Just some thoughts. Mostly I'm interested in getting names.

The MLP wiki gives Sandbar's mom the name "High Tide" and his little sister the name "Coral Currents". His dad is unnamed but it should probably follow on that theme. "Point Break"? He could be Patrick Swayze. I dunno, I could see him wearing a Princess Platinum mask and robbing a bank with Bon Bon. In any event there's a pretty obvious beach and sea theme going on, so it's interesting that the four of them live so far inland in Ponyville, where there's lakes but no sea. Maybe they have a summer house? I smell a beach episode...

None of Ocellus' family are named, though they are identified as her mother, father, brother, and sister. I've got a whole list of names set aside for changelings culled from perusing a wikipedia article on inset anatomy. My favorites are:

Alata, Ambrosia, Arculus, Carina, Chalaza, Clypeus, Folium, Hyaline, Imago, Instar, Nervure, Obtect, Pleurite, Strigae, Tumbler, Vertex

Anything leap out?

Yak family big! Yona would appear to have living grandparents (at least in this flashback), a mom, a dad, and a little brother and sister. Unfortunately Yak naming schema is all over the place - names from various sources include Yona, Rutherford, Ulysses, Yakatar, Yakmina, Yigrid, Yksler, and Yojan. I'd personally rather shy away from either puns on the word "yak" or names beginning with "Y", mostly because in the former case Rutherford is a standout break from it and he was the first Yak named, and in the latter case because that's sort of the griffon's schtick with "G". Given what Yak culture somewhat resembles I'd actually almost suggest going to Earth's steppes for names, maybe Cossacks, specifically the bit towards the bottom about simplified, nature-themes names. Hohol, Kulish, and Harbuz sound like they could be Yak names.

For once the show actually did all the work for us here with Silverstream's family and developing them, although fun-but-weird fact: there is no clear image of Silverstream together with her entire immediate family. Weird, huh? In any event not much needs to be built up or developed here, although her story in "The Hearth's Warming Club" definitely gives the impression that she has a large family. Bigger than Yona's! By number if not by mass.

Just like with Silverstream's family, the work here has mostly already been done...and at the same time has left us with a million bizarre questions. I'd been ready to accept the idea that great wyrm dragons had been soft-retconned out of the show, to be replaced by using dragons like Sludge and Ember as "adults", until Basil clearly shows up in "The Ending of the End" part 2 and "The Last Problem", plus of course Torch is still gigantic.

I think it's significant that Smolder and Garble never even allude to their parents. Even in "Molt Down" Smolder only mentions "loved ones" and her brother (and being kicked out of her home by said brother due to the stench of her molt, although she seemed pleased with it rather than hurt and the two clearly still care about each other). My working theory on dragons is that it's the great wyrms that lay eggs, but they have nothing to do with raising them. Dragon hatchlings are probably fairly mobile and capable of eating on their own. I think dragons are mostly raised as part of gangs, with Garble's gang being fairly typical of draconic gangs. WESTSIIIIDE!

Gallus is an orphan, obviously. On top of that I think we can take the fact that he didn't even know what a "cousin" was as a fact that griffins really don't care about family, generally, and certainly not beyond your own immediate family. One potential story idea I had for this series was centered on Silverstream learning that Gallus is actually a direct descendant of old King Grover and trying to make a big deal out of it (not in the "you are descended from royalty" sense as much as "see you have a family" sense), but Gallus wants no part of it.

I think we should take the show's staff at their word and assume that Cozy, like Gallus, is an orphan. Not a self-made orphan, though. I also think that for all intents and purposes we should sort of treat Tirek and Chrysalis as being her "family", albeit one that at the moment is being deliberately kept apart because the three of them have very negative influences on one another. Cozy could find that she actually misses the two of them, though.

In any event there's a pretty obvious beach and sea theme going on, so it's interesting that the four of them live so far inland in Ponyville, where there's lakes but no sea. Maybe they have a summer house?

