YMMV / Pony POV Series

You can return to the main page here.

---

YMMV Tropes In This Fan Fiction Include:

• Adorkable:
  • Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox somehow manages this. She is Twilight Sparkle in Nightmare form, after all. However, due to being Faux Affably Evil, it just makes her more disturbing when contrasted with her other traits.
  • Derpy is this, no matter what the time line, being a cheery, ethusastic, but ditzy pony.
  • Twilight Sparkle, as in canon. Increased more so due to being from her perspective, allowing her to make endearing sidetracks and dorky observations. It's apparently a family trait, along with spontaneously spawning soapboxes whenever they make speeches.
  • Shining Armor is, as in canon, a dork despite also being an extremely high ranking and competent military stallion. Combined with his nice personality, habit of going on similar tangents to his sister, and inability to aim a ranged weapon in any way, he comes off as this.
  • While normally serious, Luna can slip into this when with Pipsqueek or as Moonlight and trying to have fun in a modern way, as well as how much she tends to dote on him.
  • Clover the Clever geeks out over everything when meeting her Ancestor, the Tales Clover, using a time travel spell. She gushes over a sewing machine as soon as she appears.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: This was the author's intent for the MLP Generation 3 world, which successfully pulls a Rescued from the Scrappy Heap for them by making them all complex characters the audience can cheer for, which makes their ultimate fate via Cosmic Retcon all the more heartbreaking. Despite all the hate that particular generation of the franchise got, many readers have admitted to feeling sad for their fate. This makes it all the sweeter when Apple Bloom, as part of her Cosmic Retcon at the end of Rumors, restores the ones who didn't already have Reincarnations as caretakers of Pinkie Pie's G3 park.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Invoked by Word of God with Loneliness. Her backstory was intentionally left vague as to promote this. Did she really love Trixie? Or was she just using a pretense of love to manipulate her? Is she just a creation of Trixie's twisted psyche or an evil entity that came from somewhere else?
  • Another one is provided by "AJ's Dream". She may be Trixie's Nightmare that was trying to come to the surface.
  • Luna's punishment of Fluttershy has been seen as warranted, a Disproportionate Retribution , or even as too light by different groups of fans (and ponies, In-Universe). Likewise, whether or not Fluttershy has earned redemption for what she did or not is this, also both In-Universe and out. Even Fluttershy herself isn't sure, but she says she will always regret what she did and resolves to become a better pony from the experience.
  • Turns out that Fluttershy's punishment was largely Luna's reaction to Princess Gaia trying to take Pipsqueak from her, and seemed more about vengeance than justice. This over-protectiveness of Pip figures prominently in Luna's nightmare and develops her character during her side-story.
  • Celestia calls out Luna for mind raping Fluttershy, only to turn around and do the exact same thing when she and the Flutters are alone. While Celestia actively comforts Fluttershy afterwards, it's left up to the audience as to the Hypocrisy of her actions.
  • Some have interpreted Celestia and Luna as out of touch hypocrites who do not truly practice mercy and friendship, and that Celestia actually does have a habit of punishing people too severely. Of course, on the other hoof, there could be many justifiable reasons for it.
  • This trope is essentially invoked by the author whenever he gets the chance. Often a character's motivations, personality, and other traits are not spell out for the reader and interpretations in the comment are really approved or disproved by Word of God. This also boils down to whether certain actions (such as Celestia and Luna's actions above or the results of Princess Gaia/Nightmare Whisper's actions). Where they too harsh? Easily Forgiven? Bad people? The author rarely knows themselves and leaves it to the audience to decide for themselves.
  • After Dark World!Twilight absorbs Nightmare Eclipse, she begins referring to Eclipse as herself and Eclipse's deeds as her own. Could her decision to become a Concept have been, in part, motivated by guilt for all the horrible things she/Eclipse did in the Dark World timelines over the course of several hundred million years, and a desire to make up for it by spending an eternity spreading happy endings throughout the multiverse (which also means giving up Eternal Rest and eventually going to heaven with her loved ones)?
