Tiny headcanon treats · 1:49am Dec 12th, 2013
Today's blog is shamelessly stolen from Eakin. Maybe he'll be too busy setting up his new laptop to notice.
Over on reddit, he posted:
What's your personal favorite bit of extremely minor and insignificant headcanon?
Not the big things, like Applejack's parents or Luna and Celestia's origins. Really minor details about Equestria that you're oddly fond of.
For me it's ovens. In my mind, all really high-end restaurant-quality ovens are imported from the Griffins. I don't even know what made me decide that, but I'm sticking with it.
So, what's yours?
One firmly cherished headfact I haven't been able to work in anywhere yet is that changelings don't just eat love from relationships between ponies. They can eat love out of anything that significant emotion is invested into. An author's story is a tiny little banquet.
(This is, of course, completely hypothetical. No reason to panic. Keep writing your tasty, tasty words.)
Not too busy to notice
Oh, and a link to the topic in question.
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Forgot the link! Ninja'd it in.
So tell us … who's the best griffin ovenmaker?
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Gosh, do we have any canonical conventions for griffin names? Beyond 2/2 have started with 'G'?
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> canonical conventions for griffin names
I don't know about first names, but according to this here Showrunner's Bible, every gryphon in the world of Equestria shares the last name "Flappy Pants."
Thanks for ruining our headcanon, Showrunner's Bible. Thanks for ruining it forever.
I believe that changeling holes result from starvation. A well-fed changeling is indistinguishable from a melanistic flutterpony.
Princess Celestia, despite being the absolute monarch, has delegated all of her royal duties (except raising the sun) so she actually doesn't have to do anything all day, which gives her time to teach and do magical research.
The Summer Sun Celebration is on the summer solstice, and there's also a Winter Moon Feast on the winter solstice.
Trixie's cutie mark story: Filly Trixie is messing around with her magic at recess, making some leaves and sticks 'fight' each other or something. A couple of her classmates come over to see what she's doing, and she starts hamming it up, putting on a show. She finishes the epic tale of revenge and betrayal, to much applause from the other foals, and bam, cutie mark. Then there's this big colorful BWOM in the sky, and everypony stops congratulating her and starts talking about this other thing instead! She gets mad, and swears with Celestia as her witness, that she'll never be upstaged again!
1598086 "Research." Heh.
Big Mac speaks in complete sentences when alone with his family.
The entire show is actually taking place in the Optimalverse.
This is a tough one. I've been in the desert for five months, so I've lost a good deal of headcanon, probably including the proper response to this question.
But I'd guess my favorite minor headcanon is either that musicals are real, or Eternal is.
Also, there were too many blog posts tonight!
One of my favorite things about pony is that so much of it focuses on how little things are often the most important. After all, "friendship" saves the world in this universe, and late homework assignments almost destroy it. However, that means I have a very hard time thinking of anything minor in my headcanon. Somehow my brain turns every "minor" concept into some critical element in a story or idea.
I think of some stupid pun like "Heh, Diamond Dogs probably eat Rock Candy" and next thing I know this is a critical plot element in my current story. Or reading Skywriter's The First Time You See Her I laugh at a throwaway line about how there should be an "Alicorn Snit Squad" and now I'm writing an entire "Ministry of A.S.S." story.
That said, hmm, most minor things I can think of that haven't (at least yet) been made into plot critical elements.
"Narrative Coincidence" is a real, in-world thing. Twilight has begun to realize that near-impossible things don't happen because of "fate" or "destiny" like other ponies call it, but rather they tend to occur if they would make for a better story, regardless of the actual odds. She's filed these notes next to her research on Pinkie Sense.
Viking Caribou... originally suggested by Faust herself of course, but in my headcanon they're "flying reindeer" so you've got plenty of Christmas puns, and they speak in thick accents like The Heavy from TF2.
I'm pretty sure that if Fluttershy were human, even though she'd technically be omnivorous, that she'd still be vegetarian. (The hamburger in EqG notwithstanding.)
I don't think I'm the first to think of this one, though.
Where to start with favorite headcanon. Hm.
Heck, I've written about five stories with Nocturne/Night Pegasi in them, does that count?
Celestia really does like dealing with even difficult ponies, because she loves them all, and the difficult ones need it the most.
Celestia knows everypony's name. Also astrological sign, birthday, and favorite dessert.