I remember when first being introduced to the Young Six that I had initially assumed Sandbar hailed from a coastal town originally for much this reason, and was surprised to find out he was actually native to Ponyville. For storytelling purposes, it does make a bit of sense, because it then made Sandbar the local "expert" on both Ponyville and the Mane 6 who lived there for the reference for the rest of the Young 6 who obviously wouldn't be...but at the same time it does seem like a bit of a missed opportunity to have not made Sandbar coming from someplace like Seaward Shoals or something. But oh well.

I suppose we ought to still work out who's named who among these families just in case, but like in the show, I'm not sure there'll be an explicit need to show or establish details on all of these family members without deliberately going out of our way to do so, a tactic that can be double-edged. So have them available for reference in case we need some or more of them to pop up for whatever reason, but I don't think we need to expect we'll be exploring all of them in anymore or less depth than what was done in the show.

And for Cozy, I think it'd just be smarter to just leave the question of her family, if she has any family at all, as blank, as I don't think its a question that really needs answering, at least not for our purposes. Better to just consider as you suggest and assume that Tirek and Chrysalis are her adopted "family" of sorts...though considering how well they generally didn't get along, "family" might be a stretch ...and the question of any biological family Cozy might have once had as a thing of the past and a done deal that she's long since moved on from, and has no need to look back on as there's nothing left for her to say about it.

I don't really like the idea of even just implying Gallus might be related to royalty, on the grounds that it seems a little cliche, and anyway, we already have a member of royalty among the Young 6 in the form of Silverstream--adding another seems like it'd be stretching believability a little.

My long-standing assumption about Smolder and Garble's parents is that they're still around and they both still visit them from time to time, but since they've both molted, they are both going around living their own independent lives now and are simply no longer living under their parents' roof anymore, as it were.

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I don't really like the idea of even just implying Gallus might be related to royalty, on the grounds that it seems a little cliche

We could always turn that trope on its head...

"Oh my gosh, Gallus, you never said anything about being related to royalty!"

"Meh, it's nothing special. Half of us in Griffonstone are descended from King Grover. That guy got around."

Hmm, maybe there's an idea for Daring Do being absolutely miffed that she tunnel-visioned and traced the royal lineage down to Gallus in Ponyville, when just about any random schmuck in Griffonstone could've opened a bloodline-locked vault for her.

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Well, I don't know if that's quite enough to make a whole story out of, but it might make for a fun gag to slip in somewhere.

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Well one of the reasons why I wanted to see if we could nail down any names was that I'm starting work on "The Return of Cozy Glow" now, and I'm considering opening it with a montage of the Student Six at home but getting ready to leave their homelands and/or house (for Sandbar) and head back to school.

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Some small corrections:

Yona has a younger sister and a younger brother, not two brothers. "Whole family – grandpa, grandma yak, Yona's brother, sister, mother, father yak – all go to woods singing yak song."

Now, while yaks are found on the steppes, it's more the steppes of Central and Eastern Asia, not Eastern Europe. So giving them Ukrainian or Cossack-derived names seems a bit off the mark. The aesthetic of the yaks seems vaguely Mongolian-inspired though the names hardly fit that (though they don't fit Cossack names either).

I'm half-tempted to suggest that we look for name inspirations from the Sakha people of eastern Siberia, which is also called Yakutia and doesn't seem far from where yaks would live normally.

Also, you have it a bit backwards about the molt. Garble wasn't kicked out by Smolder. As she said in Moltdown, "Yeah. I mean, I love my brother and all, but one whiff, and I was all 'See ya!'" That reads as Garble being the one shown the door--albeit probably by their never-seen parents rather than by Smolder herself.

Now, perhaps one can infer that when she underwent her own molt this would've happened to Smolder too--but it wouldn't have been at the hands of Garble. After all, if dragons move out in connection with the molt, how would he still be living with her and their parents when her molt came? And if teen dragons return home once the molt is over--then why bring up the whole 'getting kicked out' thing if it only lasts for a day or so?

Either way, I don't think Garble was in the picture to kick Smolder out.

