bubbleteapony

I finally made myself finish this sketch I made way back in 2020

Twilight and Fluttershy picking peaches at sunrise!

Hmm, well.. since it's a hasbro movie, I'd assume it was natural causes, or something cliche like getting sick and slowly passing away while Sunny grows up. But more realistically I'd have to assume there was some sort of accident with his research?

Kinda makes you wonder about what happened to Sunny's mom as well, since she's not even mentioned in the movie as far as I can remember. Maybe she was the one who inspired Argyle to strive for unity between all ponies, making it his goal in her honor after she passed away?

Mine is a light beige and brown! They're multicolored kind of like a paint horse, but I just selected brown for the poll

I honestly think that would make them a lot more threatening I think it would be very easy for them to infiltrate pony society and start spreading rumors and doing mean things. It's a lot easier to cause hate than love, to be honest.

Hi! First off, I love the way your art looks!

My only suggestions would be to fudge the spine area a bit- I would lower the back hips a bit so that they're not sitting above the shoulders/withers but rather flush with them, and I might also shorten the torso just a tad. Since she's got feline influence, you might even want to flatten out the back a bit to match feline anatomy, though if you wanna stick with the coldblooded horse look, that's totally fine too!

I'm very neutral on it. The models are pretty lackluster and the movement looks really unnatural on them, but I think the animators do a good job with what they have. I just thought the episodes were boring though I'm not the target demographic, so that's ok!

20 hours ago, reesespuffed said:

Interesting! I like some of the smaller idea like starswirl being the two sisters surrogate father and alicorns being folklore already before celestia. I wonder why the tree didnt make the m6 alicorns when it saw them. also i presume the voice is the trees spirit? if this was before twilight what would it be? ig starswirl as he was mentor to celestia and luna like how twilight was to the y6

Yes, the voice is the tree's (and by extension, Gusty the Great's) spirit! In the story, the tree makes celestia and luna alicorns as well as bestows the elements upon them because they needed a way to defeat discord.

In all honesty, I completely forgot that Celestia and Luna found the elements in the Tree to defeat discord in the actual canon show, so thankfully this isn't too far off from that haha. I just feel like the FiM timeline gets too complicated by the end of the series so I adjusted some things to simplify it

1 hour ago, Starforce said:

@bubbleteapony

Maybe that's because they weren't originally from Equestria. 

Good point! It would've been nice to get some clearer backstory on the two in the show other than "we're old"

if they went more into backstories on celestia and luna before their mentorship with Starswirl in the comics or anything else, I would've missed that cause I don't really read those

20 hours ago, Starforce said:

Nice art! I have always believed however, that Celestia and Luna were born alicorns.

Thank you! I believed that for a long while too, but I decided to go with what Celestia said about she and Luna not being born alicorns when Flurry was born. Also, I thought it would just be neat to have Celestia and Luna be turned into alicorns i was actually originally planning on having both of them be earth ponies but didn't go with it

I've got a next gen universe going on over on my deviantart page and made a piece based off the history of Celestia and Luna and how they became alicorns, since I wrote a decent bit for it I thought i'd post it here as well! there's a couple retconned things from the official FiM timeline, so just bear with me

(art is by me, background is by CloudyGlow on da)

So yeah!

tl;dr, Celestia and Luna are the only ponies able to escape from their small village home when Discord begins to take over Equestria. They're able to find the tree of harmony, which deems them the saviors of equestria, and grants them alicornhood, tasking them to defend equestria and its citizens from harm.

 

I'm not a writer by any means, but I hope that flowed fairly well :,D not taking criticism on the writing cause it's just meant to supplement and explain the image.

