6951491
I equally dislike the notion that a unicorn having a broken horn would somehow disqualify them for a job that is primarily physical in nature and has no noted requirements for magic stated in any part of this settings world-building. It's not saying all unicorns are the physical equivalents of earth ponies, and its is NOT an insult to earth ponies, rather its merely a testament to Tempest's own dedication and physical training, and a strong point of virtue in Equestria's society that she's NOT barred from guard service because she can't cast conventional magic (which would have minimal bearing on a guard's actual duties). I think you're entirely too focused on the idea of her being crippled, which she really isn't. She can still do as much as many ponies can, and still perhaps do as much as some less trained unicorns due to her magical power (which we can see from the movie is still pretty strong even with the broken horn). Again I just don't see any reason to bar her from being a Night Guard in this instance or insisting she can't be one unless with give her her horn back.

Clashing isn't a bad thing, exactly, as it can lead to the sarcastic fondness you're talking about. Especially if Tempest is older by a few years and tries to help Trixie out, I could see their thoughts and methods clashing, but it leading to a sort of continuous back and forth banter/nettling between the two. I never said the feelings couldn't be genuine and heartfelt, but it should probably be somewhat more of a combative friendship that anything resembling what Twilight/Cadance have.

A broken horn would leave her a "cripple" in ever technical sense of the term. Sure she might compensate, but she's still missing full use of one of her limbs just as much as a pegasus that lost the use of a wing, or any pony that loss the use of a leg. Even if most unicorns only ever master a few spells related to their cutie mark, one would still expect ponies entering a military profession to have suitably talent. To pretend like applicable magical prowess would not be an expected quality for a unicorn soldier seems incredibly disingenuous to a world were magic is a fact of daily life.

Not only that, but without a proper channel her remaining magic is clearly volatile even after years of practice, let alone how much more unstable it would have likely been at the age one would expect her to have first attempted enrolling in the guard. I don't care how otherwise physically fit she might be, any reasonable commanding officer would have likely considered fielding her to be a dangerous liability to the entire squad. My point is less weather or not Tempest as we saw her in the movie would make a capable guard or not, but rather that a younger tempest would probably never have been commissioned in the first place.

I could maybe see a broken horned Tempest being suitable material for the Shadowbolts, but not a royal guard.

6951556

any reasonable commanding officer would have likely considered fielding her to be a dangerous liability to the entire squad.

To be honest that might be a reason why she’s a Night Guard. She’s in a fairly prestigious position, sure, but it’s still guard duty when you get right down to it. I’m reminded of Dr. Smoov’s “Shockwave’s Burden”.

Starscream: “Megatron respects my abilities as a superior warrior. That’s why he made me second in command, and put you on guard duty.”
Shockwave: “It’s not ‘guard duty’! I’m a guardian! of an entire planet! And I’m significantly understaffed!”

6951611
Maybe... but that strikes me as a dangerous precedent to set, risking making Luna's Night Guard as more of joke than competent. Although admittedly maybe that would be entirely consistent with what we see of the Maneverse royal guard.

Moreover I'm still not really convinced a broken horn is intrinsic to Tempest as a character. In the mane verse the loss of her horn is the inciting incident that saw her isolated from pony society and her desire to restore it her entire motivating drive as a villain. None of that would seemingly still be true of her Lunaverse counter part if she's not just a royal guard but supposedly positioned as eventual successor to Shinning Armor as captain.

Stripped of her history and motives, I just feel like the broken horn would end up as nothing more than a superficial vestige and resembling the worst kind of overly edgy bad OC. I'd just rather see our AU interpretation not needlessly bound by any of that, and instead free to explore what her life could have been without the same tragedy. If we really need something more to parallel her Maneverse origin, maybe have it be one of her foal friends that got injured (or worse) by the Ursa, motivating Tempest's desire to join the guard and protect others.

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resembling the worst kind of overly edgy bad OC

Eh, a bad OC is a bad OC because of how they’re written, not how they look. That being said you have given me a lot to think about, and I’ll take it into account when I write for her.

I’ll probably get started on a short story with her tonight to get a feel for the character. Tempest spending a day baby-sitting Trixie in Canterlot or something.

6951692
Yeah, I know bad OC's are about writing not looks, but that's why I'm worried about how our AU Tempest would turn out as character if she only has broken horn for the sake of visual parrity with the Maneverse. Although admittedly I'm sorta biased on this subject since broken horns are sort of a pet peave for me in MLP.