Also, for Smolder:

In "Dragon Swapped" I tried to fit together all the stuff we heard about dragons in MLP to try to make sense of their family dynamics. Here's what I put there:

Spike shrugged again. “Dragons usually aren’t the most involved parents. We put all our eggs together during hatching season. Some stick around to make sure they all hatch and help raise them, but mostly each generation kinda keeps to themselves. Especially when the molt effect kicks in.”

Smolder felt her stomach drop. “The what?”

“You know, the molt? Once you start molting and the smell gets really bad, dragons kick their kids out of the cave.” He said this as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Which, Smolder, realized numbly, it was to him. “Even after it’s over, younger dragons tend to hang out with other dragons their own age more than their parents. I mean, when your parents can go into a centuries-long nap whenever they want, it’s better to be self-reliant, right?”

Sandbar Summer Home wooooooooooooooo

I think I'd also prefer for Gallus to not be royalty—a way that you might be able to use that episode concept is if Silverstream simply thinks that Gallus is descended from King Grover, and from there Gallus could get all confused and resentful and angsty at how invested she is in his hypothetical family.

I approve of what you've put forward for Cozy and Tirek/Chryssy's relationship. I don't think her actual familial status needs to be relevant though.

Also I love this:

My working theory on dragons is that it's the great wyrms that lay eggs, but they have nothing to do with raising them. Dragon hatchlings are probably fairly mobile and capable of eating on their own. I think dragons are mostly raised as part of gangs, with Garble's gang being fairly typical of draconic gangs. WESTSIIIIDE!

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Fair point, which probably means that Smolder and Garble did live with their parents. Or another gang, I guess that's possible to. I dunno, dragon biology is weird. Still, in either case, it clearly isn't anything that affected Smolder or Garble. It's just how dragons do.

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Beach episode woooooooo! Christ I'm a filthy weeb deep down no matter how much I try to deny it.

and from there Gallus could get all confused and resentful and angsty at how invested she is in his hypothetical family.

This works fine. What was intended to be important was Silverstream trying to basically force a family history onto Gallus out of a misguided attempt to give him a sense of belonging.

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I got the vibe that Gallus was abandoned at birth and doesn’t know who his family is, so I like that interpretation of the “Gallus V” story prompt too.

I wanted to throw out an idea with Ocellus’s family. In the flashback in The Times They are a Changeling that newborn changeling grubs treat Chrysalis like their mom, so the nuclear family was probably not well established in the hive while Chrysalis ruled. What if post-reform changelings adopted nuclear families in the same way they adopted Hearth’s Warming Eve? Maybe Ocellus’s mom and dad aren’t her biological parents, but two mature drones who were training her in how to care for larvae. Once Chrysalis was dethroned, and changelings started re-ordering their society, the two mature drones decided they’d be a mom and dad, adopted Ocellus as their oldest kid, and got two larvae they’d been caring for as their younger kids.

It doesn’t quite fit the lore--how can Thorax and Pharynx be brothers if there’s no parents or siblings?--and there might not be any reason to explore the transition from hive to nuclear families in this series, but I figured I’d throw it out there for anyone else to use. For names, I like Ambrosia for the mom, Obtect for the dad, Imago for the brother, and Carina for the sister. Tumbler and Hyaline are good, too.

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Speaking of, we probably ought to sort out amongst ourselves whether or not the changelings always had family structures such as this, or only adopted such family structures after the reformation, and if the latter, how relations between changelings had worked before then. I only bring it up because I know this is a big point of contention among fans, so for a group project such as this, we probably ought get it sorted out between ourselves where we want to stand on it sooner rather than later, even if this detail ends up not playing any meaningful factor in any finalized stories. It'd at least help us keep our facts straight for the in-story universe at large and curtail any needless clash.

I, personally, believe all changelings always have had unique biological mothers and fathers as portrayals of Ocellus's family would suggest, but whether or not they lived together as family units before Chrysalis's downfall, I'm more flexible as I can see it going both ways--it sort of depends at that point on the sort of story you're looking to tell.

Considering that Thorax and Pharynx see themselves as biological brothers, have done so for some time, and appear to have long interacted with each other as brothers, that suggests to me there was some sort of family structure still within the hive during Chrysalis's rule, if faint and disordered.