 

these are the things i've retconned/rewritten: Celestia and Luna are still a unicorn and pegasus, respectively, when Discord appears. I figured the literal embodiment of the opposite of *harmony* would be a fitting reason for them to gain alicornhood. Also, at this point in time, the Pillars of Equestria don't exist yet. Don't know whether I'm including them at all in the sugarverse (the name of my nextgen), cause it kinda just muddles things for me  I also changed around the origin of the tree of harmony as well; when Grogar attacks young Equestria, Gusty the Great is able to stand up to him using a newfound power fo unity among the ponies. The combined power and exhaustion from fighting is too much for Gusty once she defeats Grogar, so she finds a remote spot in the woods to release the magic so that it can be used to protect the future ponies of Equestria. The power happens to take hold of a little tree in the cave Gusty found, and voila, the tree of harmony is created! Also, Celestia and Luna are twins in my universe

I do have to agree with you, it seems like plot points where just a *bit* all over the place, which in FIM's defense, is a more difficult thing to avoid when you were originally planned for only 3 seasons but ended up getting 9, not to mention the creator walking away from the show.
 

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-In Call of the Cutie it was established that the cutie marks represent their talent, the uniqueness of each pony, which was a beautiful idea. But in Cutie Map, Starlight kinda swaps cutie marks like nothing. I think this skill completely invalidates the personal aspect and the point of having a cutie mark. When you have a talent, you perfected it and you make a living with your own talent and effort, that doesn’t matter because Starlight is gonna take that away from you whenever she wants and however she wants. And I think it shouldn’t have been this way. It's like seeing a human playing God.

-Starlight as a new redeemed character is a really cool idea to talk about redemption and empathy, but I don't think that's what we got at all. Starlight using her magic to manipulate everyone (including age regression spells, brainwash spells, hypnosis and exterminating a draconequus) and swap cutie marks in an abusive way to achieve her personal goals and being a complete jerk with essentially everyone is really bad. Using magic to solve friendship problems and/or learning about friendship shouldn’t be a solution for a character who was previously a villain.

-Speaking about her... Starting a cult because her friend moved away? Seriously?

 

Personally, I think Starlight's whole villain arc was a really good way to illustrate the importance of cutie marks and how they make every pony unique, and that includes the whole "ability to take away cutie marks" thing. In Magical Mystery Cure, we learn that even though they're unique to each pony (excluding some background pony copy-pastes ), cutie marks can indeed be switched from pony to pony, and that it's a very high level spell only able to be performed by expert magic users, such as Twilight, Starswirl, and Starlight herself. I think this remains consistent, since as far as I know, Twilight is the only one whose every been able to magically change them *back*. Starswirl never finishes the spell, and Starlight's spells only get reversed by default of the spell expiring/getting destroyed.

With that in mind, I think it was appropriate for Starlight to use magic to solve friendship problems. Was it the right thing to do, hypnotizing ponies and using age regression spells? No But I saw it as sort of a car crash situation- you have to start driving/riding in cars very quickly after one, or else you end up developing a fear of using them at all. I don't think it's right to solve friendship problems with magic (i know, friendship IS magic and whatever, but you know what I mean), and I think that shows through the episodes as well, seeing as Starlight learns repeatedly that she can't rely on magic to solve her problems, friendship or otherwise. It's a believable redemption arc for a villain whose whole deal was using magic in an evil way. This is all coming from someone who was a bona fide Starlight hater but is now really fond of her, so I'd like to imagine that I'm fairly unbiased. (not entirely; just fairly)

Irregardless, I totally agree on the continuity issue. I think pacing certainly played a part, it did seem weird watching Twilight grow and become a Princess, finally become comfortable doing that after what, 4 seasons? And then becoming a teacher, and then back to only being a princess? Were her princess duties really that light enough to allow her to build a school and become headmaster? Anyways, those are just my rambling thoughts. It's not completely organized, but I hope I make sense

also, I have to agree with the earlier point... why would genitalia be included in a kids show? It's not even included in most adult cartoons with animals 

I've got a couple! These are my main MLP ocs that I draw/get art drawn of the most