Celestia drinks tea. Luna drinks Coffee. Cadence drinks fruit juice.
Twilight can get so caught up in books that she forgets to... well, everything but pee. Spike knows this, and is responsible for getting her cleaned up, feeding her, and dragging her to bed when she collapses at the telescope or in the library. He also has been known to slip books into her stack such as The Benefit of a Full NIght's Sleep or Dusting: Seven Simple Spells to keep your library spotless.
Spike has the innate ability of a dragon to determine just exactly where every item in his lair is hidden. He considers the library his lair.
Twilight Sparkle has had suitors before. They've either fled or went crazy. (or both).
The world Equestria exists on used to be Earth, but then a catastrophic accident warped physics and completely altered reality in the general vicinity, transforming all humans into ponies and having all kinds of weird effects on other life, and creating magic. Evidence of human ancestry can still be found in deep soil layers as well as tracing the etymology of certain words and phrases (for instance, there is no "France" but characters remain aware of things which are "French").
Fourth-wall awareness is an inherent aspect of earth pony magic. Most choose not to cultivate it, as it tends to come at the cost of some sanity. Celestia knows we're watching.
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How does that work? Wasn't Equestria Online made to capitalize on the success of the show?
1599226 Equestria Online was made to capitalize on the success... of G3.
The princesses were pagans in their youth. No way they weren't, it was that kind of time.
Rainbow Dash admires Fluttershy for her independence.
There was Tirek. Luna called dibs on all of his stuff. That chariot in Luna Eclipsed was was the Chariot of Darkness.
Alicorn Toss is a pastime of Shining and Cadance's.
Rarity has a post traumatic dress disorder. She starts babbling about fashion to distract herself when stressed and scared.
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Oh, and while I'm here:
Discord could be omniscient, but chooses not to be. Knowing everything removes the possibility of being surprised, and thus makes life less chaotic. Can't have that, now can we?
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That Trixie origin seriously needs to be worked into a story somewhere.
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Question, though: in a literal desert for five months? This sounds like a story. (Heck, sounds like a story even if it's a metaphorical desert.)
D'aww, you flatterer.
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You have no idea how awesome it is to hear that someone else has a "find a tiny weird thing and wrap an entire novel around it" writing style. (Also: Rock candy!
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Merely vegetarian? I'll raise you: I suspect humanized!Fluttershy would be a vegan at minimum. Probably a Jainist (with a complex set of morals about carnivorous animals and their need for meat to survive).
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Have you been reading RBDash47's blog?
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Discord deliberately not omniscient: Headcanon accepted.
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...you are the second person to ask this.
No, sorry, it's mostly metaphorical. Though as I explained to a certain malevolent equine, it did include a fair amount of time staying in and traveling through deserts. But no locust-eating.
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This actually touches on an idea (and story seed) I'd had a while ago.
Though, if memory serves, my Discord just was omniscient, and lacked the volition to not be. Which meant... well... things.
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I have not but that's a very interesting idea for how it may have come about!
My favorite tidbit, and one of the very few that I've accepted from fanfiction, is from Cloudy Skies' No Recipe for Perfection. I believe that sometimes Ponyville is too much even for Pinkie Pie.
Sometimes all the pretty ponies and fun games and sweet treats and singing and dancing is too much and Pinkie gets overstimulated. She has to retreat to her room and lie quietly with a blanket over her head, doing nothing but breathing slowly, until she recovers. It sounds boring when I write it, but it was a really emotional scene in the story.
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I also believe that Celestia knows the name of every pony. Not that she takes the time to memorize them or anything so ordinary. She just Knows all of them.
Luna isn't just a dreamwalker, that's actually her special talent. However, the connection to night and sleeping means she wasn't normally awake when other ponies were. Since a dreamwalker can manipulate others' dreams, she had to learn how to step lightly, because if she didn't she could cause madness and emotional problems instead of heal them. This meant she couldn't even spend time playing and relaxing with other ponies in their dreams, exacerbating her loneliness. She raises the moon not because that's her special talent, but because her sensitivity to the tides and energies of the world around her allowed her to attune to it when the unicorn who normally raised the moon couldn't do it. Celestia had to work much harder to develop her own sensitivity to magic, and had trouble raising and setting the moon for a long time after banishing her sister even though she had the raw power to do the job. Celestia's special talent is power itself, and its use, even as the sun is a mighty source of power and energy for their world; she was almost literally born to rule.
