50 Questions (mostly) about Ponies and Equestria! · 8:10pm Apr 10th, 2014
So, I looked at that 50 questions list that’s been floating around, and decided not to do it. Partly because I tend to overthink these things, and end up spending a day and a half trying to decide on my favorite superhero or how much I want to say about religion, and partly because I always feel like I’m the last one to do it and it will not longer be cool by the time I post it.
But I do love answering questions, and reading other people’s answers, so I wrote my own totally different list of 50 questions. This one is all about your personal headcanon for MLP!
Side note: Someone once complained to me about the term "headcanon" and preferred "fanon," but to me these are two different things. "Headcanon" is the set of things you consistently believe about the setting and characters in addition what's shown in actual canon. "Fanon" is an idea about the show that's popular enough to be widely known and accepted into people's headcanons. "Lyra and Bon Bon are a couple" is fanon, but your headcanon might be that Lyra is dating Iron Will. But this is just how I think of the words, and this list is about how you think of things... back to that!
I tried to make the questions on a variety of different topics, with various amounts of detail and explaining required. I wanted to give people a chance to talk about the major fanons (like if Scootaloo is an orphan) and also get people to consider some sides of the setting they might not have thought about. There are also some questions at the end about how attached you are to these thoughts, so you can explain to readers what (if anything) you take seriously and what you answered for fun.
Feel free to answer this however you want. Skip questions or sections you don’t care about. Answer based on your headcanon in general, or based on just one story you wrote, or hints you see in canon, or stuff you thought of when you read the question! Write essays for every answer or give the shortest answer you can, it’s all up to you.
I do ask that you answer it in your own blog, not in the comments. But if you don’t have many followers feel free to post a link in the comments here, in case anyone wants to check it out.
I'll be making a separate post tonight or tomorrow with my answers (maybe both, if my answers get too long.)
The Princesses:
1. How old are Celestia and Luna?
2. How old is Cadance?
3. Were Celestia and Luna always alicorns, or did they ascend?
4. Are Cadance and Twilight immortal?
5. Have there been other alicorns in the past?
6. How much authority do Celestia and Luna have in Equestria?
7. Does Shining Armor rule The Crystal Empire along side of Cadance?
8. Other than Twilight, Luna, and Cadance, what relationships have been important to Celestia in her lifetime (students, close friends, lovers, family)?
Ponies and Equestrian Culture:
9. Are there still cultural differences between earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns, or is the culture homogeneous by the time shown in canon? Are there cultural stereotypes (positive or negative)?
10. Are there foods or items native to Cloudsdale that are uncommon on the ground? Are there foods or items on the ground that are uncommon in Cloudsdale?
11. Can all unicorns learn all spells, given the time and effort spent practicing them, or is magical talent usually limited in some way?
12. Earth pony magic: Does it exist? What is it?
13. Some pony families we’ve seen seem to have naming conventions (the Apples, Twilight’s family) and others don’t appear to (Rarity’s family, Pinkie’s family), which is more common? Are there reasons for one or the other?
14. How much formal schooling is an average, middle class pony expected to complete?
15. What’s the average lifespan for a pony? At what age is a pony expected to be independent of their parents?
16. Are there roughly an equal number of male and female ponies?
17. How informed are most ponies about things that happen in other parts of Equestria? What about other parts of the world?
The Main Characters:
18. How old are the Mane Six? Spike? The CMC?
19. Did Fluttershy remain on the ground after getting her cutie mark? Were she and Rainbow Dash friends all along, or did they drift apart for a while?
20. Rarity and Applejack both seem to have grown up in Ponyville. What were their interactions like before the show?
21. What do Twilight and Spike consider their relationship to be?
22. When did Pinkie move in with the Cakes? Is she a worker who rents a room, an apprentice, or is there some other relationship?
