So, have any of you fellow CheesePie shippers refined your headcanons about them or party ponies in general in any way? Especially in regards to the premiere (where we were introduced to the unicorn with mad balloon skills, Party Favor) or Party Pooped? Or other things in other episodes that just caught your eye?

And also, how many variations of party ponies could there be? How many distinct personalities could you come up for a group of ponies with basically the same talents and motivation in life? It has been done with Twilight's talent, so I don't doubt it could be done for Pinkie's.

4562041 Well, Party Favor was pretty interesting. But I really don't think calling him the new R63 Pinkie Pie was appropriate. Cheese Sandwich is more of Pinkie Pie's equal, kind of like how Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer are probably the most similar in regards to how Twilight could turn out.

Party Favor is more of his own character. He seems to be the sort of character that probably ends up in bad situations for reasons beyond his control, and has a talent that works against his species (notice how he doesn't use his horn when he's doing his balloon skills). He also seems the most paranoid, and the most likely to drop that smile if he has any reason to think things will go wrong.

He's more of a case for helping Pinkie Pie to realize had hard it can be to smile when there's always so much uncertainty in life, while also learning from her that a genuine smile is one of the most important things in life. Because it reflects a determination not to give up when things go wrong, and to keep on trying until you suceed.

4562041

There's a lot of potential variation. For instance, Gray Hoof (the insane revenant who dominates the undead village of Sunny Town) was obviously a Party Pony in life -- in fact, the event which the town is cursed to eternally repeat starts as a party. (It's not a very happy party, it ends with Ruby's murder).

We now have three Party Ponies in pure vanilla canon -- Pinkie, Cheese and Party Favor. You have at least two more. And every single one of them has a different personality.

4562041 Of course, I've got Ponyacci added in to the mix, but I think the idea of a group of ponies compelled to make other ponies smile and laugh is really fun to play with. Mine's been inspired a bit by St. Francis, hitting the road with literally nothing, and singing as he spreads Joy.

People probably think that's sort of odd.

But it doesn't mean they all have to have the same kind of personality or want the same things. I'm sticking with the idea of Cheese essentially as a loner, which makes it bearable to come in, make someponies laugh, and then look to a new horizon. Ponyacci, according to the comics, has spent a long, long time on the road, and is beginning to get exhausted--but I've written him as having a family, with a formidable stay at home wife who keeps the family together.

And Party Favor seems to want so much to belong. I think that's how he got sucked into Our Town. His Party Pony sense told him that here was a very unhappy place that needed him, and yet he couldn't find anypony who was unhappy, or seemed to be. Meanwhile, he doesn't tolerate the loneliness of the road as well as Cheese. Maybe the idea of a place that was so happy that he never needed to pull out the balloons was appealing. And never, ever, ever having to go on the road again, because here he had REAL friends. Who LOVED him. And he'd never need to leave . . .

. . . but you can't take the party pony out of a party pony, and deep inside there would be something alerting him that ponies were unhappy, and that maybe he should DO something about it, only wasn't it better just to give up and stay where he had friends? because getting his cutie mark back means that he has to go where he's needed.

And that means he has to leave them, and be lonely again.

I know I had to revise my thoughts to include Party Favor--aren't party ponies all earth ponies?--but then, as you pointed out, he doesn't use his horn! I think parti-ness is a sort of override: the party pony gets all kinds of bizarre powers, but they don't have a lot of the kind they "ought" to have, like being able to farm, or using horn magic.

4562068
To be fair, I don't like calling either Cheese Sandwich or Party Favor "r63 Pinkie". That diminishes them as characters, and they clearly both have their own traits. Though I will say it's a little difficult in Party Favor's case, given that he was equalized for most of the episode he appeared in. Still, it's obvious he has some level of crazy in him, but I see him as being more soft-spoken and polite compared to other party ponies (he's from Canterlot in my headcanon).

Also, I've noticed he doesn't use his horn. I have a fic centered around that. Basically, he's disabled, has a talent that ponies in his hometown don't take seriously, and he's got two magically gifted siblings that he has problems measuring up to.

4563322
It really annoys me how people assume that all party ponies have the same personality. Bleck, where's the fun in that? I'm at least trying to set my party ponies apart from the canon ones. Comedy Gold is generally more fiery, headstrong, and reckless, especially when something doesn't go her way (she's kind of a teenager), and Bananas, though very goofy and gentle (he's very physically strong), has a military drill sergeant side to him which he whips out when other ponies don't take him seriously.

Brr... Gray Hoof is an example of a party pony gone wrong...

4563425
I kind of like that some people are getting the idea that there's some sort of "secret society" of joy spreaders with weird powers in Equestria. They all basically have the same goal in life, though the personalities differ. I don't see why they wouldn't, since I don't have the same personality as other introverted artists, and the bookworm characters of Twilight and Moondancer are very different.

4563987

Oh, there are lots of ways to be a Party Pony. Some of them, probably, rather destructive. I mentioned Gray Hoof, because his genuine joy-bringing abilities (when he was still a living organic being) is probably why he had the charisma needed to lead his cult to the point where they would be willing to murder Ruby because they thought that the appearance of one Cutie Mark denoted the Cutie Pox. And I don't think that he was even entirely evil -- just horribly, tragically deluded (the more so in my version of the origin of Sunnytown, in which Ruby was his OWN DAUGHTER).

A possibly-destructive (but mostly self-destructive) Party Pony is Phoenix_Dragon's Cotton Candy, from Without a Hive and A New Way (two of my favorite fanfics of all-time, and the source of at least half my Changeling fanon). Cotton Candy was orphaned fairly young, and though she was treated fairly well in her orphanage, she stayed there a long time and obviously felt unloved. She's rather like what Pinkie Pie might be like if she was into hard liquor and promiscuity. She tries to do good, too -- and, admittedly, she succeeds rather better than did Gray Hoof. I actually like her, I just think she's going to emotionally destroy herself and other Ponies if she keeps on this course.

Her effect in the story is purely benign, though, as she first befriends Nictis/Meadow Song, and later works to get Nictis and his True Love, Spark Wheel, to reconcile. And this despite a fairly strong implication that she's also attracted to Spark Wheel. She simply is that good a Pony, in terms of wanting her friends to be happy. I rather get the impression that Cotton Candy may eventually realize she is loved, and not try so hard to be wild to become loved. Incidentally, the story shows how even the best orphanage and adoption in the world can't heal all the damage -- every single one of the characters who go through that orphanage are very clearly emotionally-scarred by the process first of losing their parental-figures and then having uncertain familial fates.

My point is that a Party Pony can be anything from the wonder that is Pinkie Pie to something fairly destructive and dangerous. Remember the legend of Dionysus? Dionysus was basically the Greek Party God, and he could be very jolly and friendly to humans -- he was one of the friendliest and most beloved gods of the pantheon (which is how Disney's always shown him). But if seriously thwarted or angered, he could bring madness and horror -- consider Euripedes' play, The Bacchae, in which King Pentheus is slain by the Maenads led by his own mother, and destruction is eventually visited upon the whole land in punishment for the scorning of Dionysus.

The power to bring joy can easily become the power to bring madness, if abused or used carelessly. There's a reason why Pinkie Pie is so good and all-loving -- if she wasn't, she'd be utterly terrifying.