bookplayer's 50 Q's

The Princesses:

1. How old are Celestia and Luna?

A few thousand years old. However, since it was before recorded history, an exact age can’t be found.

2. How old is Cadance?

Around the same age as Shining Armor, maybe a bit older.

3. Were Celestia and Luna always alicorns, or did they ascend?

They were ascended. I’ll get into how a bit farther down the list.

4. Are Cadance and Twilight immortal?

For my headcanon, alicorns can choose to age or not, so it’s really up to them.

5. Have there been other alicorns in the past?

Yes. There have been multiple alicorns for nearly any domain, i.e. Celestia and Luna are not the first Alicorns of the Sun/Moon. And there doesn’t always have to be an alicorn ruling over a domain to keep it stable. They just appear and disappear as time goes on.

6. How much authority do Celestia and Luna have in Equestria?

They don’t have absolute power, but they do have a large say in the going-ons. Since Luna is newly re-instated, and since she is still a bit feared as Nightmare Moon, she has much less political power than Celestia, but will gradually gain more.

7. Does Shining Armor rule The Crystal Empire along side of Cadance?

Yes, but where Cadence deals more with government and civilial duties, Shining armor works with military matters.

8. Other than Twilight, Luna, and Cadance, what relationships have been important to Celestia in her lifetime (students, close friends, lovers, family)?

She used to keep plenty of friends, ages and ages ago. But as time went on, and as she kept losing her fiends, she came to distance herself from the populace, cutting herself off entirely after Luna’s banishment.

Twilight is the closest friend she’s had since then, and ordered Twilight to do the friendship reports not only to teach Twilight to socialize and make friends, but also as a way to help her reconnect with her citizens.

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)?

There are cultural differences still. Pegasi generally still live in the sky (Cloudsdale is far from the only cloud city), unicorns prefer living in large, extravagant cities, and earth ponies live in smaller towns that dot the Equestrian landscape.

And there are still stereotypes. Don’t have any in my headcanon, but they do exist.

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?

There are Cloudsdale farmers (and farmers in other cloud cities), that have been able to grow crops that can thrive in the clouds. As a result, the cities became much more self-sustaining, and crops from the ground seldom make their way up there.

As a consequence of the magic involved in growing the food, most non-pegasi either cannot ingest this food, or find it mostly non-filling. They need to find places that provide food for non-pegasi to feed themselves.

11. Can all unicorns learn all spells, given the time and effort spent practicing them, or is magical talent usually limited in some way?

Unicorns can learn most spells if they have enough magic, and the talent, to cast them. The spells associated with their special talent are generally much easier to cast, and those not associated are in turn much more difficult. In fact, they are so much more difficult that, in fact, it leads most to believe that unicorns can only learn spells associated with their talent.

Twilight, as the newly ascended Alicorn of Magic, is the only pony that knows that this isn’t the case, as ascension grants a pony much more knowledge in the domain that they rule.

12. Earth pony magic: Does it exist? What is it?

Yes. It grants the earth pony more strength and stamina over the other two races, and gives them better balance. They also have the ability to “communicate” with plants, if they work with them. This confuses the other two races, as they don’t believe that plants have feelings, leading them to believe that earth pony farmers are often delusional.

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?

Although the ponies in this age don’t know this, their names are actually determined before their birth by the magic of life. When the babies are born, the parents “think of” their name upon seeing their children. If there is an existing Alicorn of Life, which there hasn’t been for thousands of years, they can go to the alicorn to find out what the name of their child will be.

14. How much formal schooling is an average, middle class pony expected to complete?

They usually get a basic education, and most get apprenticeships to gain job skills related to their special talents.

15. What’s the average lifespan for a pony? At what age is a pony expected to be independent of their parents?

Pegasi have the shortest lifespan, at an average 80 years. Earth ponies live a bit longer, to about 100 years. Unicorns can potentially live much longer, depending on how much magical potential they have. the oldest recorded unicorn lived about 170 years, although the average is 120.

16. Are there roughly an equal number of male and female ponies?

Depending on the area, mares outnumber stallions from anywhere between the ratios 2:1 and 4:1.

17. How informed are most ponies about things that happen in other parts of Equestria? What about other parts of the world?

Since long-distance instant communication is still considered a dream outside of dragonfire, the common citizen in each nation is mostly unaware of the going-ons of the other nations. Only those associated with the governments in each nation has any idea of whats happening in the outside world.

The Main Characters:

18. How old are the Mane Six? Spike? The CMC?

I don’t have exact ages in my headcanon, but the order goes like this:
Fluttershy
Applejack
Pinkie Pie
Rarity
Twilight Sparkle
Rainbow Dash

Spike will be about 7 years younger than Twilight.

The CMC will be about 10 years younger than their Mane Six counterparts.

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?

Fluttershy didn’t remain on the ground, but she yearned for it day after day until she eventually moved out.

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were close friends for a while after the cutie mark event, but they drifted apart a distance down the line, and by the time Fluttershy moved to Ponyville, RD had already dropped out of Flight School and was a member of the weather team there. They were ecstatic to find each other there.
20. Rarity and Applejack both seem to have grown up in Ponyville. What were their interactions like before the show?

For the most part, they barely knew each other, as they weren’t in the same class in school, and they led different lifestyles.

