Bat Pony - Naming, Diet, Habitat, and Origin · 3:59am May 23rd, 2014
The Bat Pone Pony
Batticus Equinicus. Bat-winged, cat-eyed, and fuzzy-eared, these adorable pony offshoots have become quite popular of late. Originally featured in the Season 2 Episode Luna Eclipsed, they've been the subject of speculation and wonder ever since.
With literally only one canon episode appearance (and one glimpse of them in the comics), the field has been pretty wide open for speculation. Even tweets by Lauren Faust and others involved with the show have only added fuel to the fire. Some have even suggested that it's just a costume, but we'll go with the assumption that this is indeed a subspecies for the purposes of this discussion.
There are some open questions, however, which have bedeviled me. My own fic featuring a bat pony, Perchance to Dream, gave my own spin on events, speculating on their society through the memories and reflections of the bat pony main character. I'm hardly the only one, though, and there's a lot of questions, so let's have a look at them:
1) Just What Sort of Name is Bat Pony?
The most vexing one in some cases. When you get right down to it, bat pony isn't really a great name. It's descriptive, sure enough, but is it really an ideal solution?
For some authors, it is! And this can be legitimate. It's easy to own a name if you use it right. After all, "sea ponies" works for some and "merponies" for others (when those don't actually refer to two separate species in the same mix!)
Some alternatives have been suggested:
Thestral/Kestrel: This is the one I picked for Perchance, but it has given me some problems. Most prominently, I've been accused of making a crossover with Harry Potter! 
The problem I had with this is that the "thestral" of Harry Potter vaguely resembles the Kestrel, a mythological horse of which I had heard of but whose name had become muddled in my imagination. Thestral is fairly popular, however, so I've been unsure whether or not I should change it to "kestrels" or not. I've kind of regretted using it, but some people also like it, so... 
The original story, if you are curious, is the "N'oun Doare." (Small Analysis Here)
FUN FACT: Seems thestral is an English word that has fallen out of use: Caliginous and Thestral.
Nocturne: This one seems to be gaining in popularity of late. Not sure what to think of it. A "nocturne" sounds almost sinister when you think of it.
That, however, might even work to one's advantage. After all, we've seen that ponies are not immune to racism. Poor Zecora got a seriously tasteless welcome for months in Ponyville. Misinterpreting a scary-sounding name is right up the alley of the show.
ALT: One variant of this is the Noctral.
ALT 2: Another is Noctus.
Night Pony: Just spitballing this one. I don't think I've seen it used—though I'm reasonably sure it has been—but it's actually not a bad choice when you get right down to it. Is it any more or less meaningful than an "earth" pony after all? It sounds a little less degrading than a "bat" pony, which really ought to be Bruce Wayne's equivalent.
ALT: Vesper Ponies. Vesper is the term for Venus, which is known as the Morning Star or the Evening Star due to its interesting orbital properties, causing it to appear as the brightest 'star' to be seen at sunrise or sunset. Interesting choice. Perhaps it implies that bat ponies are great lovers~?
Negasus: Someone pointed this one out as a possibility.
Not too fond of it, personally—seems to imply something negative about them. But hey, it might work for you!
Yet, here I am, calling them bat ponies for this discussion. 
Language is a funny thing.
2) I Do Not Drink... Wine
So here's a question: raise your hand (or hoof) if you think bat ponies have fangs.
*looks around*
Most of you? Well, that surprised me when I noticed it in the artwork, because if you'll check the original episode they were featured in...
There's a couple shots like this showing the Night Guard (or Luna's Guard or whatever you'd like to call them). If you'll notice, their mouths are wide open, their teeth are grit, and... no fangs.
Yet you'll see fangs more commonly than not in artwork of them—I can't say where the idea started, but start it did. Fascinating how quickly a meme propagates:
(Is she not the cutest thing in the world?)
I think we're all glad nobody draws them with fins for manes, at least.
But hey, am I one to spit on someone else's idea? (Yes, but not so blatantly.) While I did not use this notion for Perchance, it has entered into discussion, so it's fair to consider it. What do bat pones eat?
First, because there's a lot of confusion about what bats actually eat:
About 70% of bats are insectivores. Most of the rest are frugivores, or fruit eaters. A few species, such as the fish-eating bat, feed from animals other than insects, with the vampire bats being hematophagous.