Still, if nothing else I'm glad enough I could at least give you good for thought.

On that subject, however, and at the risk of undermining my own arguments, I haven't been able to help brainstorming a few alternate ways to integrate a broken horn for her into the Lunaverse.

1) instead of the broken horn being an element of her backstory, make it part of her character development. If she's going to be a major character in the Siege of Canterlot have her sustain the injury in that battle (maybe even risking her life saving Trixie to demonstrate their bond). Crippled or not no one is going to want to force a war hero to retire, and a subsequent promotion to captain could be sort of a compromise, both honoring her efforts and sacrifice while also leaving her with more of desk job... and all the boring paper work we like to poke fun at around here.

2) alternatively, and especially if you wanted to flesh out the broken horn as part of a backstory when she and Trixie first met, make it an injury that was sustained shortly prior. This could maybe then provide some of the tension Vex seems to want between them, at least initially. With Tempest struggling with her new found handicap, while resenting having been "demoted" to a glorified foalsitter because of it. Meanwhile Trixie in that naievelly inoccent childlike way, could curiously pester Tempest wanting to know how it happened. When Tempest gruffly refuses to talk about it Trixie could lean into her own flare for the dramatic and start making up stories. Maybe at first they'd be dark and gritty stories like the kind a bad OC would have, but then discontent with the tired tropes Trixie instead comes up with a mundanely simple or even overtly silly alternative, which finally gets Tempest to burst out laughing (maybe even while a knowing Luna smiles watching them from a balcony happy to see her guard's spirit lifted). After all Trixie's Talent in the Lunaverse is specifically supposed to be about "share" magic/friendship, a talent she discovered putting on a final show for her grandfather as I recall. So it might be fitting if one of the first things she did as the princess's apprentice was to shake Tempest out of a self-pitying rut.

3) or maybe even mix the two together, Tempest starting out with a deeply cracked horn when she and Trixie meet, but then pushing herself to far in the later Siege of Canterlot, exacerbating the old injury until it shatters completely.

...just more food for thought, more ideas to throw at the preverbial wall to see if anything sticks.

6951722

Not sure how I feel one way or another in relation to guard tempest, but it is an interesting discussion for us in the L-verse for how different a character can be before they aren't really a L-verse version of a M-verse character.

Take our versions of the M-verse mane 6, there personalities are a bit different, Rarity is somewhat more mercenary, Fluttershy is even more shy and less flutter but they are fairly recognisable as the same character. Is a Tempest who didn't break her horn and has a sunny and up beat personality but has the same name and colours still the same character? What if in our universe she was also born an earth pony instead of a unicorn? At what point does a character deviate from their M-verse self enough to no longer be the same pony?

6951127
(looks at lengthy discussion)
... bit late to join in on this topic, but I did have a vague idea of mentioning Tempest somewhere, at some point, but nothing concrete beyond "she exists".

... though if Tempest really resembles anyone from the Lunaverse, she does actually resemble Solar Flare quite a bit.
(Both asocial types with facial scars and a tendency to trust the exact wrong being. Though obviously Solar's got the lead of being completely nuts.
And having a proper job.)

(Though that bit about things going askew whenever Trixie is around... is kinda funny, in its way, what with a bit in Nightmares (assuming I ever manage to get the damn chapter up... [unintelligible muttering]).)

6952056
You make a fair point.

However, I think in part it's maybe not all that different from writing any fanfiction, AU or otherwise. How much you can alter a character is sort of proportional to how much official material there is to alter in the first place.

In the case of Tempest there's barely anything except her one major appearance in the movie to even work with in the first place. So even if attempting to write a fanfiction about her normal Maneverse self, an author would probably have to make a lot of stuff up.

As for "sunny and up beat" I'd say it could be argued that even her official personality more or less 180s into that by the end of the movie, but that also sort of par for the course when it comes to any character redemption in MLP. That being said, aside most of her ruthlessness was tied up in her feeling of rejection and obsession with restoring her own horn and was all very specifically about her role in the movie as a villain. If that's not the role we are going to use her for though then we need to consider what are actual essential defining qualities of her character and how best to readapt her for our own needs.