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I also like Ambrosia for Ocellus's mom. I'm not especially particular about the rest right now, but maybe nothing's been suggested for them yet that especially stands out to me.

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My personal take is that changelings are individually fertile, they don't need a queen - I don't think that Chrysalis putting herself front and center and above all else alone in the Canterlot invasion is something that a eusocial queen would ever do, no matter how arrogant. I think Chrysalis is just a "queen" in the more normal sense. She's in charge so she calls herself queen.

That being said, she's also a control freak. She might have had all changelings lay their eggs in a communal crèche and possibly even shuffled the eggs around so that no one knew who's eggs belonged to which mother, with Chrysalis taking the position of being the "true" mother of the larvae while the other changelings were put into more of a nurse role.

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When writing "Grief is the Price We Pay," I established loosely similar lore, except the fertile eggs were instead taken to a nursery to be hatched and raised by crews of effectively "nurse" changelings, continuously rotating through them so to prevent the hatchlings from bonding too much with any one particular nurse. Hatchlings weren't likely to meet their biological parents, but they typically knew any siblings that were laid as part of the same clutch as them and generally stayed in contact with said siblings throughout life unless circumstances dictated otherwise. They were generally raised with the explicit purpose of working whatever roles in the hive assigned to them and to otherwise be subservient to Chrysalis, but her role in all of it was really only supervisory at most. None saw Chrysalis as anything more than their political leader.

Admittedly, though, most of that was written for "Grief" more because it best suited its particular lore, which was what I meant when it could depend on the demands of the story--sometimes the story calls for a different scenario. I throw out "Grief's" particular case more to serve as a relevant example that can be considered.

That all said, I can also still see changelings being born and raised in conventional families even during Chrysalis's reign, and were just later assigned and placed wherever wanted in the hive at Chrysalis's whim once they became of age (whatever that might be). There's really not anything in the show-established lore that says that can't have been the case, so that's another route we could go.

Which is again why I brought it all up anyway--there's more than one way we could take it.

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Something where Ocellus was kept away from her parents while growing up, and has gotten to reconnect with them after Chrysalis is deposed, could set up some interesting conflicts in the story where Ocellus and Chrysalis interact. Forcibly separating a child from their parents is brutal for the parent and child, so Chrysalis doing that on a Hive-wide basis is going to leave some lasting harm on the reformed changelings. Ocellus, as a teenager-ish changeling, is old enough to remember being separated and now know it was wrong, but may not be mature enough to completely process those emotions. She might still carry some anger about that harm, especially if Chrysalis doesn’t have any reason to remember Ocellus in particular (it’d be a “But for me, it was Tuesday,” moment). At the same time, Ocellus might remember Chrysalis as a mother-figure, albeit a toxic one. She’d have to balance her anger at Chrysalis and her lingering attachment to the changeling who was effectively her mom for most of her life, all the while trying to accomplish the plot goal.

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The Ocellus-and-Chrysalis story ("Into the Hive") was one I was planning on writing, and...I think I could work with that. Particularly if we assume that her little brother and sister are only recently out of their larval stage and so she may feel a degree of jealousy towards them since they're going to get to have "real parents" more than her.

I can also dig the names Ambrosia, Obtect, Imago and Carina for Ocellus' mother, father, brother and sister. I'll probably end up using those.

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If there's going to be any one point I will be a stickler on this, it's that I refuse to believe Ocellus ever saw Chrysalis as a mother, or that Chrysalis ever saw Ocellus as offspring. The show doesn't give us many instances where either of these two express their thoughts on each other, but what little they do suggests that they either did not view each other fondly, or simply didn't care one way or the other about them. And if that's true for Ocellus in regards to Chrysalis, then odds are this extends to most of the rest of the changelings too. The point being that there isn't much evidence that Chrysalis bears any sort of parental love for any changeling, and if she lacks that, then there's little point for her to be seen as anyone's parent, adoptive, biological, or even metaphorical, in any sense. So I would argue it'd be more logical to keep her as just a political leader at most, at least for our purposes.