Obvious Answer: Why, what everypony eats! As Pinkie points out in "Over a Barrel", ponies and buffalo are strictly vegetarian. This is probably a cultural decision. Though it obviously hasn't been confirmed on the show, equines on earth can and will eat some portion of meat given the opportunity—though this is not a good idea in large quantities! Just, you know, be careful when you're eating a burger around a horse, they're sneaky and shameless about it.
Timon and Pumbaa Diet: So, what's a non-sapient source of blood and protein in the MLP universe? Insects. The little blighters are everywhere and, hey, it's what carnivorous bats eat, so why not?
Fruit Shakes: Though it is unlikely that bat ponies subsist entirely on fruit, who's to say they don't have a huge preference for it over other types of food?
Consider the adorable possibilities: you can have a bat pony drinking from a strawberry-banana smoothee and getting a severe case of brain freeze if she sips too fast!
Do you, uhm... mind if I nibble on you a bit?: And, of course, there's the possibility that they are straight-up vampiric. This can be minor (just a little here and there) or severe (required) as the story requires. Maybe they were feared in the past, but ever since then they've just started running blood banks and are now an important and respected part of Equestria's medical infrastructure? There's nothing inherently immoral about them tithing a portion of the blood for consumption if they keep the operation running smoothly, after all.
There's a lot of potential for drama in the idea of them requiring blood to live, even if only as a portion of their diet (for example, mixed in with grains - on earth, there have been times when mixing animal blood with feed was important for feeding animals like cattle.)
Not all of it is good drama, but Twilight already proved that vampires don't necessarily equal cool.
(
- No, no, Twilight, the other Twilight! Yes, yes, I'm sorry, stop growling.)
3) Home Sweet Home
"It's, uh, really more of a cave."
"But he's fixed up the place so much, it feels like a house."
So the next question is, where do they live?
Originally, I figured they just lived like pegasi, being airborne critters, but remember the association with bats? In hindsight, it isn't surprising at all that people have come up with the notion of bat ponies living in caves preferentially. I'm sure they're very nice caves. Do they hang from the ceiling or do they carve out cities? Turkey has many underground cities, and Petra in Jordan is a great example.
Indeed, I would love to see Petra recreated for an episode of the show. Beautiful city.
Adding credence to the cave notion are recent tweets from the show's past and current runners that promote it.
Really, though, is it an exclusive property? I'd imagine it comes down to preference, truly. A bat pony who likes living in the outside world will probably live like pegasi do - either in a house on the ground like Fluttershy or a house in the sky like Rainbow Dash.
Perhaps their specialized eyes provide excellent night vision, but they find the light of day uncomfortable? If so, caves may be very preferable in most applications.
4) Genesis
Where do they come from, anyway?
They aren't mentioned as one of the three primary tribes, but, then, we've seen that Zecora has a cutie mark (or something that resembles a cutie mark?) so it may be possible that there's unknown subspecies of the different races out there.
Pegasisters: The one I went with in Perchance is that they're just night-adapted pegasi, regardless of the separate name.
Lunafacted: A very popular one that I've seen before is that they were made differently by the touch of Luna.
Special Costumes: Similar to speculation that Royal Guard armor recolors the user's coat and mane (a reasonable assumption), the appearance of a bat pony may simply be a manipulation. This is the case in the Lunaverse, last I recall.
Who really wants that, though? It's not nearly as cool. Still, I'm sure there's some potential in there.
Cross-posted from an earlier Writer's Group thread. Because I wanted to find it again. There's going to be a brief appearance of the Night Guard in Pirene and someone brought up the naming problem earlier.
At the time I wrote "Rise," there still wasn't a solid word on whether they were a costume or not, so I rolled with it as best I could. Steel observed that the two guards with Luna always looked like that, but that the Night Guard wouldn't tell if it was an enchantment or actual ponies, and that it might have been both. Now that we know they're canon, I have to come up with a good name ... but I'm keeping that bit of mystery.
As far as where they live, I saw one fan-theory that Hollow Shades was the most common place, and that does make a lot of sense.
Hopefully the show dips its hoof into this at some point. It'd be nice to get a few lore-bits.