6952103
Well, I also consider the comics canon except where they grossly violate the show, so I also have Knightmare Nights to work off of (picked up the collected volume at Bronycon), and I also plan on reading the movie prequel comic #4, and the MLP comics #66-67, "Tempest's Tale" as soon as I can get my hands on them or digital copies of them.

Which is still pretty scant compared to the plethora of information we have for the Mane-6 or Trixie or whatever to draw on, but it's still something to work with.

6952134

Tempest's tale is really good, the beginning of the second part really shows her traumatised she was, and still is, by the Ursa attack and the interaction with her old friends is great as well.

6951688
I still largely disagree with your assessment that the broken horn would constitute that much of an issue for her work as a guard, when at best most military unicorns would still only have limited magical ability, and only those with specific talents in magic or military magic would be capable of spells beyond the basics, and most of them would likely be regulated to specific magic based units. I don't think its nearly as disingenuous to the world building as you propose if Tempest Shadow is allowed to prove her worth to the guard by demonstrating she's capable of doing her duties as a guard without use of magic, as your implication is that she'd be automatically disqualified even if she demonstrated competence and ability in literally every other aspect of guard work other than specific things involving magic, which 2/3rds of the guard who are pegasi and earth ponies wouldn't be able to do anyway.

If you truly want to change her character by making her broken horn be a part of her development as part of the guard, that's fair, but I still HEAVILY disagree with your notion that she'd have been barred from the guard due to the broken horn in the first place. I seriously take issue with the idea that she'd be rejected out of hoof, without her physical abilities, mental competence, or simple dedication to the work being considered of greater importance than whether or not she can sling a handful of spells. As for the idea that her magic is too dangerous as to be a liability, well that's not an issue if she doesn't actually use it, is it? Problem solved, no liability. Especially if she's assigned to normal guard duties rather than any specific magic-oriented unit.

I could maybe get behind the broken horn being something that happens after she joined the guard, maybe during guard training, but I still am very very leery of the insulation that she's somehow barred from the guard because of it. That concept rubs me all kinds of wrong. It feels like its suggesting the only thing unicorns can do that's of use in the guard is cast magic, and without it they're basically seen as useless, regardless of whether or not the unicorn can prove themselves mentally and physically competent to do literally 99% of the other guard duties that don't remotely involve the need for magic. I feel like you're somehow turning this isn't something far larger than it actually is, for some weirdly focused in notion that if Tempest Shadow joined the guard with a broken horn, it'd somehow break the setting, or somehow devalue non-unicorns, and I just don't get your rationale.

At any rate, I don't want to keep arguing with you over it either, so I'm going to bow out of the conversation and let you and RDD sort this out. If nothing else I can get behind the idea of her broken horn being part of her development that occurs during guard training or somesuch.

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I'm going for something of a compromise of all the ideas here. Tempest's broken horn still happened as we saw it in the movie, with the "point of divergence" being that she encountered a young Shining Armor during his rookie years in the Guard before too much anger or bitterness could settle into her, and she ended up joining the military and eventually the Night Guard, with Shining Armor helping to pay for her officer commission but not otherwise pulling strings for her.

Now the thing is that while everypony is equal before the law, the basic facts of the MLP universe and the Lunaverse are that the three tribes, when you get right down to it, aren't entirely equal. To generalize, a pegasus can't shoot lightning bolts from their forehead, a unicorn can't stand on clouds, and neither of them have the sheer physical potential of an earth pony. There are outliers, of course, there always are, but otherwise that's a broadly true statement. So there certainly would be different fitness standards for earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns.

Tempest has a problem in that while she's certainly able to meet and exceed the physical fitness standards for unicorns, one standard that presents immense trouble for her is the magical one. Even her basic telekinesis is difficult for her to control - basically Dinky's problem writ large of accidentally crushing/breaking things. She can do telekinesis (I seem to recall her doing it in the movie, and having found a digital copy of "Tempest's Tale" we see her doing it in the comics), but she's not great at it - outright bad, actually. And she is incapable of casting any other spells save her fireworks.

So the problem is that she's pushing herself harder in other areas to try and make up for that. "Okay, my telekinesis isn't up to snuff, but I can meet or exceed pegasus standards and nearly hit the minimum earth pony ones" (remember that the Night Guard is meant to be elite, so "almost reaching the minimum earth pony standard" for the Guard still puts her head and shoulders above average earth ponies in most respects). The main question being, for how long can she do so, and is she hurting herself in the process, and would it not make more sense to transfer her out of the Night Guard and into a service with lower standards that she won't destroy herself trying to meet every day.