23. Who among the Mane Six had the best parents growing up? The worst parents?
24. Why didn’t the CMC hang out more/know each other before Call of the Cutie?
25. Is Scootaloo an orphan? Will she ever be able to fly?
26. Will Apple Bloom’s cutie mark involve an apple in some way, even if it’s unrelated to farming or baking?
27. How is Sweetie Belle’s relationship with their parents different than Rarity’s was?
Side and Background Characters:
28. Is Mr. Cake the father of the Cake twins or not?
29. Are Big Mac and Cheerilee an item, romantically?
30. How did Prince Blueblood get his title?
31. Is Silver Spoon equally as bad as Diamond Tiara?
32. Is Zecora’s magic common among zebras?
33. Why does Daring Do publish her stories as fiction?
34. Do you have a strong headcanon for any non-speaking or one line background ponies that you want to share?
Other Species:
35. Does Equestria differentiate between speaking and non-speaking species, in terms of respect, rights and legal responsibilities? Is there some other line or scale used? (For example, how are cows classified? Diamond Dogs? A chimera?)
36. Do other speaking species form their own nations, or are all nations largely integrated, with some having larger populations of a species than others?
37. Are minotaurs related to cows at all?
38. Do all zebras rhyme?
39. Do zebra cutie marks work the same way as pony cutie marks?
40. Do any species have types of magic, other than ponies and zebras?
41. Is the lack of buffalo presence in Equestria cultural, or simply because most pony towns aren’t built to accommodate a full grown buffalo?
Headcanon and You:
42. Do you consider official sources other than the show (comics, card game text, movies, novels, etc.) to be canon?
43. Do you have one headcanon that you always use, or do you switch depending on projects?
44. Can you easily accept the headcanons of different writers? Do you prefer when stories match your headcanon?
45. Is there a part of your headcanon that you wish was more popular among writers?
46. Is there a popular piece of headcanon that other writers use that you dislike?
47. Have you ever written a story or blogpost just to explain some part of your headcanon (other than this one)?
48. Does your headcanon influence things like your favorite pony, ship, or episode?
49. Would it bother you if the show proved part of your headcanon wrong? Any specific piece that would really bother you to lose?
50. Is there something that wasn't asked about here, but you feel like you need to explain to everyone?
...this is gonna be one of the longest blogs I ever do. Damn.
I am totally going to do a massive blog about this over the weekend. Sit down with a hard cider, a caffeine pill, crack my knuckles, a stein of water, and write some titanic thesis statement on how my mind views this world.
FImfiction: The Facebook of bronies. Instead of parties and business connections it's authors and porn.
1997773
That is one of the reason I divided them into categories. Feel free to make it a series.
1997777
That would be the smart thing, hehe. But it's me, after all.
...well, I'll be. A useful question chain.
Will wonders never cease.
These are some very interesting questions. There is a bunch of ones I could really get stuck into explaining my headcannon.
--Sollace
...
Yep.
Look forward to one later.
Also, the 'original' 50 questions... Why not answer them in story form?
~Skeeter The Lurker
1. How old are Celestia and Luna? I think around 2 thousand years.
3. Were Celestia and Luna always alicorns, or did they ascend? They ascended.
16. Are there roughly an equal number of male and female ponies? Yes, we just don't see the stallions too much because they're all working the fields and stuff.
18. How old are the Mane Six? Spike? The CMC? The mane six are around 16 - 19, the CMC and Spike are 7 - 12
25. Is Scootaloo an orphan? Will she ever be able to fly? My personal head canon is that Scoots is an orphan, but she lives with Cheerilee. And no, I don't think she'll ever fly.
29. Are Big Mac and Cheerilee an item, romantically? Yes, CheeriMac all the way!
15. What’s the average lifespan for a pony? At what age is a pony expected to be independent of their parents? Equestria certainly doesn't work the same as Earth, so I think ponies leave the house at around 15 to 17 years old. Ponies probably mature faster than we humans do.
Those are all the questions I have definite answers to, as far as my own head canons are concerned.
Wish I could favorite a blog post, I'd bookmark this for later! When I'm not so exhausted from work.
B-but... I have multiple headcanons...
1997836
Then feel free to discuss the possibilities, or pick one and talk about that, or skip any questions that don't fit for both of them. However you're comfortable
1997844
Would you be interested in a description of my militant lesbian verse?
1997860
...yes? I think that sounds very interesting.
Just remember to link me to the blog where you post it!
See, those types of things you just gotta shoot from the hip from, bud. The first answer is the best answer nine times outta ten.
I think I might make one dedicated to one of my humanized works from this. Might be fun.
Here's mine.
Two questions that I'd throw out there are:
What's the financial status of each of the Mane Six?