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Yeah, Hollow Shades looks ideal. I would love to see that place.
Nocturne/Noctral sounds good. Not so sure about kestrel, since I mostly hear it in reference to to the bird. I think I once came up with something, but have since forgotten.
I have not read Perchance to Dream so I don't know how much this lines up or doesn't line up, but I sort of had the idea that they were either some subset of pegasus or their own race that was sort of shunned for their sinister appearance and/or alleged connections with Nightmare Moon.
Nice. One of my OC's is as Thestral. (I am using this name). But he has some of the features not said in here.
THESTRAL IS A DUMB WORD
UNLESS YOU ARE WRITING A CROSSOVER WITH HARRY POTTER, YOU KEEP THAT WORD OUT OF YOUR FIC, YOU UNORIGINAL HACK
Sorry, I really hate it when people call them thestrals. :|
Night pony is totally my creation (unless someone else created it before I did, but I've never seen it), so you will likely see it in the future, should I ever write another story about them. :B I'm waffling over whether I should retcon the one batpony fic I have to change their name. (They already appear in The Elements of Awesomery as "chocoponies". :V)
"Kestrel", FYI, is a word I've only ever heard in relation to birds. They're a type of falcon.
2138012 Are you really so dumb, that you think Rowling created this word. Did you knew that words wizard, mandragore, and even Draco. Are not her creations? Sorry, but it is you who are dumb here.
It is word, that has more meanings, and horse demon with leahery wings is one of them. Rowling was quite unoriginal with making her books. I really like the series. But some people are just too dumbly fascinated.
I hate Anthro, It is some lazy thing, when you can't think of ponyizms, or can't draw ponies so you make them look like human (sometimes more than others) to make it easier. But I just ignore them, And it is fine. If you do not like this name, so be it , But you'll miss some good stories. Just as I am possibly missing good anthro ones.
2138012
Excuse me?
I'm just going to ignore how personally offensive that is and point out that I cited my sources. I don't care that you've personally only seen it in reference to falcons, the proof is there in the links I provided.
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2138012
Almost all of the Harry Potter series is a gigantic pile of cute references to anyone who knows mythology, fairy tales, and various somewhat occult and romantic symbolism. So, nah, it's not really her invention, sorry to break the news to you.
And Thestral sounds 100 times better than just night pony or bat pony, but that's just my subjective opinion.
While you're taking up this cross, you should probably also throw an all caps bitch fit about using Pegasus as a race name instead of calling them Winged Horses, which is what Pegasus was.
And to be fair, you'd have more validity there, Pegasus was an original invention.
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I hate when in emails you only get comment number, instead of name.
When you threw in my nick to this answer, and it came to me in email, I thought at first that you are telling it to me, And I was quite surprised, how did you managed read in my comment that I agree with him.
Ps. is edit option also broken to all of you? Because if I use it, edit window appears empty.
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I was agreeing with/expanding on what you said.
edit: works fine for me.
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Cribbing a name off a series, a name that doesn't even describe what it's being used for (to my understanding) does not make one more original than the source material. The word should be relegated to crossovers. Meanwhile, "bat pony" (which is about as canon as you can get) and "night pony" are entirely original and fit in with "earth pony" as far as naming schemes go.
Except there isn't a batpony tag one can avoid.
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Here, because apparently you can't be arsed to read the original post.
If you're going to talk shit, back it up.
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Thestral is an adjective meaning dark or dim. Example: "Into the thestral depths I led my expedition."
Therefor a thestral pony would be a pony of the dark and dim. JK Rowling didn't invent the word thestral, she didn't invent the creatures she named thestrals (although it is a cute pun), and it's hardly more unoriginal than calling winged horses pegasi.
Alicorn traditionally refers to the horn on a unicorn's head. Piers Anthony was the first person I am aware of to use it to refer to winged unicorns. Are you going to launch a crusade on fans doing Piers Anthony crossover? Probably not, because you're a short-sighted* jerk who is more interested in drawing arbitrary boundaries than in being a fair critic of originality.
Here is the real issue. It's not that people are stealing from JK Rowling, it's just that your literary experience with the word thestral is exclusively limited to Thestrals in her series. So whenever you see the word 'Thestral' that is immediately what you think of.