Star Swirl was a friend of Luna's whose death removed one of the few balancing elements in her life. This contributed directly to her being manipulated and eventually swallowed by a nightmare entity. His failure to ascend as an alicorn is based primarily on his dislike of most other ponies, despite his normally gentle nature -- like Twilight, he was an introvert faced with a population of extroverts, and focused on his work as an excuse to get away from their need for his attention. Unlike Twilight, he never really had a close cadre of friends that he could open up to, because male equines don't tend to hang out in groups a lot once they grow up.
Derpy isn't stupid by a LONG shot. The problem is, she's walleyed (which is mostly what makes her clumsy since she has trouble focusing visually on a single point or line of travel) and mildly autistic. So a lot of other ponies think she hasn't got much going on in her head, rather than too much going on at any given moment. Bronies obsesses on her line about muffins in the show, but she thinks about a lot of other stuff and that was just a throwaway line for a random extra -- she just wanted a delicious treat at that moment. She got her cutie mark due to the ability to shake off the teasing she often got (and still gets) through simple joys and wonders like blowing bubbles, and she has a lot to teach others about maintaining one's innocence and happiness in the face of bullying and untoward behavior. Because damn, it's hard to do after a while.
Rainbow Dash hides her technical training because she'd rather be a tough athlete than be thought of as a smartass nerd, but she knows plenty of physics, math, and weather science (Equestrian version), as well as having a grounding in basic pony physiology (with a pegasus focus of course) in order to maximize the effectiveness of her physical performance. She knows better than to touch steroids and bulking agents, preferring instead to naturally build her strength and endurance; a sleeker form is less wind-resistant and therefore faster. She's often found sleeping because regular naps after training improve mental and physical performance, and because she sometimes gets the night shift at work.
Fluttershy actually has one of the hardest jobs in Ponyville, because it requires so many diverse skills. She's essentially a veterinarian, animal husbander, cook, forest ranger, and border-guard, maintaining relations with the local wildlife in order to keep the Everfree from encroaching any closer to town. It's by goodwill and harmony with local animals that the Everfree's chaotic energies and terrible monsters are normally held back, thanks to the influence of the Tree of Harmony. She's afraid of adult dragons because of encounters with them at range, out defending their territories. She believes in the innocence of all children, given a proper influence on them, and strives to be that influence as much as possible.
The ridiculous contraption in Twilight's basement is just an EEG, but she doesn't actually know how to use it beyond the most basic idea. She just wanted to get a baseline on Pinkie's brainwaves and maybe see if any of them peak when Pinkie Sense goes off... but Twilight's too neurotic to act rationally when confronted with truly new information, and didn't conduct any proper experiments. Equine panic at work, folks.
Pinkie's an empath. However, other ponies were always creeped out by her sense of their minds and her predictive abilities, and after trying to suppress her ability it eventually manifested as physical twitches that she can't ignore anymore. She can seemingly break the fourth wall because she understands the underpinnings of magic, but without a unicorn's horn to focus it, she can't actually use defined spells. Instead, coincidences tend to manifest themselves around her when she needs them, and she lives in a world which is qualitatively different in experience from others'.
Equestrian ponies really are horses, and their behavior normally takes cues from that.
Most domesticatable animals in Equestria are sentient, potentially rational, but pre-linguistic. Ungulates are the dominant family of species, with full sapience. Monsters like the hydra aren't necessarily stupid, but also aren't necessarily smarter than dogs or cats.
There are deer in the Everfree and other forests, but they're shy because monsters, and because they're more often awake in the twilight and nighttime hours when fewer things are likely to hunt them. Luna used to be friends with several herds, but re-establishing relations is difficult because of Nighmare Moon.
Also I think human!Steven Magnet would be a barber.
And for some reason I can't get it out of my head that Rainbow Dash would be dyslexic, even though the Daring Do series has turned her into an avid reader in the show.
I feel like I should have more of these, but I think my problem is that most of my headcanon bits are too big to be "bits," or they all demand a lot of context from my grand-scale headcanon (like why I don't think Zecora can go back to her homeland).
[EDIT]: I guess another thing I'd like if it were true would be that love (or general goodwill, rather) isn't food for the changelings as much as their oxygen: They don't consume it, but need to be around it in order to live, and flock to it, hide, and assimilate into where it can be found. This would just plain make more sense to me than overtaking a city with a vibe-shattering coup like they did in the show.