Otherwise, I have no real issue with this idea.

For my two cents: I think that while it's natural to hear "queen" and "insects" and therefore assume that Chrysalis is the mother of all changelings, it's not necessary to limit ourselves to that concept because of Earth's natural laws. I've seen stories that have families be a new invention of changelings post-reformation, that they aren't actually related but just formed families because---because. Yeah, that's kinda my issue with it. I get that changelings like appropriating the culture of others (which fits them) but I don't see why they'd bother forming family units if they didn't have those naturally.

I prefer the headcanon that all changelings are fertile and simply had all the eggs grouped together to be reared by a few caregivers to focus all loyalty on Chrysalis herself (not that she was one of these caregivers, mind you, just that she was the only authority figure they were meant to truly identify with or care about. Kinda like what the prequel Jedi did with infants with force-ability ... and wow that comparison is not at all flattering).

Though, that does raise an interesting issue: both dragons and changelings seem to have eggs hatched in batches, without any (apparent) involvement from the actual parents. Another commonality for Smolder and Ocellus, as well as something to come up to keep them apart from the others.

Actually, I could easily see Ocellus, Smolder and (likely) Gallus not knowing when their birthdays are--to the horror of the rest of their friends and Pinkie Pie. Perhaps they could even try establishing an important day as a de facto birthday for them? Maybe even a joint one?

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While I do like the idea of a story revolving around a character not knowing when their birthday is, I think applying it to as many as three characters at the same time is stretching believably a bit--even just two characters feels like it's pushing it. It doesn't help that Ocellus and Smolder not knowing their exact birthdays is an idea that's more an assumption that only works depending on how you interpret the canon lore around their races and doesn't have a lot of solid canon evidence for it to stand on. Further, in their cases it would be due to cultural circumstances and thus "normal" for their respective species.

Gallus, however, I feel has the better argument for such an assumption, since we know he was likely abandoned from youth and probably spent stretches of his youth growing up alone and on his own or very close to it, and him not knowing his birthday would be unusual even among other griffons, so that makes the significance of it stand out more. I could also see him as just not caring or at least not having had reason to care beforehand--maybe the idea of having a birthday just reminds him of his unfortunate past and he'd prefer not to dwell on it.

Point is, I'm game for the not-knowing-when-their-birthday-is idea, but I think it'd be smarter to only apply it to one character and not more than one. I would petition Gallus for that role--I think he'd be the most interesting character to have that story applied to anyway.

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I think there's a fair bit of supposition backing the idea from the show. There's nothing to really suggest that dragons or (pre-reformation) changelings were the kind of societies that keep calendars hanging on the wall, much less the kind to mark or celebrate the birth of one particular member of their group--especially when we saw them hatch in batches and neither were generally that nurturing. Changelings didn't even have any holidays at all pre-reformation, remember. Do you really think they had birthdays then? Plus, given what happened with Spike, I'm not sure if regular birthdays would be something dragons would do either. So I see it as fairly plausible that either or both would not know the exact day they were born.

Now, the point about that just being a cultural norm and thus they don't feel like they're missing out for not having one--that I can get behind. Since we saw dragons and changelings be born in hatches, in the dragons' case, during a designated hatching season, it's possible Smolder and Ocellus share a birthday with all other members of their generation and thus it isn't a big deal to them.

As for Gallus--I don't know. Even though I brought him up in connection with this, I suddenly feel the instinct to argue against making him too much of a woobie by piling on too much with his orphan status. There's story opportunities there, no question, but I would hate to have every single Gallus story be reduced to that one fact.

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I dunno, “follow the same formula every time” describes most Fluttershy episodes...

Sandbar: “So you’re an orphan - “
Gallus: “Yes, thank you for reminding me again. What wonderful lesson about not really needing parents when I have friends will I be learning this week?”
Sandbar: “Uh...I was just saying that Sugarcube Corner is having a “consolation prize” discount for orphans on Friends & Family Day.”
Gallus: “Wait I can save some coin off of this? What are we sitting around here for, let’s get some cake!”

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Shots fired!