As has been told to me, many times, when I get stubborn over bullshit. You need to get over it.
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What I am working off of is this tweet wherein the word "bat pony" is used and neither confirmed nor denied by either MA Larson or Lauren Faust. So really, it doesn't mean anything one way or another, other than it's not incorrect to call them that. The question of what is correct is thus up in the air.
Still, you really can't sit there and tell me, straight-faced, that whoever started using "thestral" as the name for bat-ponies didn't do so because they read it in Harry Potter. Seriously. Legitimate a word as it may be on its own, it's not the kind of word that someone in this fandom is likely going to know save from having read that series. Which, I should mention, I have not (nor were thestrals in the movies). The originality of Rowling's use of the term is not in question here; that of fanfic authors' appropriation of it is, and they don't get the same bye for using an existing word in a novel manner. It'd be like calling earth ponies "terrenes" or something.
(And on that note, what really grinds my gears about the whole issue is that one person started using "thestral", a bunch of people caught onto it, and now many of them insist that that is their canon name. That's idiotic, though I will venture present company is excepted from blame.)
As far as I'm concerned, given the above source, they're bat ponies. I'll even accept "nocturne" because, edgy as it is, it's at least significantly more original a term than appropriating one already in use in the pop culture zeitgeist to describe magical horses. But given that most people know the word from Harry Potter, they're just slapping it in place to look cool instead of using a name that we've been given, and that fits more properly with the world in general.
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Eee... What? And whole idea of fandom is not creating their own canon? Half people in this site is against Twilight being Alicorn (Or, if you want, Winged Unicorn, or Pegicorn, as it was called at some point). And do not consider it canon in their stories, are you going to ask people to ban this?
Following your logic, Someone said MLP FiM is nice, And a lot of people now consider it their favourite.
a lot of fics I have read call them night ponies. some include night versions of earth and unicorns ponies.
one fic I read had night ponies having originated from a shadow equestria, one that was eternal night and full of monsters. Luna had discovered them and talked Celestia into letting her bring them to their equestria, saving them from the monsters that hunted them.
another fic had Luna giving her pegasi potions that turned them into night ponies, and would be given a reversal potion once they retired from the guard.
as for diets? normal pony diet is all i have seen other then the couple odd fics i've read where the night ponies are vamponies.
2138732
I can, because I am a mythology student who knew about the kestrel. I was originally mistaken in thinking it was called a thestral because the term sounded similar and I didn't check the original source when I first wrote Perchance. I assumed that, like me, Rowling had taken the name from the same myth.
By happy coincidence, thestral on its own is a word with an appropriate meaning.
The thestrals in my story have fuck all to do with the ones in Rowling's.
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I'm not sure how you take one of the more prolific writers and the generation's creator weighing in that they do in fact count as their own thing, and come away from that as "Neither confirmed nor denied." Not only are they in the show, so already confirmed, they both had the same interpretation. So when the people writing canon agree on something... It's canon?
Also, the person using bat pony is the fan asking the question. Here is an instance where Larson and Faust actually 'don't' confirm or deny something. All of this digresses from the fact that we're not arguing that there is only one true word or phrase for what they are. We're criticizing you because you went and threw a fit about a perfectly legitimate option. Now you're trying to retroactively change the context? Get real.
Actually, I did. Here's a straight face for you: : |
Except you're jumping to a conclusion with no evidence excepting your baseless assumptions, and the fact that it supports your conclusion.
images.wikia.com/harrypotter/images/9/90/HarryLunaThestral.jpg
Hey look, you demonstrably don't know what you're talking about! =D
That's not how impartiality works, sorry. It's not logical to forbid some myths and precedent examples and not others. You're being an irrational fuck ass.
It caught on, because once properly explained, it is a very good word for them. It's an actual single word species name, like pegasus or unicorn. That Thestral is so cthonic makes it significant in an etymology way. (That I still need to refer to Earth Ponies as Earth Ponies represents a lacuna for me. And I find 'bat ponies' or 'night ponies' just as awkward. To use your play at over the top comparisons, it'd be like calling an apple 'red fruit' instead of finding a word for what it is.)
You mean that source you claimed neither confirms or denies there existence, and in fact actually doesn't confirm or deny a name for them, which you claim is 'up in the air' but then later have decided it has an official response for?