Which is what her commanding officers are wondering and dealing with, and Tempest's conflict in the story I'm writing up now is going to come from her overcompensating. For her to make a valid argument about still belonging in the Night Guard she at most would just have to equal the pegasus physical fitness standards, but she is instead trying to push herself up and past the earth pony physical standards - which leaves her aching and exhausted and has the counterproductive effect of making her seem like she really is damaging herself, which only lends credence to the "transfer her" side of the argument.

Or at least that's my thoughts for the central conflict of the story, at least insofar as Tempest's personal development is concerned.

6952486
I can accept this as a compromise. It would make sense that while she's pushing herself, and the results she achieves do qualify her for the guard, that to some degree there is concern over whether she's pushing herself too hard. Granted if she's anything close to her movie version, she's strong enough to literally air-grab and flip a bulky fishman three times her height and weight, but maybe to achieve that physical prowess (which probably beats the pants off of even above average earth ponies), she's basically working out far more often than normal and has to maintain a pretty strict training regimen.

6952499

which probably beats the pants off of even above average earth ponies

I actually sort of gave us a soft standard to work with in the most recent chapter of For a Few Bits More, where Fetter Keys comments that an earth pony half the size of a bison will still be twice as strong as that bison on average. Of course, we don't know how strong bison are exactly, but the point was definitely to suggest that earth ponies are strong.

Also to some extent I'm gonna put that particular feat of Tempest's down to cartoon/movie logic and not try and hard-analyze it, since after all if we did that to the entire show then, for example, we'd have to deal with ponies like Rainbow Dash having the ability to snap a 2x4 in half with their teeth.

Still, Tempest is playing above the average (say, Carrot Top) earth pony thanks to training and dedication. I'm just trying to balance that in fact the main thing that unicorns bring to the table as unicorns when they serve is telekinesis (not even any other spells, just that alone is a lot), but Tempest isn't reliably capable of it, which creates something of a problem that is being discussed and addressed, but Tempest knows it's creating something of a problem, and she's overcompensating trying to cover for it.

Also Scootaloo's mom is getting a scene with Tempest.

Fizzlepop opened her mouth, but then the shower’s door opened again, and a white unicorn stuck his head in. “Hey – ”

“Gah!” Nocturne called out, making a show of covering herself with her hooves. “Commander, we’re not decent!”

Commander Shining Armor fixed Nocturne with a bemused smile – the distraction provided by Nocturne giving Fizzlepop a chance to calm down before the commander saw her emotional state. “You’re never decent, Nocturne.”

Nocturne stuck her tongue out at that, getting back to washing her tail. “Why is it that you’re supposed to make a thing out of it when you’re in the bath or shower and somepony else sees, anyway?” She wondered. “Like, where did that joke start?”

"Uh, Rarity? We don't normally wear clothes."

Oh, also I might have fun with the fact that Equestria is like 3,000 years old, and that's going to lead to a lot of...eccentricities, in how its capital city is organized.

Night Guard: Personal bodyguard corps of Princess Luna
Castle Guard: Corps charged with protecting the Canterlot Castle complex.
Royal Guard: Does not actually exist except in the form of the Captain of the Royal Guard, who is overall commander of the Night Guard and Castle Guard.
Canterlot 1st Army Corps: Army force charged with protecting Canterlot city from attack. Obviously doesn't get to do much.
Canterlot 1st Air Force Corps: Air force charged with protecting Canterlot city from attack. Also doesn't get to do much.
Canterlot 1st Fleet: Does not exist except occasionally when Luna is in the tub and is feeling bored.
Royal Postal Service: Offshoot of the Equestrian Air Force and now 99.99% civilian, BUT by ancient tradition does maintain a small guard detail over the doors to the antechamber of the throne room of Canterlot Castle (but not the doors to the throne room itself, which are Night Guard)
Canterlot Municipal Police: The civilian police force of Canterlot city, has limited authority within Canterlot Castle (but conversely the Castellan forces have limited authority outside of the Castle)

6952548
Would ponies really have a distinct air force, or rather wouldn't that basicly just be a guard made up entirely of pegasi... which I could be fine with, but if that were the case wouldn't unicorns and earth ponies also have separate military branches?

