50 questions about headcanon · 7:06pm Jul 6th, 2015
Just recently found out about this interesting survey about pony headcanon. So even though it's over a year old, I figure I might as well give some COMPLETELY SERIOUS answers, so everyone knows where I'm coming from.
The Princesses:
1. How old are Celestia and Luna?
Celestia has lived until the end of the universe, then time-traveled back to its beginning, multiple times. So she's roughly twenty times older than the universe. Luna sprang into existence about an hour before the events of "Luna Eclipsed". She used magic to plant her fictional backstory in everypony's memories.
2. How old is Cadance?
Cadance doesn't technically exist yet. Everything we've seen of her is just the fictional backstory that she'll plant in everypony's memory when she pops into existence in fifty years or so.
3. Were Celestia and Luna always alicorns, or did they ascend?
Celestia was born a pegasus. One morning, she found a plastic tiara in her cereal box. When she put it on, she suddenly found she had a horn and the power to control the sun. Luna sprang into existence with wings and a horn, but she's rather cagey about what she was like before she existed.
4. Are Cadance and Twilight immortal?
Either of them will die if anyone tricks her into saying her name backwards.
5. Have there been other alicorns in the past?
The majority of them are just younger time iterations of Celestia, disguised in cheap wigs. However, Orange Smoothie (head of accounting at the Manehattan Shipping Co.) became an alicorn about two centuries ago. None of her coworkers have noticed yet.
6. How much authority do Celestia and Luna have in Equestria?
It's a very unusual situation. The post-Unification pony government turned over absolute power to Celestia and Luna so quickly, they forgot to actually codify the Princesses' authority in any way. So, on paper, Equestria is a representative democracy, and Celly and Lulu are only listed as interns for the Assistant Undersecretary of Agriculture.
At least once a decade, some upstart Senator notices this discrepancy and wonders why everypony still obeys the Princesses. The rest of the Senate invariable shouts him down, digs up an obscure bylaw to justify booting him out, then sweeps the entire incident under the rug.
7. Does Shining Armor rule The Crystal Empire alongside Cadance?
Shining Armor is the secret co-ruler the Crystal Empire. By which I mean, it's a secret to him that he's the ruler. He thinks he's the gym coach. Imperial government ponies take their issues and questions to him, disguised as sports questions. When he answers, they translate his answer back into government policy.
8. Other than Twilight, Luna, and Cadance, what relationships have been important to Celestia in her lifetime (students, close friends, lovers, family)?
There's a group of ponies she plays Magic: The Gathering with once a week. She would kill for them.
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)?
Most ponies still think "Earth ponies walk like this, but unicorns walk like this!" jokes are a laugh riot. And let's face it—unicorns do walk kinda funny.
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's a fruit tree that only grows on the tallest cloud mountains of Cloudsdale. But its fruit are made of antimatter, so eating them is strongly discouraged.
11. Can all unicorns learn all spells, given the time and effort spent practicing them, or is magical talent usually limited in some way?
Any unicorn can learn any magic spell, though if the spell isn't related to one's Special Talent, it's a lot harder to learn. Except for paper-folding spells—nopony, not even Twilight or Princess Celestia, can cast those without a paper-folding cutie mark.
12. Earth pony magic: Does it exist? What is it?
Close your eyes. Feel the breeze rustle your mane. Listen to the sounds of the forest around you. (Yes, we're in a forest now. Don't ask how we got here. I didn't say you could open your eyes!) Feel the soil grinding beneath your hooves. (Sure, that's a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason.) Flex your leg, and feel the blood coursing through your arteries. You are part of everything, and everything is part of you. Open your eyes. Now there's an apple in your hoof. You and the apple are both living things—unbelievably complex arrangements of cells, the products of uncountable chemical reactions. The apple turned into diamonds while you weren't looking. You are a horse.
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?
Ponies take their children to the village prophet, who gives the kid a name that will fit their future personality, career, or cutie mark. Most of the family theme naming results from the prophet half-assing it. (My apologies to any mules reading this.)
14. How much formal schooling is an average, middle class pony expected to complete?
Pony schools don't actually have a set curriculum. Ponies just attend a random mish-mash of classes until they notice for themselves that nopony's making them attend anymore. Some ponies, like Twilight Sparkle or Moondancer, never figure that out.
15. What’s the average lifespan for a pony? At what age is a pony expected to be independent of their parents?
It's impossible to find any hard statistical data about pony lifespan or mortality, because ponies are incapable of talking or thinking about death in anything but the vaguest of euphemisms.