And... Rarity got her accent from studying abroad (her parents and sister don't have it).
And AJ's first name is Jacqueline. And Bloom is her sister's, but her nickname caught on after Cheerilee called "Apple, Bloom" during roll on their first day of school.
And every respect we traditionally give to the direction north is instead given to the direction east, from where the sun raises.
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OH! And Fluttershy wouldn't drink, either! (Sorry, Lubricant.)
Rarity's special talent has nothing to do with gems; it's about seeing a pony's hidden beauty, and helping them express it. Her Mark represents how she was able to find something valuable even in a 'dumb rock'.
(I'm not even sure this one is 'headcanon'; I'm convinced it's actual canon, but it seems like The Fandom disagrees with me.)
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The hard part would be finding the right balance between 'ridiculous foalish tantrum' and 'man, that actually kinda sucks'.
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> musicals are real
Anyone notice anything odd about that number in Episode 5?
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Great stuff. I swear that I love this community's ideas for the show better than the show itself at this point.
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Not quite sure what you mean? In this context, there was that little moment at the end where they fell down from being suspended in midair, but that's nothing up against, say, "Smile, Smile" where she drags the entire town in.
Huh, I missed this completely when it was posted. Oops.
Twilight and Shining Armor are nobility. That's why Cadence was their babysitter, and why Celestia was so quick to take Twilight under her wing. In Canterlot, Twilight felt self-conscious and pressured by the way ponies deferred to her status, which is part of why she turned out so introverted. She's never told anyone in Ponyville; at first she was afraid they'd start treating her differently, and then after the princess thing, it just seemed redundant. Rarity figured it out after their first adventure, but Twilight doesn't know she knows.
The Crystal Caverns beneath Canterlot are part of a system of caves and tunnels that spans the world, as are the Diamond Dog mines where Rarity was imprisoned.
The ponies are all roughly the same age, except Rainbow Dash is three or four years younger, and Rarity is about a decade older. (That's part of the reason she has trouble relating to her sister.)
About half a dozen changelings live in Ponyville. Everyone knows, but talking about it is considered incredibly rude. It's private business, like asking about someone's sex life is here. They've decided they want to live as ponies, and the town tries to respect that. It's really not a big deal.
Twilight has had more romantic partners than any of the mane cast. Back in Canterlot, she almost always had a boyfriend—and no other friends. She'd cling to the poor guy like a drowning sailor, trying to monopolize his time because that was all she had. This was unsustainable, and led to a bunch of rapid, ugly breakups.
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Well, aside from how they were suspended at the end, DT & SP seemed completely aware that it had happened and were watching the hole thing. Also, Scootaloo sings it in a very real-world way just before the reprise. It's not irrefutable evidence, I know, but I feel like there was something more going on in that episode
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@ 2:19. We were that close.
I really shouldn't be reading headcanon threads in the middle of replying to HR2. Saved-for-later.
Discord can't do anything expected of him. If you come up with a contingency plan for every possible way he could interfere with your plans (this may or may not be possible), you'd use none of them.
Pinkie Pie has a psychological disorder of some sort where she literally can't not be friends with someone.
She would also be the one sitting next to an abandoned changeling, patting it on the head, and saying something to the effect of "there, there, it'll all be alright."
Musicals are taken as a law of physics in Equestria. Every education includes some degree of musical training.
Don't let me forget to tell georg that I'm stealing his dragon-hoard-sense idea.
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I absolutely agree, Twi and Shiny are nobility. It's clear Twilight is an introvert regardless -- but social pressure and demand for favors would explain why she didn't have time for the other ponies at school even when they went out of their way to befriend her. With that pressure off, yeah, making friends would be a lot easier.
Also, Lyra obviously graduated from Celestia's Academy (you can see her in the background there, in Episode 1) and moved to Ponyville... and probably sends secret reports back to Celestia regarding incidents in Ponyville. Either that or she was originally from Ponyville, but what Canterlotian would want to live so far away from the High Castle? I also don't think she's a spy so much as an observer, reporting town-wide activities like "there was a celestial animal threatening town today" and "these cute, funny creatures are eating all our food, help!" -- these reports help confirm Twilight's letters, as well as help Celestia keep tabs on activity in the Everfree region.