Anyway, I'm more or less fine with your preceding compromise, since it at least addresses that unicorn with crippled horn can't fully perform the duties that would normally be expected of a unicorn in the military, even if they are otherwise extraordinarily physically fit. Although I do think those duties might extend beyond just basic telekinesis. To reiterate, while yes most unicorns are only ever proficient in spells related to their cutiemarks, I would still imagine that evaluating the suitability of a pony's related talents for military application would be part of the recruitment process. Which admittedly Tempest's explosive fireworks could be quite useful, although her lack of precise control would still be considered hazardous, and more so if like in the movie her horn also has the same tendency flare up based on her emotional state, which could lead to concerns over accidental discharges.

Also, I must wonder, even Shining is technically only acting as her sponsor and not otherwise pulling any strings, due to the political influence of his family would the other officers still maybe act as if he were regardless? Which is to say even if Shining explicitly told the other military officers not to give Tempest special treatment/leniency, might they still do so anyway under the presumption that he expects them to and is just putting up appearances to the contrary... or even if they didn't, Tempest still might worry she was getting treated that way thus reinforcing her own personal need to overcompensate?

Also to some extent I'm gonna put that particular feat of Tempest's down to cartoon/movie logic and not try and hard-analyze it,

Yeah, feats of physical prowess are all over to place and rarely all that consistent. Besides, even if we were to take Tempest's manhandling that one shopkeep in the movie, that still wouldn't really be all that impressive compared to some of the more extreme examples of what we've seen earth ponies do, like Big Mac dragging an entire house.

6952652

It's possible that there are political reasons behind the airforce not technically being the Pegasus force. There may have actively been an attempt to not characterise a branch of the military as only accepting a single tribe so they might have allowed self levitating unicorns or any tribe in an observation balloon or maybe even unicorns riding on the backs of Pegasus.

6952718
I wasn't really asking about the names, but rather the logistics of why the equestrian military would be divided that way in the first place.

6952728
Well, two major ongoing opponents for Equestria across its history are dragons and griffins, two races where every single one of them can fly, plus I imagine that there were plenty of independent cloud-cities back in the day made up of pegasi who went raiding. So Equestria would need a dedicated air corps to deal with these. And while unicorns can cloud-walk with the right magic, that still gives them very poor aerial maneuverability compared to a griffin or dragon or pegasus. As well, you need to have a unicorn capable of "the right magic" on hoof and they have to be able to cast the spell enough times to put enough unicorns in the air to matter...or you could skip that and just have pegasi to start with.

Of course, ground-bound armies also have advantages over pegasi. They're slower and move in more predictable ways, but they also have an easier time with logistics since they can carry more per pony, further per pony. I imagine the early integrated Equestrian military from 3,000 years ago started off with the Pegasi as the main fighting force (since their culture had been the most militaristic), now with earth ponies and unicorns for logistical support, carrying supplies and effectively extending the range that pegasi could fly. Of course, as time went on the issues of having a single tribe doing all the fighting rose as well as increasing need for earth pony muscle and stamina or unicorn spellcasting, and of course attacking these supply trains rather than the pegasi directly is an obvious thing to do, so as time went on the Equestrian Army developed out of old earth pony militias and unicorn city guards.

The Air Force might have a degree of institutional tribalism, resistant to letting new ideas in that allow other tribes to contribute (such as observational balloons, airships, and so on). They might still see the Army as more of a glorified supply convoy for their needs than an actual fighting force.

Or, something, I dunno. That's just my thoughts.

6952745
Don't be so hard on yourself at the end. That was all a pretty good and reasonable explanation. Thanks for taking the time to come up with an answer.

6952752
If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s worldbuilding.

I forget, has Dinky gotten her cutie mark yet? If she has, what does it look like?

6967447

It's due to manifest during Treasure Hunt, I know RDD has a picture of it but I can't immediately remember what it is, it represents friendship though.

6967447
I imagine her looking like this as an adult, complete with this as her cutie mark:

6967529

Thanks, I'm sorry if it steals your thunder a little, but Dinky is going to get her cutie mark in the epilogue of Secret Agent Dinky. I think she deserves it. She turned around an entire race and became friends with them. That, and she got kidnapped about eight times in that fic.