What's the deal with the Wonderbolts? Are they Public? Private? Military?
I think you might have Twilight and Pinkie's families reversed on question 13.
As I told Bats, I shall be doing the Canon Q&A tonight.
It should be interesting... it should be long... I hope that They still do the featured blog thing, and if they do, I get in there finally lol
1998266
Nope. Twilight's family all has light based names (Twilight Velvet, Night Light, Twilight Sparkle, and Shining Armor.)
Pinkie has Cloudy Quartz, Igneous Rock, Marble Pie, Limestone Pie, Pinkamena Diane Pie, and Maud Pie. She also talks about Granny Pinkie and Nana Pie. So the family seems it be a mix of rock names, weirdly human names, and family names. You could find a naming tradition in that, if you want to, or you could point to it as being a mix of names her parents liked.
1997870
Agh, sorry. It doesn't quite fit with the spread of questions you have.
1998328 I see your point there - but I don't consider the names canon until they've appeared in the show.
Edit: Apparently I just accidentally answered question 42.
Don't think you follow me, so here are my answers.
I don't think I've ever really considered most of that. Actually, I think I just add and drop whatever I happen to need to make a particular story work. How much of this can you really look to the show for answers for? It seems strange to build up head canon that has no basis in the show whatsoever, though I'm sure plenty of people do anyway.
1999089
Most of it you can't, really. That's kind of the point.
The questions are something between "if you were a show writer, what would you have in mind for these things even if it never made the screen?" and "if Equestria was a real place, and these things were real, what would you expect the answers to be?" Some people like to think of settings and characters that way because it can be fun (the Tolkien mindset, if you will,) and some would rather leave everything blank that isn't going on the page/screen. If you're the latter, you don't have to answer.
ETA: Also, sometimes thinking of answers can give you ideas for stories or details to include or address in stories, so there's that too.
You made me jump on another bandwagon.
I have stories to be writing! Stop enabling me!
This one's mine. Goddamn, this took forever to type up. Especially for someone who hasn't typed anything longer than a sentence or two for over 2 years.
Curses! You've extracted an hours' work from me for this. I suppose I can watch Testing Testing and Leap of Faith (I'm running behind) while I type.
1999338
I was only saying that a lot of this stuff I've never thought about before, because it's never come up in the show. I do think it looks like fun, I was going to try to answer some of them, but most of them, again, I've never considered, and so wouldn't really have anything to say about.
Or whatever. I'm just a jerk who's trying to be a jerk to everyone, even when I'm saying something entirely inoffensive, non-insulting, and non-contentious, I guess. I'll go back to the silent corner and turn my desk away from everyone else and stick my chin in between my knees until recess so I can collect rocks under the swing set to munch on instead.
1999412
[youtube=qn69HCjLvVY]
1999457
Holy no deposits no returns!
[youtube=85LUuF6ZXaU]
Well that was a fun exercise. Here are my answers.
Sure why not.
Link-y.
Since linking the answers seems to be the thing to do, here you go.
My answers tend to the long. I overthink everything.
I did this and posted my response in my blog.
1998328
Granny Pie and Nana Pie may be the same pony, as nana is another word for grandmother, and neither may be her "full" name - she might be a Pie, but she might have another name for her first name.
I got yer link right heeere.
Oh, these are some interesting questions!
My long, long reply is here: Fifty Questions of Pony
Here are my answers.
Oh, it seems I'm the last one to the party. So much for using this as a plug, but at least this was interesting to go through.
notable answers:
3. Were Celestia and Luna always alicorns, or did they ascend?
I have multiple answers to this. My favorite two are 1) they are magical beings created by the heart-fire in HWE, 2) They ascended a matter of minutes before they turned Discord to stone.
12. Earth pony magic: Does it exist? What is it?
I wrote about this! tl;dr it doesn't, but having a good heart is a form of pony magic just like unicorn and pegasus magic.
23. Who among the Mane Six had the best parents growing up? The worst parents?
don't think about TMB don't think about TMB don't think about TMB
37. Are minotaurs related to cows at all?
Oh god.
45. Is there a part of your headcanon that you wish was more popular among writers?
Gilda is Rainbow Dash's jilted ex-girlfriend. I have no idea why this isn't more common. It's so obvious.