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Well, Gallus is the one I personally would want to do, but that doesn't mean we couldn't do Ocellus or Smolder instead.

My real point was that I didn't think it a good idea to try and do all three of them--just one of them for this premise would suffice.

On Gallus being an orphan, though...I find it's a subject that's hard to avoid. Gallus, obviously, doesn't like talking about it--I figure he's of the mind of preferring of dealing more with the here and now than fretting about what's already in the past--so that keeps it from being the center of attention all the time. But start digging into Gallus as a character, and the orphan aspect always comes up. You sort of have to, because it's what's influenced Gallus into being who he is his whole life.

I agree we should try to avoid too many Gallus-centric plots that revolve heavily around that orphan aspect, but we're never going to fully escape it either, so at the same time I don't think trying to fight it will be too helpful either.

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I'm gonna plug something from an online reviewer, SF Debris, when talking about Captain Ben Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:

"Sisko was not written with 'black' as a character trait. It was a 'characteristic', that's different. It means that it informs his tastes, his views of history, but he didn't walk around with that label on him. That's why I've said before he was never written as 'the black captain'. Sisko is likewise a widower and a single parent, and those were never seen in how he operated as an officer either. People follow him based solely on his rank and leadership, and his race didn't matter; people criticize and shout at him, and his race didn't matter; he gets assignments and promotions and reprimands, and his race didn't matter. Which is how it should be! That's the Star Trek ethos. It's not that he ceased being black; it's that it only matters, just like being a widower, just like being a single parent, when it matters, and the rest of the time, he's just a person."
--SF Debris review, Star Trek: Voyager “The Omega Directive”

Now, I'm not gonna say whether or not I wholly agree with race not mattering (not gonna step in that) but there is something to what SF was saying about taking an informing characteristic and making the entire character be about that one thing.

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Which wasn't what I was saying at all anyway--just that it's still part of Gallus's history, and living that life is part of what influenced him to be what he is now.

At any rate, what I'm saying is I don't want Gallus being a orphan to be ignored or a subject that's constantly danced around either, for much of the same reasons.

EDIT: Also, out of curiosity, what did VOY's The Omega Directive episode have to do with Sisko anyway?

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Haven't watched that review, but if I was forced to guess, Janeway was often written as "the female captain". It was a character trait.

Also a psycho but that probably wasn't intentional, even if it can on occasion explain some of her actions better than the actual explanation for some of her actions. Also made it really damn weird when I started watching the Cartoon Network show Infinity Train and realized that a recurring antagonist character is voiced by Kate Mulgrew.

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Right, sorry if I misunderstood.

And, yeah, RDD nailed it about what SF Debris was saying about Janeway.

I really liked the Cat from Infinity Train.

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Haven't watched that review, but if I was forced to guess, Janeway was often written as "the female captain". It was a character trait.

Oh, no, no, no, no, I'd argue that's not the case with Janeway anymore than Sisko being written as "the black captain" was. No, if anything, Janeway's big fault was that she was stubborn, which had nothing to do with her gender (Sisko was plenty stubborn too, for that matter).

But, VOY was also always a favorite leaving me feeling obligated to defend it's honor...so maybe we're better off just leaving the subject there before we (meaning mostly me) derail the topic any further.

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I actually don't have anything particular against Voyager, so no worries there; I just find the Psycho Janeway meme funny. Plus I'm the one guy on the planet that liked Enterprise from the start, so I sure as Hell ain't gonna criticize someone for liking Voyager.

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I liked ENT too, up until that darn third season with the Xindi which just made the crew all bitter and lugging this extra emotional baggage for the rest of the show that just dragged everything down. That said, my respect for ENT has definitely gone up in recent years, because now I have Discovery to compare it with, and it's made me appreciate greatly just how much ENT bent over backwards to adhere to established lore as much as they did, on down to the finest of details. DIS, meanwhile, can't be bothered most days.

But like I said--we ain't here to talk Trek (as much as I want to).

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I did make a lounge thread for this very reason...

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Yeah...too bad these sort of off-topics keep seeming to naturally pop up everywhere but there, huh?