21. What do Twilight and Spike consider their relationship to be?

They consider themselves to have a very close sister/brother bond, but Twilight does acknowledge that she is effectively Spike’s mother.

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?

Pinkie moved in with them shortly after she got her cutie mark, as she realized that living on a desolate rock farm wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She is technically an apprentice to the Cakes, but since she has been with them for so long and since the have basically raised her, they consider themselves to be family.

23. Who among the Mane Six had the best parents growing up? The worst parents?

Applejack had the best parents, while she had them. She absolutely adored them, and her work ethic is inspired by them.

Pinkie had the worst parents, not because they were actually bad parents, but because they had zero understanding of what she wanted out of life.

24. Why didn’t the CMC hang out more/know each other before Call of the Cutie?

They were in different classes in the beginning, and their siblings (if any) never socialized, so they had no reason to know the others existed. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo ended up transferring to Apple Bloom’s class later.

25. Is Scootaloo an orphan? Will she ever be able to fly?

Scootaloo is not an orphan, but she is an only child. She will be able to eventually fly, but she’ll be like a person with a limp: she’d be able to get from point A to point B, but she won’t have the freedom that the other pegasi do.

26. Will Apple Bloom’s cutie mark involve an apple in some way, even if it’s unrelated to farming or baking?

She will, but more as a decoration of sorts, instead of it actually dealing with apples.

27. How is Sweetie Belle’s relationship with their parents different than Rarity’s was?

Sweetie Belle is much closer to their parents than Rarity was. Rarity, being nigh obsessed with the nobility and fashion, clashed with her parents a lot with their ideals.

Side and Background Characters:

28. Is Mr. Cake the father of the Cake twins or not?

Yep.

29. Are Big Mac and Cheerilee an item, romantically?

Nope. But they did remain good friends.

30. How did Prince Blueblood get his title?

He is very distantly related to Celestia, and decides to flaunt it around. However, the crown doesn’t recognize him as a prince.

31. Is Silver Spoon equally as bad as Diamond Tiara?

Nope. Diamond Tiara and her parents are business partners, so they became friends that way. Silver Spoon is a follower by nature, so just mimics whatever Diamond Tiara does. If she ever becomes friends with another png, she will also become similar to them.

32. Is Zecora’s magic common among zebras?

Although all zebras have the potential for magic, few actually practice it as Zecora and some others do.

33. Why does Daring Do publish her stories as fiction?

She gets to have more freedom with what she writes is she published it as fiction, so she can embellish it as much as she wants. However, each of the stories, at their core, are very much true.

34. Do you have a strong headcanon for any non-speaking or one line background ponies that you want to share?

Not really. I honestly don’t care much for any of the background ponies. Only thing I can say is that I believe that Derpy is actually really smart, but her condition causes others that don’t know her to be mentally challenged.

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?)

If a creature wants certain rights, they can contest to get them. Most that do so, do, but many of them don’t because they are content with what they have.

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?

Griffons and zebras have their own nations, but each country does have a somewhat mixed population.

37. Are minotaurs related to cows at all?

Very, very distantly.

38. Do all zebras rhyme?

Only those that practice magic.

39. Do zebra cutie marks work the same way as pony cutie marks?

I don’t have a headcanon for this, other than that they don’t.

40. Do any species have types of magic, other than ponies and zebras?

All species have some form of innate magic, but it manifests in different ways.

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?

Completely cultural. Buffalo like drier climates, while ponies like the wetter ones. However, you may occasionally find buffalo in the larger pony cities.

Headcanon and You:

42. Do you consider official sources other than the show (comics, card game text, movies, novels, etc.) to be canon?

For the most part, yes. I'm not familiar with the card games or the books, so I can't really say anything about those.

43. Do you have one headcanon that you always use, or do you switch depending on projects?

I don’t work on projects, so does that really matter?

44. Can you easily accept the headcanons of different writers? Do you prefer when stories match your head canon?

Writers can have whatever headcanons that they want. However, if their headcanon matches mine, it makes it som much better.

45. Is there a part of your headcanon that you wish was more popular among writers?

One headcanon of mine is that Celestia and Luna are NOT sisters by blood. If that aspect was explored more, I would be very happy.

46. Is there a popular piece of headcanon that other writers use that you dislike?

Derpy being stupid and air headed. It just ticks me off.

47. Have you ever written a story or blogpost just to explain some part of your headcanon (other than this one)?

Nope. I hate writing. This is the most I’ve written in years.

48. Does your headcanon influence things like your favorite pony, ship, or episode?

I very distinctly separate my headcanon from canon. Whatever happens in canon can change my headcanon. Any story I read can also potentially change my headcanon. If anything, the opposite is true.

49. Would it bother you if the show proved part of your headcanon wrong? Any specific piece that would really bother you to lose?

Most of it, I wouldn’t mind being changed. However, if Celestia and Luna end up being actual sisters, I will be made slightly upset.

50. Is there something that wasn't asked about here, but you feel like you need to explain to everyone?

About Celestia and Luna’s ascension: They ascended during Discord’s reign. They, along with 4 others that were brought together during their travels, searched and found the Elements of Harmony. However, Discord kept killing them off one by one as they tried to defeat him. Eventually, only Celestia and Luna were left to use the full force of the elements. Neither of their bodies were made to handle that much magic going through them, however, so the Elements forced them to ascend to be able to use them.