3468318
Hmm... I don't know why, but I smell Flim and Flam for Doctor. Like Doctor himself, it makes little sense to me.

I'm kindof under the impression that Rainbow Dash is Thunderlane's rival, but will have to see how TaL pans out.

For Soarin, though I know this character is kindof already sortof spoken for, I picture that given his personality, special talent, and job, the one creature he might actually feel genuine hatred for could be Queen Chrysalis. "Me?" she purred, smirking, "your enemy? Not at all, my friendly, failed wonderbolt, I just love what you do. Keep it up, would you? That struggling couple you helped last week was just delightful~"

3468432 Actually, I wanted to make them all OC's, like the two I already mentioned. And I said "villains", as in, totally evil and bad ponies/creatures.

...no, Rainbow Dash doesn't count

3468450
Oh! Now I'm even less sure what to do for Doctor.

There's a point that Thunderlane's had to work hard pretty much his whole life and he really cares about family, right? Maybe there's a selfish, sneering, scrooge-like baron(ess?) somewhere happy to exploit cheap labor (even foals if he can get away with it) and lives only for him/herself? Of course, that would work just well for Big Mac.

There might be some hard feelings in the Wonderbolts that weren't the captain's best friend as well, one of them particularly venom on Soarin for not 'earning his way to the top' like they did, even if Soarin was already fired. Maybe they'd oppose him getting back onto the team (I remember Spitfire saying she'd see him at tryouts) every step of the way?

3468318 hmm...I'll have to give it some thought.

3468513
Maybe the irate Wonderbolt wants to use Spitfire's vulnerability after kicking her friend out plus the void caused by Soarin's absence to overthrow the management in the Wonderbolts? Shmooze and politicify and take over?

Resentment over Soarin's luck is a good rival motivation, but is too sympathetic for a totally evil designed to be hated villain, I think. My heart immediately goes out to them, pretty much, even if they act terrible as a result. It's good for a tragic villain, or a later-redeemed villain, though. Or if they feel that way totally irrationally, like if they stopped being unfortunate, but never let go of that jealousy.

3468513
Keeping in mind Thunderlane's element, the most fitting archetype for his rival would be a liar, cheater and overall scum who only cares for him/herself. So yeah, that could work.

3468974
I had the idea in my head once, that his nemesis should be a pony that does what he would NEVER do, which is hurt somepony, especially mares. A gold digger sharlatan (I don't know how to spell that word and I'm too lazy to look it up instead of explaining myself... yeah) that uses his charm (or a totally illegal artifact/spell/potion) to get what he wants, leaving misery behind him.

A wonderbolt wouldn't work too well, UNLESS, said guy/gal was rejected over him. THAT is a good reason for hating somepony. Preferably somepony that makes even Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust go all "woah dude, chillax there!".

I had a thought on the What Really Happened With Rarity thing, if there's still nothing set in stone for the idea.

Maybe after a few months, neither of them really recall all that well what exactly happened, just that they both hate eachother. Tired of being pestered about it, both of them might confide in nosy friends that they aren't quite sure, but they think it might have gone like...

And then a short series of You Wanna Know How I Got These Scars-esque recollections as to how their first encounter might have gone, getting progressively wackier as BB and Rarity's friends take to making a few guesses of their own until either the real story is given or everypony opts to just let it go for the sake of stopping the madness. These shenanigans could be a story all on their own!

Possible the two in question make some subtle motion at eachother in agreement to keep whatever really happened under wraps for now.

3953492 I like it. It's one of those things I'm keeping open for interpretation and this seems like a great place to take it.

Damnit someone already grabbed gilda.

I was thinking about having a background character be an "off-duty" equestrian agent.
Saving the stallions from the schemes of Gilda, who is a saboteur sent by another nation.

It wouldn't really fit, but there aren't enough spy fics anyway.

4081559 I havent heard about the Gilda story for a while, so don't cross if off yet.
Though I'm not sure if I like the idea of Gilda-Terrorist. Or Anyone-Terrorist story either. The question would also be "why Gilda is even sabotaging Ponyville"? There's nothing there, aside from maybe Blueblood, but in eyes of anyone not in the secret (ie: everyone) it's just a waste of time.

