make up, the element of magic reacts and reveals the Keyhole, which Sora seals.

Kingdom Hearts, however, isn't about crossing over with just one world. Equestria would have to fit into the grand scheme of the Kingdom Hearts cannon, which I think very few people fully understand, or at least an overarching adventure Sora is having, otherwise it would fall flat, and leave potential unfulfilled. The story would have to take us to worlds other than Equestria, and it would be possible that a thirty-chapter story could only have two or three chapters related to ponies directly, which I think would disqualify it from this site.

This is an unfortunate state of affairs, because I've seen so many Kingdom Hearts related stories that seem like they would have promise being simply left as dust to the wind.

A little while ago, a fic got on the front page that, like many before, dealt with Twilight becoming a Princess. I believe the fic shares its title with this post, and it made me think of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I hadn't seen an MLP/TP crossover yet, and in my cursory search of the site for the concept (I did the same with True Chaos, I would have named the fic "Moonstruck" if there wasn't already one of the same name), I couldn't find one.

I am two paragraphs in to an attempt at one, and I'm already starting to see why this is, probably. How should I handle the crossover? Is Link in the story, or is one of the main six replacing him? If I do the former, then I'll have to shunt one or the other to the side at the climactic moment, because neither the elements of harmony, triforce, or fused shadows work with an 'extra leg', so to speak. If I do the latter, well...I'll get into that in a bit.

And what about Zelda, or Midna, or Link? I have to have at least one of these three in the story for it to be a proper crossover. I can't really do Link for reasons stated already, but how would I handle Midna or Zelda? Should I ponify them, or leave them as they are? In my mind, Midna should be a certain kind of pony, but I can't very well have her that way because that alone would give away more about her than I should like for those who didn't play the game to know.

(Fun Fact: A lot of  the fanart of ponified midna seems to have her as an earth pony. This doesn't make sense. She can use magic.)

Finally, a large amount of the challenge comes from the simple theme difference between the two stories being crossed over. The theme for The Legend of Zelda has always been one of personal growth; A boy becomes a man. A man becomes a hero.

The problem is, this theme is a solitary one. The theme of FiM, on the other hand, is friendship (d'oy), togetherness, and the strength you can find by pulling together as a group. So let's say Twilight is off to deliver a present from Ponyville to the Princess (take your pick) in Canterlot. On her way, or the day before she leaves, Equestria gets shrouded in eternal twilight, and Sparkle gets knocked out, transformed into a wolf, and dragged to the usurped Canterlot dungeons. She makes a new 'friend' who helps her escape, and eventually makes her way through the chain of events that returns her to pony form.

Now, what is it that prevents her from getting her friends, grabbing the elements of harmony, and fixing the whole thing in a blast of rainbow light? They've fixed nearly identical problems in this fashion before. Any action taken on my part to prevent them from harmonizing pony-Zant's face off would come off as me crying "That ruins the story!"

While a few ideas have been mulling in my head as I write this, I can see why an author wouldn't necessarily want or be able to shoehorn these two almost diametrically opposed (thematically speaking) stories together in the same box.

*Writing a side project between rounds of True Chaos*

*Realizes the story sucks after working on it for hours on end and forgetting to sleep*

*scraps and starts over*

*Repeat ad nauseam*

>_<