16. Are there roughly an equal number of male and female ponies?
When InGen cloned the ponies back to life, they used frog DNA to fill in the gaps of the pony genome. As a result, any given stallion has a 30% chance of spontaneously transforming into a mare in his sleep. He can prevent this by thinking really hard about baseball at least once a day.
17. How informed are most ponies about things that happen in other parts of Equestria? What about other parts of the world?
The average pony is reasonably aware of what happens within their own city, and knows a lot less than they think about anything outside their city. The press is honestly pretty bad at reporting the news, and the average pony has an uncanny ability to distrust what they read except when it's completely wrong.
The Main Characters:
18. How old are the Mane Six? Spike? The CMC?
It's impolite to ask a mare how old she is.
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 actually tried to live underground for a few years. Rainbow Dash was so embarassed, she pretended not to know Fluttershy for the duration.
20. Rarity and Applejack both seem to have grown up in Ponyville. What were their interactions like before the show?
One time, they got assigned to do a school project together. They found a way to make a dress out of apples. It was supposed to be a five-page history essay.
21. What do Twilight and Spike consider their relationship to be?
Twi claims Spike as a dependent on her income taxes.
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?
About a year after she got her cutie mark, Pinkie just showed up in the Cakes' kitchen one day and acted like she belonged there. After a week, the Cakes realized it would be less trouble to take her on as an apprentice than to kick her out.
23. Who among the Mane Six had the best parents growing up? The worst parents?
To answer this precise question, Rainbow Dash organized a Best Parents Competition a few months after Twilight came to Ponyville. Rainbow's parents were the only ones who showed up to compete, so they won by default.
24. Why didn’t the CMC hang out more/know each other before Call of the Cutie?
Every time Sweetie Belle or Scootaloo tried to strike up a conversation with Apple Bloom, she scared them off by rambling about apples or trying to introduce them to her imaginary friend, Twist.
25. Is Scootaloo an orphan? Will she ever be able to fly?
Scootaloo has perfectly ordinary parents. They're so boring, they've already appeared in dozens of episodes, and you forgot all about them. Scootaloo is currently channeling her pegasus magic incorrectly. Once she fixes that, she'll be able to fly—like a hummingbird.
26. Will Apple Bloom’s cutie mark involve an apple in some way, even if it’s unrelated to farming or baking?
She already has her cutie mark. It's a picture of a cutie mark, which ironically looks identical to the rest of her fur coat.
27. How is Sweetie Belle’s relationship with their parents different than Rarity’s was?
Sweetie Belle weaponized her own cuteness, so her parents could never bring themselves to punish her.
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?
Falling into a pit while wearing a bridal veil is actually an obscure alternative to the traditional wedding ceremony. And in the presence of three witnesses (like the CMC), it's just as legally binding. Owing to the love poison, Cheerilee and Big Mac could get their marriage annulled easily enough, but they agreed to stay married for the foreseeable future, solely to shut up everypony who's pushing them to find a special somepony.
30. How did Prince Blueblood get his title?
Once, during a polo game, he accidentally knocked the ball into a cave. He went in to get the ball back, then tripped and fell into an underground river. The river carried him five miles south, to a subterranean village of crystal ponies. The village elder offered him a special salt lick, which elevated him to a higher state of consciousness where he saw the strands of fate and magic that bound him to these caverns. Inspired by his vision, Blueblood rushed into the maze of tunnels, united the Three Mystic Gems of Ctaraka, and used them to vanquish the cave troll which had threatened the crystal ponies for years. In the middle of the cave troll's treasure horde, Blueblood found the reason fate had brought to the cave: his birth certificate, which had gone missing decades ago, and which proved he was a direct descendent of Princess Platinum.
He never found that polo ball, and he had to forfeit the game.
31. Is Silver Spoon equally as bad as Diamond Tiara?
They're really persistent, when you think about it. Everything in society—their parents, their teacher, their classmates, the fundamental forces of the universe itself—is pushing them to be nice. But they're petty jerks anyway, for no reason whatsoever. That's commitment. It's almost admirable.
32. Is Zecora’s magic common among zebras?
They don't call it "magic". They call it "illusions".
33. Why does Daring Do publish her stories as fiction?
Because she outbid Ahuizotl for the publishing rights to her adventures, but she'll lose those rights if she doesn't publish within a certain timeframe. She can't let them revert to Ahuitzotl, because he'll use the royalties to fund an expedition to find the magic griffon spear that blows up the ocean, or something equally stupid.