Spy flicks are awesome. Heck, you want to involve one of the characters in a spy related story, go wild. Maybe Equestrian undercover agency needs one of the characters for something?

Terrorist? Nothing so crass. More like soviet era spy vs spy thriller.

No need to immediately jump to the grim-dark.

Ok so no gilda, got it.

4084753 I didn't say no to Gilda, but I just want to give her a bit more character than show did.

Hey there. I have to admit I don't have enough time and energy to do these story ideas myself, but I DO hope somebody here who DOES have the required time and energy likes the ideas enough to do them:

1. At some point, the Stallion Six can end up dealing with a time traveling mad scientist unicorn with an army of alien cyborgs (who just happens to be an old enemy of the Doctor); I figure why not go whole hog on the Doctor as a Doctor Who Expy and give him an Expy of the Master to act as HIS personal nemesis. In fact, HE could be the one who assembles and leads the gang of the Stallion Six's old rivals.

and 2. There could be a story where, after Blueblood learns force fields well enough to protect himself from minor-to-medium level threats, Shiny starts to feel like he is no longer needed and tries to make himself useful to his other friends.

Of course, if nobody likes these ideas, I DO profuse apologize for wasting everybody's time.

4345593
I know nothing at all about The Doctor, but that shieldy thing actually sounds kind of promising! Blue is supposed to be the Element of Magic, so him getting almost as good as Shining I-can-shield-a-whole-damn-city Armor with shields and Shiny, as the Element of Loyalty, felt like he wasn't needed as much, he might start acting like Rainbow does sometimes. I'm picturing Thunderlane, Big Mac, Doctor, and Soarin all getting Exhausted Applejack-level help from Shiny, who has no idea what he's doing in the respective tasks to help them, all while Blue is wondering where Shiny went, trying and failing to open a jar of pickles or something.

Magical powerhouse or not, he's still a dandy.

I like this idea!

Thanks very much for the response. :-D

And, yeah, in all honesty, I, myself, know very little about Doctor Who other than the EXTREMELY obvious, so I can't blame you for not knowing anything. :-D

Here is another possible idea:

Big Mac and Shining Armor help Rarity when she is out gem-hunting (Shining is helping her mostly to keep her out of Blueblood's mane without resorting to violence or deliberately hurting her feelings and she managed to guilt Big Mac into backing her up). With two of the strongest stallions in Ponyville backing her up, Rarity has no trouble gathering a rather large stockpile of gems. Eventually, though, the trio gets ambushed by Diamond Dogs - which ends up being a Curb Stomp Battle in Big Mac and Shiny's favor with Rarity getting more gems than she needs to meet her latest order. Okay, so that is more of a one-or-two-chapter mini-story, but I'm pretty sure somebody else could think of enough ideas to flesh it out.

If nobody likes the idea, however, I WILL completely understand

4345593 The first one... lemme say that it might be going too far too fast, considering we know almost nothing solid about Doctor. I blame myself for that.

The second idea however is something I can imagine happening in the story proper. Nothing could make Shiny more desparate than feeling unnecessary.

4349380 If I ever make an anthology series with small stories, this might be one of them. A sort of "what if", in which we recreate canon episodes, except the problem is solved too fast becasue our heroes are too op.
Althought there is a fic like that already... http://www.fimfiction.net/story/213347/my-little-pony-friendship-is-overpowered-season-1

Thanks for the response back. And, yeah, I understand on the first and third ones. :-D