You don't go to the Academy if you don't have something special to show off, though; Lyra is obviously more than just a player of the harp. She probably has a lot of overall ability with sound and music -- which is someone more likely to stay rational during a musical (if they're real, I'm kind of 50/50 on that one), a solid quality for any observer.
Bon-Bon may be a changeling, but I doubt it. More likely she had a cold when her voice was so throaty, but being a candy-maker comes with benefits like a recipe for soothing lozenges when you're sick.
And another! Celestia makes Batman gambits all the time, basing her plans on knowing the persons involved. This is why she's so accepting of the Element-bearers: she already had a good idea who they would be, and what personalities they have. But she didn't actually arrange for them to gather in Ponyville -- rather, Ponyville was already positioned to be where the events of the Return happened (thus the Summer Sun Celebration being scheduled there that year), and while the Elements would have bonded to any pony of appropriate nature, only those who responded to either the call to adventure or the call to service would do.
Fluttershy already knew where the old castle was, as would any pegasus willing to overfly the Everfree near that area; there's quite a scar on the landscape there, and the place is rather tall for a ruin. Rainbow Dash didn't, as she tends to avoid overflying the Everfree unless she needs a flight challenge, and the scenery on the ground isn't nearly as awesome as dodging sentient storm clouds and angry hydras.
More random chunks of headcanon:
You know Ditzy Doo? That famous background pony with the bubbles cutie-mark and the wonky eyes? Yeah, her name is Ditzy Doo. She hates being called Derpy Hooves. (If I were the one naming her, I'd have gone with Derpy Hooves, but I'm not gonna argue with the mare.)
Equestrian doesn't have the word "Pontificate" or an equivalent. It's literally not there. This is because they also never had the corresponding position the word comes from.
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I love the fact that this two-month-old post is still getting occasional responses. They're every bit the treat that the original contributions were.
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I still haven't read a lot of the thread. I've got it pseudo-bookmarked for "You know, I should go read all of this".
This is turning into a place where I stuff random chunks of headcanon that haven't turned into big-scale things yet. The 'yet' especially makes me wonder if my stuff truly qualifies.
I'm not sure if these are quite what you're looking for, but I'm stuffing them in here anyways:
Luna knows what Chrysalis's cutie-mark is. I think she also knows more about how Chrysalis got it than I do, but she either won't or can't tell me and I don't know which it is. She also knows a thing or two about Why Chrysalis is hiding it, but I can't get her to tell me about that, either.
Cadence and Chrysalis go way back. (Maybe they attended school together? --Chrysalis in disguise, of course.) That's how Cadence knew about changelings for S2Finale.
(Celestia knows more about changelings than she lets on, but I don't know how much.)
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I headcanon that Cadence and Chrysalis are either related, or Chrysalis is a weird mirror-universe version of Cadence, or something. It just makes too much sense to me that the princess of love and the queen who lives on love are not merely products of convergent evolution.
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That's your narrative sense talking, and wouldn't that just be convenient?
Too convenient.
Clearly, though, Cadence has more immediate knowledge of changelings than anyone else in the room.
(Although!
What if she only knew so much because of her mirror-thingy connection with Chrysalis? It could work!)
Nascent proto-headcanon (I still need to check against the show, but it's a cool idea and no contradictions spring imediatly to mind):
Mares come in every color you care to imagine. Stallions only come in the same colors as real-world horses.
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Cool idea, but Noteworthy. (Also, arguably, Flim and Flam?)
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Hrm. As I recall Flim and Flam are within tolerances for tan, but you're right Noteworthy kinda sinks it. Whalp, throw it in the "borderline AU" file. It was kinda half-baked anyways.
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Don't give up on it that fast! If it's just him, it could be a dye job. Or an ill-informed changeling that nobody had the heart to inform that his cover was blown the instant he stepped into town. Or an FtM transgender.
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> ill-informed changeling
DAMIT HORIZON, I WAS GONNA NOT DO A PINKIE MEETS CHANGELING STORY.
(The weird things you don't realize are actual things.
Although it occurs to me that would make FtM transgenders really obvious (MtF not quite so much). You wouldn't be able to make it secret, at any rate, not without some more effort. That could have some interesting impacts on society.)
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I'll do you one better:
The phrase "east towards Canterlot" is in common use, to disambiguate from east-on-a-compass east. Since Canterlot became the capital, maps are always drawn with Canterlot at the top. Canterlot is always east (hence disambiguation).