So, reading through Rime of the Ancient Pegasus, and I got to wondering:
About Rimewind's powers... if someone tried using Tirek's magic draining on her, what would happen?

Would they get the Windigo powers, and everything that comes with them, or what?

6978823
Tirek seems to absorb raw power but not abilities. He never shows weather manipulation, for example. So he’d just get a (pretty hefty) power boost.

However if there was something that actually stole the abilities as well as the power, then yes, they’d probably get what the Windigo gave Rimewind. Including the glacial aging. What effect this would have on Snowy, I dunno. I have to imagine the Windigo might be pissed that their gift is in the wrong vessel...though given that said vessel was supposed to have frozen everything 300 years ago, they might be pissed at her anyway.

This is my cover art idea for my new story. It's called The Forbidden Symphony. What do you think? It might need a little rearranging, but this is the general idea.

6995258

Maybe put Lyra more between Tavi and the Princesses? To show a sort of split loyalties.

6995575

Something more like this?

6995586

Maybe, I guess it depends how things end up.

From your first chapter I know that Tavi will be spying on Luna which presumably Lyra wouldn't agree with so maybe Celestia watching Tavi with Luna glaring from the side and Lyra between Tavi and Luna?

6995602

Maybe, but I have Luna behind Celestia because she's falling back into her sister's shadow and she knows it. Everypony is falling back in love with Celestia again. Poor Luna doesn't have the 25 charisma her sister has. With Luna's mind the way it is, it's going to turn ugly. Every little resentment is going to come out all over again.

Does anypony have pictures of the Luna 6 in their Gala dresses? I need to adjust them to match the Ranger's color scheme.

7024330
I was never really able to find good pictures for all of them, but I'll see what I can do...

In the newest story I am writing, Forbidden Symphony, the flutter ponies make an appearance. I want them to sing a song with lyrics, but my songwriting skills are nonexistent. Could someone help me with this? The song is about how the wonders of eternal life in Flutter Valley with the flutter ponies. I only need a few verses.

Wouldn't it be nice to live forever?
Then you wouldn't ever have to go
And wouldn't it be nice to live together?
In Flutter Valley where we all belong
You know its gonna make it that much better
When you can never die so we stay here forever
Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up
In the morning when the day is new
And after having spent the day together
Hold each other close the whole night through
Happy times together we've been spending
I wish that every pony was neverending
Wouldn't it be nice
Maybe if you drink from our pool of life it might come true
Ponies then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be immortal
And then we'd be happy
Wouldn't it be nice
You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But lets talk about it
Wouldn't it be nice

7057147

Impressive, thanks.

7057528

It is about 99% this.

7057721
Well, at least you picked a good song. ;) But yeah, pretty damned impressive.

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Sorry, work has been Hell the past few days so I missed this. Very nice! I love me the Beach Boys. Although oddly my favorite song by them is "Sloop John B", a very depressing song that contrasts pretty strongly with their usual tunes.

Given this years Hearth's Warming story is about Team Corona I've done a bit of thinking about how they relate to the Mane-6. I don't think they were originally created to specifically link to or mirror any of the element bearers (a vaguely recall that the main members of the night court may have been set up to do that) but there are certainly some connections there.

Corona - Obviously the dark (or light) reflection of her sister.

Smoke - An illusionist like Trixie although she works backstage in secret compared to Trixie's on stage self centred manor. Acts as a student to Corona in the same way Trixie is Luna's pupal
Being a fairly shy character ties her to Carrot Top a little they both help support those around them rather than being all that driven
Quite magically powerful and knowledgeable ties her to Lyra to some extent
Her infatuation with Kindle gives her a one sides rivalry with Raindrops

Kindle - His somewhat flamboyant personality given him some similarity to Trixie and his sociability could be similar to Cheerilee
He romantically linked to Raindrops

Terror Wing - Being a strong fighter seems to give him a connection to Raindrops.

Solrath - Doesn't really seem to fit with any of the mane-6 to me. Maybe Lyra via loyalty given he's still seeking revenge against Luna for his family after 1000 years although that seems more pride than loyalty.

Yangin - Has an antagonistic relationship with Cheerilee after she tried to enslave her, on the other side of the argument Ditzy and Carrot Top seem to empathise with her.
She seems to be one of the more fun loving members of Corona's court so she might actually be closest to Laughter as an element.