34. Do you have a strong headcanon for any non-speaking or one line background ponies that you want to share?
Strong headcanon only acts at distances of a femtometer or less. But I ship Carrot Top and Written Script.
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?)
Non-speaking animals don't have legal rights in Equestria. They haven't complained yet!
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?
The list of species that don't have their own, separate nation is identical to the list of species that declared war with Equestria at some point in the past. What a strange coincidence.
37. Are minotaurs related to cows at all?
"If they compare you to cattle, DESTROY THEM IN BATTLE!"
38. Do all zebras rhyme?
What kind of question is this? I mean, there's only one zebra in the show so far, and Zecora doesn't ... Oh. Oh my goodness! How did I not notice that sooner? That's crazy!
39. Do zebra cutie marks work the same way as pony cutie marks?
The opposite, actually. Any zebra can learn paper-folding illusions, but can only perform other illusions if they're related to their cutie mark.
40. Do any species have types of magic, other than ponies and zebras?
They do, but it's impossible to talk about because they all have their own term for it, and they get super pissed if you use the wrong term. "Stars above, it's 'thaumaturgy', not 'magic'! It's something completely different, and you just can't understand the difference unless you were born a donkey or you've studied it as much as I have! ... I read the whole Wikipedia article about it ..."
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?
Buffalo believe that any structure more permanent than a tent will eat your soul if you sleep in it.
Headcanon and You:
42. Do you consider official sources other than the show (comics, card game text, movies, novels, etc.) to be canon?
The only canon is the episodes themselves, those "totally rufus" comics from Germany, and the showrunner's twitter accounts—especially when they're trolling.
43. Do you have one headcanon that you always use, or do you switch depending on projects?
My headcanon changed fourfive times while I was answering these questions.
44. Can you easily accept the headcanons of different writers? Do you prefer when stories match your headcanon?
If headcanon not perfect, Meta Four get mad. Meta Four always get mad when things not perfect!
45. Is there a part of your headcanon that you wish was more popular among writers?
I think my backstory of Equestria's 30 Year Pudding War would add a great deal of subtextual pathos to the events of nearly every fanfic.
46. Is there a popular piece of headcanon that other writers use that you dislike?
Berry Punch as a ventriloquist. I have no idea where that idea even came from, but it pops up everywhere, even in stories where Berry Punch doesn't show up herself. Yanks me right out of the story, every time.
47. Have you ever written a story or blogpost just to explain some part of your headcanon (other than this one)?
"Black Magic Mare, Roaming Queen" actually started off as an attempt to explain my version of the "real" first Hearths Warming. Obviously, it changed a lot in the writing. The only bit of my original idea that remains in the published version was the line, "Wow, that's a lot of pudding."
48. Does your headcanon influence things like your favorite pony, ship, or episode?
I keep my headcanon on the other side of the room while I'm watching the show. From that far away, only the weak headcanon can influence me.
49. Would it bother you if the show proved part of your headcanon wrong? Any specific piece that would really bother you to lose?
The show already disproved the existence of Crepusclar Twinkle (Twilight Sparkle's twin sister who's even better at magic and also Celestia's favorite student and also Fancypants' girlfriend). Nothing the show does in the future could ever hurt me as much as I've already been hurt.
50. Is there something that wasn't asked about here, but you feel like you need to explain to everyone?
4 CELESTIAS HAVE 4 DAYS IN ONLY 1 EARTH ROTATION.
1 CELESTIA IS ONLY 1/4 OF CELESTIA.
EARTH HAS 4-CORNER SIMULTANEOUS 4 DAY TIME CUBE
I am going to assume this is all Alarm Clock canon. Especially number 8. I pretty much have no choice but to accept that one. Celestia does have a white mana symbol for a cutie mark, after all.
It's all so obvious to me, now! Headcanon immediately accepted as Holy Truth!
Gee... maybe I'm sitting too close to the monitor.
3212361 In Alarm Clock canon, Celestia is actually a bee.
3212888 The closer you sit to the monitor, the easier it is for the truth particles to penetrate your brain!
But what happens when a multi-verse traveler messes with a iteration of celestia that destroys the universe how does derpy fix that
great Kittin's gone crazy
3213640 Celestia wouldn't destroy the universe. Except for the Evil Celestia from the mirror universe. But she has a goatee; that's how you tell the difference between her and regular Celestia.
3213734 no it was the Multi-verse travelers fault
I love how you mixed in just enough geniune headcanon to require the reader to carefully sift the entirety of each answer to seperate out the joke, the non joke, the meta joke, and the referential joke, in order to identify the amount of genuine headcanon was present in each answer! Bravo!