First up is Render, my ponysona, who I just updated the design for so they don't have any up-to-date art, and have the least amount of art, despite being my ponysona I originally made them wayyyyyyy back in 2012, and they've had a LOT of different design updates. They've always been brown and a unicorn though haha

Next up is Bubble Tea, who I draw and order art of the most, cause I absolutely love her! I made her in 2015 and her design really hasn't changed at all since then. She has gotten a dragon form though, just for fun when I don't feel like drawing her as a pony

Lastly, this is Marshal Mellow! I actually got him by change back in 2015- I commissioned an artist to make me some random pony designs, cause I saw Marshal under the examples and absolutely loved him. As luck would have it, I actually ended up receiving his design in the commission, and was overjoyed! He's been one of my favorite OCs every since, and also has not had any significant design updates

On 2022-03-15 at 3:54 PM, Miss said:

Wow she looks lovely! 

thank you so much! I've got two more pieces I've done here in a similar style, of my designs of Fluttershy, Twilight, and Spike-

it's a very fun design to work with!

my partner and I decided to take the leap and start our plans to move to a different country! it's gonna be a lot of work, but we're ready!

also, here's a dashie I drew last month!

Cloudchaser/Stormwalker! She's been my favorite ever since Hurricane Fluttershy debuted, I've always loved her mane <3

I watched FIM when it first aired when I was 13, so kind of? Young teen, not technically a child, but a child by my standards haha. Though I had gotten into MLP several years before then with G3

I'm very excited for these games! I was excited for gen 8, but they kinda let me down since I didn't care for a lot of the pokemon and I really don't like the gigamax gimmick, so I have high hopes for Scarlet and Violet Personally I'll probably be doing Violet version with Sprigatito as my starter, but we'll have to see what the evolutions turn out to be and what inevitable game exclusives there will be as well.

I also have to note that I really appreciate the improvements on the graphics side of things compared to sword and shield. Actually giving pokemon the textures they should have- it's a nice, long-due touch! I hope they keep some elements from Legends Arceus too- I love the mechanic of being able to just throw pokeballs out in the wild without having to battle, as well as alphas and the grit items

I had personally responded 'shock' as a joke- I think we should keep things friendly I just think it's funny with how peaceful equestria considers itself, it's constantly going through different kinds of conflicts. But without all that, it wouldn't be a story

5 hours ago, Splashee said:

For G4, Equestria was definitely in some kind of..... dark age. A lot was of course for drama and series finale stuff. The biggest question we have is what happened between G4 and G5, and hopefully will get some clarification to that soon.

 

Would you want to live in a world where it is enough to just go out into the forest and be destroyed by some creature? Where there are creatures that don't know what friendship means and need schools to tell them? Where the weather is controlled by colorful horses, but other creatures are still somewhat surviving without all of that? It sounds very dark age to me. It is a wonder the ponies are so happy and feel safe all the time, with so many threats all around them. And what about the creatures that need sunlight, having to depend on the ponies to get the sun up and running each morning?

You put this into better words than I did My thoughts exactly though! In G5 it seems fairly peaceful out in the "wilds" where there aren't any pony civilizations. We only saw ponies and occasionally a cute little critter, but nothing big and threatening like in G4 that the ponies had to fight. Other than the feud between the individual pony races there's not a whole lot going on, making G4 seem very..... dark, and dangerous by comparison haha

I think we need to remember that the show was designed for younger girls.... Pinkie is meant to be a relatable character for young kids, not teens and adults, like I assume most of us are. Just before anyone else throws out any more... unpleasantly strong words towards her 

So yeah, she's gonna be annoying to a lot of older fans. But anyone younger than 15? Pinkie is a huge favorite. She was even my favorite for a long while, but of course, now that I'm an adult she does certainly get on my nerves.

Also, she's the comic relief character. She's not always gonna make the audience's first choice or the most sensible one (I mean, come on, she's Pinkie), because much of her character is used to play off as a laugh. Element of laughter, after all.