Zecora - Her alchemy is similar to a Carrot Top
Her final goals aren't entirely known but I sort of get the feeling she might be following a path to fix Corona in the long term so her element might be compassion line Ditzy.

Can anyone else think of any correspondences / connections between the two sides?

7089046
Corona as a reflection of Luna works, but I’d also peg her as holding - and suffering from holding - the elements of Magic (Friendship) and Kindness, which are two of the elements I associate most strongly with Celestia (along with Laughter, while Luna embodies Generosity, Loyalty, and Honesty and Nightmare Moon is their antithesis).

Kindle may have received Raindrops but he also does have a sort of genuine connection to Honesty. As the Voice of the Sun he is totally sincere in everything he says he believes in. He’s also got undying Loyalty to Corona above and beyond anyone else.

Terror Wing is likewise a pretty good embodiment of Honesty. He’s not a complicated griffin, even if you did give him some depths. He very much wears his heart on his sleeve.

Yangin is easily Laughter, which makes her enmity with Cheerilee tragic in its own way because under better circumstances the two would probably get along famously - but, as Luna once warned Ditzy, an immortal never really needs to let go of a grudge.

Smoke is also a strong contender for Loyalty, but also Generosity. She rarely seems to think of herself outside of her total infatuation with Kindle, but even that is focused on satisfying and helping Kindle and seeing to his needs rather than her own.

Zecora likewise has a bit of a Generous streak to her, as her entire thing is giving up her own desires to see a prophecy through.

Solrathicharnon...is none of the Elements. At his core, he hates and/or cares nothing for anyone, he wants to give nothing away, he is deceptive and treacherous albeit in a long-term way, and his humor is entirely self-centered and based on his own sense of superiority. And if it sounds like I’m describing a certain canon antagonist, that’s not a coincidence.

I'm tentatively pondering maybe considering starting to brainstorm writing a fic where a human in Equestria decides he misses computers the most and decides to make one. I need some information to help with that pondering, though - specifically, what Equestria already has that would, in the human world, involve computers.

I know we've seen arcade machines. Specifically, we've seen arcade cabinets in both Hearts and Hooves Day and Slice of Life; they don't seem to require electricity, and we haven't seen their screens in action, but they have familiar controls and their screens glow (as seen on Button Mash's face). Viva Las Pegasus shows what may be another arcade game, though it isn't clear; if it is, it's showing a simple, but non-pixelated, image. The episode also shows a DDR machine, but with the arrows on some sort of roller, so it could be electromechanical.

As far as I know, the only other thing that definitely involves microchips (in our world) is a digital watch, but it's in a fantasy sequence, and furthermore imagined by Pinkie Pie, so canonicity is... uncertain. Have we seen anything else that would, in the absence of magic, be evidence of transistor technology at the very least? And have we seen any more details about arcade machines?

...shit. I didn't realize until I hit 'post' that this was specifically a Lunaverse brainstorming thread and not a general fic one.

Just wondering:
What's the split between Twilight and Trixie's teaching Dinky?
Checking the stories, Trixie teaches Dinky on Wednesdays. So when does Dinky go to Twilight? Or do they alternate Wednesdays?

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Ocellus' Ordinary Day is soft-canon at the moment, but might have the answer you're looking for:

She looked to Ocellus. “On Tuesdays I have an open tutoring session with some of the unicorn foals in town on how to use their magic - Snails shows up sometimes - and I’ve been talking with Hoofington’s librarian and he’s been interested in doing the same. You could join Emeral when he starts it up this Spring.”

Twilight is more comfortable in the teacher-of-the-class role than Trixie is; I don't think she'd really take on an individual apprentice. Trixie prefers a more one-on-one approach.

Quick question. Where are the Elements held in the royal castle again? It's in a hidden vault, correct? I am writing a story where a frantic Trixie has to retrieve the Elements from the castle and want to know how to set the scene properly. If it hasn't been described in detail, I'll just make up something.

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Actually the Luna-6 hold on to their own Elements. They’re not kept in the castle.

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Did I mess up? I'm writing a story that set right after Crisis and Trixie has to rush to Canterlot to not only warn Luna about the invading threat but retrieve the Elements. It's a huge part of the story! Were the Elements always with the Luna, or them keeping their Element a recent thing? I have no idea how I'm going to fi this if the later is true,