50. Is there something that wasn't asked about here, but you feel like you need to explain to everyone?
I have many ideas that I love that I wouldn't consider "headcanon." I'm sure they aren't true in strict-canon, but it would be cool if they were. I have three separate ideas in mind for Starswirl, I once wrote up an idea doc about a pantheon of alicorn godesses and how the m6 would come to replace each one of them, I like the idea of pegasus free love and I'm writing about it right now... I am adapatable by nature, and so is my writing.
BAM!
and now to read other people's answers.
2000522
Would you mind moving this to your own blog and linking to it here? I didn't mind a few folks giving just a handful of answers here in the comments, but I'd rather avoid people having to scroll through the whole thing if you're looking for links other people posted and I'd hate to delete it without it being backed up somewhere.
Woops
Here's the link, my baaaaad.
Here you are, 50 answers for you.
I also went ahead and put together a list linking to everyone who I know has filled out the questions, based on my site feed and the comments in this thread.
Here's mine. Bear in mind that alicorn OCs are involved. I had Cadence as a quintuplet before Season 3 started, and I'm holding to it. (Why? Because Exalted. We have a Sun, a Moon, and a Venus. The other four planets logically follow.)
1997773 1997776 1997777 1997790 1997792 1997804 1997824 1997836
1997979 1998088 1998321 1999349 1999369 1999395 1999637 1999790
1999812 1999868 1999904 2000504 2000748 2000751 1998185
Hi guys. Just to note that chain blogging, where people post a basic format of questions or somesuch and then ask everyone to respond in their own blogs, is technically banned. There've been problems with this sort of thing going on before spamwise, and while we're sure there was no ill intent here (this issue hasn't come up in a while, so we won't be taking any action on this one), the staff'd like to remind y'all that it's not actually allowed to post chainblogs.
So... please don't try similar stunts or nothin' after this. We'd kind of have to crack down on it.
2000866 But... but how will I procrastinate now?
2000866
Sorry, I didn't intend for it to be a chain blog, really, just something people could do in their spare time (like a writing prompt.) I knew tagging was against the rules, so I made it clear this was totally optional, and I had no idea that anyone, let alone so many people would do it.
What would be best going forward? Should I edit my blogpost to ask people not to do any more? I actually haven't answered the questions yet myself, and I was considering a wrap-up post, linking to people who had answered and highlighting answers I thought were good or creative. I could do these things off-site, on a google doc, or make a group for it if the mods would prefer (though I'm not sure that any of these things will keep people from blogging it more.)
Anyway, it's up to you guys, just let me know what's allowed/preferred here...
This isn't a question of headcanon, though! Twilight explains how things work in 'Boast Busters'!
2000866 Care to give us an actual quote from the rules?
2000866
Care to site the rule where this is in place? I'm looking through the FAQ, and I do not see it. Unless I'm just not looking close enough, which is always a possibility with anyone, but still.
Then, in either case, make a site thread about that? Get it out to the general public of the site, ya'know.
Maybe in the process, update us about group notifications?
2001040 2001299
I don't know if it's ever been on the faq, but I do remember when this site post went up (because I've been around for waaay to long and have a freaky memory.)
I was under the impression that it referred to the practice that was quoted in this comment:
... and I thought that was because it was spamming userpages and asking people to take part in something they didn't want, while also never allowing the thing to die out. I was aware of this when I made the questions, and thought that by specifying that it was totally voluntary and anyone could do as much or as little as they wanted, it was a different thing.
If I was wrong, I don't mind, though I do worry that I'm not sure what makes something a chain blog. Asking people to signal boost something with their own blog posts seems to be allowed. I'd assume that posting questions for people to answer in your comments is allowed. Is combining those allowed?
Is it just because I mentioned for people to do it in their blogs? I only intended that as an alternative to answering in the comments, because my computer is slow and I didn't want twenty mile long comments. I honestly didn't care if they did it in blogs or gdocs or on their bathroom wall, because I didn't think many people would be interested.
So, I'd like that part cleared up, as well as if there's a safe and kosher way for me to post my own answers and collect links to the answers I know about somewhere for people to read. I like my blog to be interactive, but I'm not trying to annoy people or break the site rules.