That's not to say you can't dislike her, which is totally fair. It's not like she was written to be very tolerable in the later seasons anyways that yak instrument episode..... oh my lord

To each their own, I just wanted to put this out there.

5 hours ago, xLuneti said:

Yes? it's showed right here

 

Metaphorical "dark" age- not a literal analogy to the IRL middle ages   Because this is just another instance of the long string of bad events that have happened in equestria I would honestly just count this towards the collective pony dark age I'm thinking of

I think according to the show's timeline this would put that entire "dark age" at lasting over a thousand years? Or thousands? To be fair the real Middle Ages lasted a bit over 1,000 years so the exaggerated timeline of the show isn't too out there by comparison

just a little speculation here: (pardon my tentative knowledge on the history of equestria, let me know if I get anything wrong ^^' )
in the show, we see that the pegasi, earth ponies, and unicorns fought a lot when they first came to equestria. They resolve that, a live peacefully together, and we get the first elements of harmony, but then they have to seal themselves away to stop the pony of shadows. Celestia and Luna become the new elements, but then they have to fight Discord, and then each other, and we lose the elements again. Even the Mane 6 lose the elements again. Sombra is an issue for the Crystal Empire somewhere in there too; and on top of all that, the ponies are at best neutral, and at worse active enemies with the other races like the hippogriffs, gryphons, changelings, and dragons. Equestria is basically at war with things constantly up until the end of season 9

We don't see any non-ponies really integrate into pony society until season 8-9 ish with the school of friendship.

So what do you think? Do you think the events in FIM would be considered a "dark age" in the future when Equestria has more allies and (hopefully) less conflict?
It's up to you if you want to consider G5 into this as well

I think the only moment I actually thought fondly of the yaks was when Yona was recalling her family traditions it always seemed like they wanted nothing to do with the ponies so it was weird how featured they were in the later seasons.

Totally agree with Jane up there too, why was it always the non-pony races that had to learn from the ponies? Of course the mane 6's purpose was to spread friendship and all, but was there really never a point where the ponies could have learn from the non-ponies? The gryphons and their history, the changelings and their stong bonds, the yaks and their community, the adaptability of the hippogriffs... just seems like there was a lot of opportunity there, especially to teach the lesson that, y'know, you can find knowledge anywhere.

honestly, Celestia and Luna could have learned a thing or two from Thorax and Pharynx

I totally agree that Grogar shoud've been the main villain of season 9. He's way more threatening than the Useless Trio we got and I was honestly disappointed when they revealed that it was just Discord pointlessly ruining things again as much as I like Discord, he needed more episodes to mellow out his character, cause his behavior in season 9 just seemed very out of place.

For Cozy Glow.... I think the "using friendship against the ponies" is a decent idea for a villain, but I think they should've just kept that reasoning to Cozy herself. The whole point of literally every villain they brought back was that they were markedly AGAINST all friendship it was very strange seeing them cooperate, or at least attempt to, and it always felt unnatural to me the way they interacted.

Also, I really don't get turning her to stone. Or even sending her to tartarus...? she's a child. if the mane 6 can reform/attempt to reform Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Starlight, and others, you'd think Cozy wouldn't be all that bad for them, no? It just seems weird to me to condemn a child to a potential eternity made of stone. Especially when Discord notes that he could sense what was around him when he was stone In my personal next gen universe, I have Cadance take in Cozy as an adoptive daughter and she's reformed by Flurry Heart, which is how Flurry gains her alicornhood. (trials of the heir to the throne of the princess of love and all)

but yeah, that's just my two cents. Season 9 was.... it's own thing. I think the show writers just weren't confident with what they were doing seeing as they were ending a massively watched show

your work is stunning! I love the cartoony style you've achieved, it stays faithful to the original style of the show while having your own wonderful original twist on it. Work at your own pace, but I'd love to see more from you in the future!