Headcanon: 50 Questions · 6:00am Apr 12th, 2014
Bookplayer has a set of fifty questions with which to think about your headcanon. I thought it would be fun to answer them. A lot of the answers here derive from my stories.
The Princesses:
1. How old are Celestia and Luna?
More than 1000 years old, less than 2000 years old. The 1000 year figure is obvious, but before Nightmare Moon showed up, there were two periods of rule by the sisters interrupted by Discord. I used a date of 1478 in one story, a date that in my headcanon counts from their first appearance.
2. How old is Cadance?
About 28, or maybe 6 years older than Twilight Sparkle. I’m using human ages and the relative age of child to babysitter.
3. Were Celestia and Luna always alicorns, or did they ascend?
In my headcanon, they appeared as fully mature immortal alicorns sometime after the three tribes unified.
4. Are Cadance and Twilight immortal?
They are not yet immortal, but will be able to make the choice to become immortal.
5. Have there been other alicorns in the past?
Yes; mortal alicorns are born roughly once a century. In Cross Words, I refer to Cadance as the 17th alicorn to be born following the arrival of the Princesses.
6. How much authority do Celestia and Luna have in Equestria?
Absolute authority, if they choose to exercise it. They rarely do; they normally let ponies rule themselves.
7. Does Shining Armor rule The Crystal Empire along side of Cadance?
He’s a prince consort, the Prince Phillip to Cadance’s Queen Elizabeth II.
8. Other than Twilight, Luna, and Cadance, what relationships have been important to Celestia in her lifetime (students, close friends, lovers, family)?
I see Celestia as being devoted to all her subjects. She has had many students in the past. In a future story, I show Celestia hoping that other of her past students would accomplish what Twilight did, and ascend.
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)?
I see an idealized melting pot. Ponies are considered different primarily due to their cutie marks, not their type. An earth pony animal caretaker would be treated much like Fluttershy. Due to the presence of magic, and I ascribe to pegasi and earth ponies having magic that give them their type’s general abilities, I find it hard to call it a stereotype. “Earth ponies are good at growing things” isn’t a stereotype, but a fact deriving from their inherent magic.
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?
I pretty much hand-wave away the problems with items in a city of clouds. If you think about it, you couldn’t send a letter to somepony in Cloudsdale, as it would sink through the cloud floor.
For foods, I go back to the Hearth’s Warming tale. Pegasi don’t grow food in the clouds. Earth ponies grow food for the pegasi and unicorns.
11. Can all unicorns learn all spells, given the time and effort spent practicing them, or is magical talent usually limited in some way?
I say it’s limited. I like the idea of common unicorn magic (telekinesis), with unicorns being good at magic related to their special talent, and having varying levels of ability to learn other forms of magic. I’ll think of it in Dungeons & Dragons terms, where magical ability depends on your intelligence and level.
12. Earth pony magic: Does it exist? What is it?
I absolutely ascribe to the idea of earth pony magic, and use it in several stories. Ponies in general are shown using their magic to operate the world, in ways that happen automatically in our world. Pegasi are responsible for the weather. Earth ponies are responsible for making crops grow. I like to think of their magic accelerating the growth of crops, so that they’re producing several harvests’ worth of crops every season. It also makes them unnaturally strong and durable.
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?
I like the idea of the overall magic of the world shaping the pony. A mother selects an appropriate name for her foal. The foal discovers a special talent that fits his or her name. And in some cases, ponies with similar names find themselves drawn to each other. Two ponies with talents related to silver meet, logically fall in love, and have a daughter with a silver name and a talent in silver.
Aside: I always write a character’s full name, like “Twilight Sparkle”, because we don’t have any indication in canon that a pony with a two word name has a family name and a given name.
14. How much formal schooling is an average, middle class pony expected to complete?
My headcanon is decidedly old-fashioned, drawing from 19th century America. An eighth grade education is standard. I reason that cutie marks are discovered around the age of puberty, and in this society, once a pony knows his or her special talent, what further point is schooling?
I think there are apprentice programs for most ponies, but their society wouldn’t see anything unusual with an adolescent starting a business relating to his cutie mark.