Pegasus. Pegasus. Pegasus. PEGASUS.
GUESS WHAT IS ALSO IN THE (mis)APPROPRIATED POPCULTURE ZEITGEIST? PEGASUS IS A HORSE DEMIGOD, A SON OF POSEIDON AND MEDUSA. SOMEONE DECIDED THEY WERE GOING TO CALL ALL WINGED HORSES PEGASI, AND THEN IT CAUGHT ON.
They're slapping it in place because they like the word, no more and no less. And whether you like it or not it's a very appropriate word.
We weren't given a name at all. The fan used bat pony, and the fans came up with bat pony in the first place. The ponies themselves were never directly called attention to beyond existing.
Even if they didn't, if it weren't for fans pushing alicorn, Celestia and Luna would still be winged unicorns, or pegacorns, and they'd still be using their unicorn magic to raise and lower the sun/moon, instead of being in a hurry to give Twilight their alicorn magic. This shows that when the fans adopt a term, the team adapts it, if they think it's appropriate.
So... You still don't know what you're talking about, please stop trying to be an authority when you don't know what you're talking about.
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Again, fanfic authors don't get the same ability to delineate canon as the creator of the show. If you want to call them "wing ponies", that's fine, but you're going to look silly in doing so. We're creating derivative works, so we should be able to create within the confines of what the creators have set out for us.
And I should mention that by "confines" I pretty much mean "terminology". We're not going to see shipping or bloody wars or deep, existential treatises on the consequences of immortality from the show; that's our job. But if we, as fanwork creators, are inspired by a property and then fail to take the foundations of that property into account in our own works, then they can hardly be considered fanworks, can they? If one want one's ponies to be called things other than what they're called in the show (here, we're getting way off the topic of bat ponies), then perhaps one should consider writing in a different capacity. Perhaps original fiction.
I'd disagree with you there. From what I've just read about HP thestrals, the only things they have in common with bat ponies are equine shape, dark coloration, and leathery wings. In HP, they're associated with death and seem to be pretty nasty beasties (again, this is just me gleaning things off a quick Google search, I could be wrong). That's fairly out of character for Equestria (ignoring things like manticores ,hydras, etc., because those are presented in the world as dangerous monsters to be feared, not main characters).
See below. I will also mention that I have yet to disparage you in any way and would appreciate the same courtesy.
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Actually, I'm going to ask you the same thing. This shit is bothering me and I should be writing, but at this point, I'm pretty sure none of us have any idea what we're talking about. (Thestrals did appear in the HP movies, though whether or not they were called by name, I have no idea. All I know is I was very confused the first time I saw the word in the batpony writeoff on EQD.)
The link you gave for the origin of "thestral" doesn't work. I've checked on two online dictionaries and found bupkiss. (Notably, the second one has a thesaurus link for "thestrals", which turns up "Harry Potter mythological animals".) Searching "thestral" brings up Harry Potter-related links almost exclusively, with maybe a few MLP on the side since the word's usage has become so widespread.
Meanwhile, searching "kestrel mythology horse" only got me a series of horse books, where Kestrel is the name of the place the humans live. Again, most searches for "kestrel" bring up birds. If there is a mythological etymology for the word, I'd ask for a link, if only because I'm very curious as to where you got that idea. Not trying to be accusatory with this point, honest.
Then why call them that, is my question.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20110622082959/http://greatcopy.info/2010/05/caliginous-and-thestral/
The original source of the word "kestrel" comes from the book Celtic Myths and Legends which is the story of "N'oan Doare."
If you want to question the original sources, be my guest, but I'll leave that one to scholars.
2138843
Fine, then. Alicorn.
I do hope you were on the frontlines telling people they should be using pegacorns, when Lauren Faust claimed that's what they were.
They aren't called anything in the show. They are not called anything in the show. By your own logic we shouldn't be calling them night ponies or nocturnes because they're not called that in the show. Also alicorns, also back peddle harder, this entire debate spawned when you criticized people for favoring a word you don't like.
I'm doing both, being queer, and moving to Canada. Ironically I mean that in a literal and metaphorical sense at this moment.
In case you missed the joke, that means I write original fiction and fan-fiction.