4081559 If you want a spy fic, changelings are really the natural answer because their abilities and MO make them perfect for that kind of thing with extra fun plot twists available because they can easily frame other parties for their actions with their shape shifting. Also, the whole thing gets even more interesting when you start thinking deeply about what must have been happening before the episode to get to the end state we saw because the whole situation is a lot more morally ambiguous than the show portrays it as when you follow the logic behind the invasion to probable root causes for a species that is built to prefer misdirection and manipulation over direct confrontation. This means that not only do you have all the usual spy dynamics combined with a faction capable of perfectly impersonating anyone they want at the drop of a hat for nutty plot twists, but you also have a moral quandary for the main cast as they try to figure out what the best solution to the situation is when everything is shades of grey rather than the black and white they are used to dealing with. I wrote a long comment about this that goes into detail on the background of the invasion and also found an interesting video which does a great job describing in detail why Chrysalis is such a brilliant villain in the show. I cannot really write this myself because I am not much of a writer and spy stories are not something I usually read so I don't have much of a frame of reference for this, but I have done extensive changeling worldbuilding which I am happy to share if someone else wants to work with this, although it is contradicted by some of the historical bits we are getting from Luna in Sunny, Moonie, Twily so it will need some modification before it can be used here.

4355606 Rest assured- if changelings would appear in Stallionverse, they will be treated with utmost care and respect they deserve.

4359984 That is very good to hear. There are an annoying number of otherwise great stories that do really stupid things with them and ruin the story. The most prominent example of this is probably Life and Times of a Winning Pony which went from one of my absolute favorite stories to being dumb enough that I would have dumped if it didn't update when I had absolutely nothing else to do, although it is hardly alone.

4361296 Yeah, I agree with that one. I can pinpoint the moment it lost all of its charm and that was before we even found out it was a changeling. You know the one. As it was going on, I enjoyed the spin-offs a lot more becasue it didn't deal with all this forced bullcrap.

4361309 Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I held out hope for a while because it was so good before that and I didn't believe he had screwed it up as badly as he did, but by the time it got to the actual invasion I was only reading it because I had nothing else to do. The spin-offs are mostly good, although Chen cannot write any of the canon characters well so the ones he writes tend to be a lot weaker than the ones written by others.

I said it before: I planned on putting up some brainstorming and I will.

It still has what's been stopping me, but I won't let that stop me from putting it here!

The concept for the opening is a Flim and Flam story. They come to town, do their snake oil salesman routine, probably without the scam business being clearly evident for the and, before they can finish have a big public argument and subsequent falling out.

So Macintosh, being the kind stallion he is, decides to help whichever seems like the one that gets the more raw deal (probably whichever doesn't keep F&F's mobile domicile).

The thing that I don't know is... where exactly it goes from there. Could be that the falling out was a scam, and Mac has to stop having his kindness be taken advantage of? That doesn't seem very inspiring of him to stay kind... Is it legitimate and Mac is in the right? Is it some kind of mixture where F&F intended to scam Mac, but somehow Mac's kindness destroys their scam, or their desire to scam him, anyway?

And then it could be taken in even more directions. What if the other party is helped by Mac's other friends? What if this escalates a conflict between Mac and his friends? What if just Mac's kindness is being warned to be careful by someone cynical (... Blueblood?) and Mac ignores it, trying to prove his friend wrong...

4496063
Flim and Flam, Big Mac Episode, and a chance of Not Easy Being Breezies-ish lesson, to boot! Horseshoe. Whatever. This sounds like a good outline for a plan, at least, though I can't think of any thing to add just yet. Will think harder on it later.

I wonder about how the Flim Flam brothers will be handled...
Also, what about Big Mac's "Darling" from the teasers in the first story?

4784749 Both of those are something I'm working on. They will both appear eventually.

Been thinking about how interesting it would be for the Canterlot 3 to meet the Stallion 6. Pretty sure Soarin would freak over seeing a ginger huntress.

Here's a possible one for a short story (I don't have the time, energy and inspiration to write it myself, of course, but if somebody else wants to, they are more than welcome to):

Cheese Sandwich arrives in Ponyville and goes to Soarin' for help with something. There is a mare in Ponyville that Cheese has had a crush on since he was a colt. A mare that helped inspire him to be the best party stallion he can be. So he goes to Ponyville's main match-maker for help in courting Pinkie Pie.

Of course, if nobody thinks the idea is good, I will completely understand.