This is one element of headcanon I’m willing to violate when the story demands it. If I want a story set in high school, then ponies have high school like 21st century America.
15. What’s the average lifespan for a pony? At what age is a pony expected to be independent of their parents?
I use human life spans, and don’t think there’s any difference between pony types. I use an age of roughly 18 for adulthood, but without the modern day idea of adolescence. While a 16 year old pony may live with his parents, he’s expected to be working towards full independence, very soon.
16. Are there roughly an equal number of male and female ponies?
Absolutely. I posit a conversation between a brony in Equestria who believes otherwise and Twilight Sparkle going something like this:
“You think there’s a four to one ratio of mares to stallions?” Twilight Sparkle asked. “Are you crazy? I mean, how would that even work? Are there more than two genders in your world?”
“No, it’s just that we see so many mares, and…”
“Don’t stallions in your world work?”
“Work?”
“Yes, work!”
I like to think that a number of families with stallions serving in the guard live in Ponyville, because Canterlot real estate is too pricy. I also like to think that there are jobs (silver miners, lumberjacks, office workers) that we don’t see, where stallions tend to work.
17. How informed are most ponies about things that happen in other parts of Equestria? What about other parts of the world?
Not very. Again, I think of the speed of communication being like 19th century America.
The Main Characters:
18. How old are the Mane Six? Spike? The CMC?
The Mane Six are young adults, the CMC on the cusp of adolescence, and Spike was hatched when Twilight Sparkle was around 7 years old. I’ll say 22 for the Mane 6 and 12 for the CMC. The CMC are the hardest to quantify. I think they act younger, but they have a fair degree of independence, and they’re at the age when they get their cutie marks, and have a party whose name is based on a 15th birthday celebration.
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?
I say she remained on the ground, one of those situations where the pony strikes out to do what their cutie mark tells them. I say they stayed friends, but more distant, like your high school friends who went to a different college.
20. Rarity and Applejack both seem to have grown up in Ponyville. What were their interactions like before the show?
I think they had close to zero interaction.
21. What do Twilight and Spike consider their relationship to be?
Like brother and sister, but where Twilight Sparkle is old enough that she’s obviously the big sister in charge.
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?
I think she moved shortly after getting her cutie mark. Again, her cutie mark is telling her to throw parties, and she needed to move on to follow her destiny. She’s a worker who rents a room. I don’t think of her as an apprentice, no matter how good she is at baking, because that’s not her cutie mark. But she’s like family to the Cakes.
23. Who among the Mane Six had the best parents growing up? The worst parents?
Best parents for developing their talents: Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy had talents so far removed from their parents’ that they couldn’t help as much. And Twilight Sparkle was by necessity reared more by Princess Celestia for years.
I don’t think any of the parents were bad or abusive. I don’t care for stories where the parents (especially Applejack’s and Pinkie Pie’s) are shown as bigoted. It feels too much like an author’s screed.
24. Why didn’t the CMC hang out more/know each other before Call of the Cutie?
If I were forced to create an explanation that made sense, Apple Bloom was in a different class from Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle in the previous grade, and the lesson in that episode came at the beginning of, say, the 6th grade. Realistically, there has to be more than one teacher in Ponyville, right? Though why the teacher moves with (most of) the class as they advance grades is beyond me.
Also, I like to think that Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were friends, probably living near each other. Apple Bloom lives on a farm at the outskirts of town, and so can’t walk down the street and find other foals her age.
Aside: They forgot all about huddling together when Nightmare Moon reappeared!
25. Is Scootaloo an orphan? Will she ever be able to fly?
Is she an orphan? Heck no! I like to think she’s like the Scootaloo of Scootaloo’s Family, with a family so boring and ordinary that of course we don’t see them on screen.
I think Scootaloo will fly, going by the theory that it’s pegasus magic that makes them fly. I don’t think she’ll ever be as good as Rainbow Dash, no matter how hard she tries, because her talent is related to stunts, not speed.
26. Will Apple Bloom’s cutie mark involve an apple in some way, even if it’s unrelated to farming or baking?
I think her talent is related to building things, but I suspect it will show an apple.