They're still called Thestrals, you can't even bother to research your own argument. You are worthless and not worthy of my continued attention. Whereas before I was stating an observation: You don't know about the things which you present as fact. Now I am denigrating you.
See above, they were still called Thestrals, thanks for (not) doing simple research before putting your foot in your mouth though.
I am quite sure one of you doens't know what you are talking about anymore, and probably never did.
It's an old word, which is why it's easier to pass off as the name for a species than 'Nocturne' which already has a strictly descriptive sound to it, like you're describing something else. Thestral also does this, but because it has fallen out of common parlance, it's easier to repurpose.
I've already explained why myself and certain others favor it over bat pony. It's still a matter of personal preference, but that fact is irrelevant, the issue is you are criticizing something subjective. Ignore our reasons at your own leisure. I'm sure you will.
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Guys, I think we should stop, or we are going to give this poor stubborn persona a hearth attack, when he runs out of ways to rephrase the very same argument. He lives in some weird world, where all information is filtered in his mind, according to his beliefs. If he thinks that those are night ponies, and if in future episode it will be said something else, I believe he would post a petition, why they did it. As they previously proved "bat pony" by not proving anything.(I still don't get it.)
2138894
Okay, that's interesting. I did question the source, but nothing came of it, and I'm willing to believe it. I will note that A) the article was posted five months before MLP even aired, let alone Luna Eclipsed, and B) the writer mentions Harry Potter. I still think it's safe to conclude that anyone who initially repurposed the word "thestral" to refer to batponies knows of the word from Harry Potter, and not the Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words.
Okay. Time to end this, because I've become one of Those People today, and I'm not proud of this fact. First, I would like to apologize to you (and only you) for the "unoriginal hack" comment. The "you" was meant as a grand, sweeping statement rather than a dig specifically at you, but you had every right to take it as such. I liked, and I mean really liked, your story, which I hope you know, and I can forgive your use of that word specifically because I know you are a good writer. I hope you can forgive me, both for that comment and for starting this whole idiotic tirade.
Second, I will restate my original comment in light of all the information that's come about because of this argument, and in a hopefully less inflammatory nature.
-There is no canon word for bat ponies. All we can say is that neither Larson nor Faust corrected the person who started this tweet chain with the word "bat ponies".
-Of the choices for batpony names given in this post, I find the name "thestral" to be oddly dervative and the least appealing choice. When I first saw it -- despite having read Perchance to Dream back during its writeoff, the word didn't make an impact in my consciousness until the EQD batpony writeoff -- I had no idea what it meant and it was explained to me as a reference to Harry Potter. I have since come to associate the word only with the Harry Potter universe, and as such I tend to find that using it creates unnecessary correlations in a fanfic. (I compare its use to writing a story wherein Twilight gets a sword that is always referred to as a Buster Sword -- that is, a very specific sword from a very specific franchise -- without the story being a Final Fantasy 7 crossover.)
-I much prefer "night pony" because it corresponds the best to the "earth pony" and even "sea pony" naming schema. To be completely honest, I find "bat pony" to be a little flippant, though I'll say it still fits the world of Equestria in ways that "thestral" does not.
-"Nocturne" likewise confused me when I first saw it in the writeoff, and I find it a bit edgy and dark for Equestria, but I like it because it's not as off-key as "thestral".
-I totally agree with you about "negasus".
-I'm slightly miffed by a comment I saw somewhere and can't find claiming that "thestral" is in fact the canon name for batponies, and thus I extrapolate from that that there is a fairly fanatical thestral-centric segment of the fandom that I need to stay far, far away from. I may in fact stop reading batpony stories in the future.
-I am far too fanatical about things that I even think are Word of Faust and I need to do something about that. :(
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Thank you. I understand how difficult it can be to apologize and I accept.
And yeah, I figured this was only tangential to Perchance. Glad to hear you liked it, though.
Bah, all y'all are crazy.
Vargras had it right all along. Opliptera are the future. *retreats to his corner of the internet.*
I, personally, like them the way they're depicted in the fanfic "The Rise of Darth Vulcan". That's how I intend to write them in my fics. Best description, and origin, for them ever!^_^
Well, in my opinion that's the best.
P.S. Lauren Faust herself named them Thestral Ponies.
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To be honest, Faust hasn't mattered to MLP since Season 1.