27. How is Sweetie Belle’s relationship with their parents different than Rarity’s was?
Not noticeably different. I think their parents have talents far different from both Rarity and Sweetie Belle.
Side and Background Characters:
28. Is Mr. Cake the father of the Cake twins or not?
Yes.
29. Are Big Mac and Cheerilee an item, romantically?
No. I prefer a future FlutterMac relationship.
30. How did Prince Blueblood get his title?
I like the idea, from others’ stories, that Prince Blueblood is heir to the title of Princess Platinum, though that title is meaningless, superseded by the government of the current diarchy.
31. Is Silver Spoon equally as bad as Diamond Tiara?
In Clean Slate, I have Silver Spoon picking up bad traits (“We have money, so we’re better than other ponies”) from her parents, and passing them on to Diamond Tiara. It makes sense, since the few glimpses of Filthy Rich show him to have close ties to the community.
32. Is Zecora’s magic common among zebras?
Probably not. I see her as a shaman, with talents beyond those of a normal zebra.
33. Why does Daring Do publish her stories as fiction?
Because she isn’t a professor of archaeology with a university to fund her expeditions, and she needs something to pay the bills.
34. Do you have a strong headcanon for any non-speaking or one line background ponies that you want to share?
Not in particular. If I pick a background pony and develop his personality for a story, it’s not functionally different from creating an original character.
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?)
I think yes, but I’m glad it’s not a subject that comes up in the series.
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?
I think the nations are largely separate, analogous to human countries mostly filled with people of a given cultural heritage.
37. Are minotaurs related to cows at all?
No.
38. Do all zebras rhyme?
I see it as a shaman thing, not a zebra thing.
39. Do zebra cutie marks work the same way as pony cutie marks?
I don’t see why not.
40. Do any species have types of magic, other than ponies and zebras?
I think there’s magic in all species in the magical world of Equestria.
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?
Cultural. The one episode with buffalo shows them to have a different nomadic culture.
Headcanon and You:
42. Do you consider official sources other than the show (comics, card game text, movies, novels, etc.) to be canon?
To some extent. I’ll assimilate information on ponies from all sources. Ultimately, any canon can be abandoned if the story demands it.
43. Do you have one headcanon that you always use, or do you switch depending on projects?
I have a main headcanon, but will abandon it when the story demands it. Just because I don’t think Scootaloo is an orphan doesn’t mean I won’t write an orphan Scootaloo story.
44. Can you easily accept the headcanons of different writers? Do you prefer when stories match your headcanon?
I can accept it, although it’s hard to keep track of so many different headcanons. For example, seeing mention of Sweetie Belle being Rarity’s daughter is jarring.
45. Is there a part of your headcanon that you wish was more popular among writers?
I prefer equal populations of mares and stallions and general equality between the sexes.
46. Is there a popular piece of headcanon that other writers use that you dislike?
Herds, although there are a lot of interesting stories with that kind of family structure.
47. Have you ever written a story or blogpost just to explain some part of your headcanon (other than this one)?
Several of my stories include my preferred headcanon.
48. Does your headcanon influence things like your favorite pony, ship, or episode?
Not particularly.
49. Would it bother you if the show proved part of your headcanon wrong? Any specific piece that would really bother you to lose?
I would hate for orphan Scootaloo or flightless Scootaloo to become canon.
50. Is there something that wasn't asked about here, but you feel like you need to explain to everyone?
Nothing comes to mind, but I’d like to thank bookplayer for the great idea!
http://i.imgur.com/Eha4lPO.jpg
This has proven to be a great way to get a cross-section of people's interpretations of Equestria. Thanks for joining in on it. Though I have to wonder, why did none of the other alicorns choose immortality?
2003057 Everypony you know and love will die. You won't. This will go on forever. Is that a burden you want to bear?
2003079
Well the diarchs seem to be handling it well. Still, I see your point.
I have a couple of aunts who are elementary school teachers and they have had to switch the grades they've taught quite a few times over the years--either out of request, necessity, or some other reason. So it is definitely possible that a teacher could teach a couple students multiple times--which I think my aunts have--but most of the class?...yeah that is pretty odd.