    • For that matter, how much of Eclipse still exists/remains in Dark World!Twilight, and later, Amicitia? Word of God confirmed that Eclipse's persona, identity, and self are gone, which should make her Deader than Dead, yet Amicitia still retains Eclipse's memories and refers to herself and Eclipse as being the same pony. However, when Chrysalis suffered a similar fate and was "rebooted" into a filly, her mind was wiped clean except for the little bit of good that still remained in her soul. So it is possible that the only remnants of Eclipse in Amicitia are her memories and the good that her soul still had in it.
  • Princess Gaia reverses the curse on the ponies of Sunny Town and allows them to become servants in her castle. However, Gray Hoof becomes a pony-shaped topiary tree. Is this what he actually wants (for whatever reason), or is this Princess Gaia's way of punishing him, since he is the one who killed Ruby while the others didn't stop him and just watched? (Admittedly, it still doesn't sound as bad as being a zombie for all eternity.)
• Arc Fatigue: AlexWarlorn and some readers felt that Columbia in the Shining Armor arc went on too long (for example Makarov overstayed his welcome some time before the final battle with him). The Arc's author concedes that it probably could have been written faster, but not much shorter.
  • The sheer size of both the Wedding Arc and the Dark World Arc has been known to put more than a few readers off. There's a small but Vocal Minority within the fandom that considers large chunks of both arcs to be little more than filler.
  • Although the author has gone on record saying that once the finale's done, they're done, just how long it's all taking can make the arc feel fatigued.
• Archive Panic: The fanfic is huge. The canon story is already nearly 200 chapters long, and that's not even counting the "optional canon" side stories that get incorporated from time to time. As the producer of the audio adaptation said, it's long enough to make a sizable TV Series. When the story is finally finished, the total canon number of chapters tallies at a whopping 435.
• Anvilicious: The finale arc is not subtle at all about how the CMC are foals and shouldn't have to be going through such horrible situations as a result of Discord and Nyatharlot's Rewriting Reality, pointing out how a lot of grimdark stories rarely think about the implications they create and showcasing just how horrible they really are.
• Awesome Music: The music for the audio adaptation certainly qualifies. Especially the Theme Song; We'll Make It Through
• Character Rerailment: Deconstructed and played for horror in the chapter of the same name: Nightmare Diamond Tiara tries to force this on Silver Spoon to revert her back to being the bully she used to be, though Silver manages to win out.
• Complete Monster:
  • The Shining Armor Arc: General-Admiral Solomon Azure Raven Makarov is actually a reality bending creature who wants to rewrite all of reality to revolve solely around him. Makarov's actions include trying to kill Shining Armor for not knowing who he is; abducting four ponies and converting them into cyborgs who are fully aware but unable to do anything but obey his orders; trying to slaughter a village; and blowing off Running Gag's wing. Makarov's plan is to launch a superweapon that will disable Pegasus and griffin flight, sending millions falling to their deaths and causing a massive war. After Shining feeds him to the Blank Wolf, Makarov awakens to find the world a much better place, showing just how bad he really was. Makarov planned to paint all his victims as the villains and himself as the hero of the story out of a selfish desire to make everything revolve around him.
  • The Dark World Arc: Nightmare Eclipse, the true villain of the arc, is the one responsible for every previous villain in the arc and every evil act that occurred in the arc. Nightmare Eclipse is a version of Twilight from an alternate future ruled by Discord, who had somehow managed to defeat Discord and trap him in his own world. Eclipse decided to punish Discord by placing him and everyone else in a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Every thousand years, Discord would be defeated and killed, after which, time would reset itself and after another thousand years, he would be killed again. With each cycle, Discord's evil actions would get progressively worse. Likewise, Discord's death would become more and more painful. Trapping everyone else with Discord, Eclipse had them tortured along with Discord. This continued on for several hundred million years, during which Eclipse mind raped alternate versions of her friends into acting as her Co-Dragons. When Twilight and her friends defeat Discord, Eclipse tries to reset time again, and tries to kill Twilight and her friends when they try to stop her. During the battle, Eclipse sets Apple Pie on fire. Determined to torture Discord for all eternity even if it meant having millions of innocents tortured along with him, Eclipse proved herself to be no better than Discord himself.
  • Royal Wedding Arc: Kabuto is the Evil Genius of the Changelings, and the most evil of them, surpassing even Chrysalis in villainy. Kabuto is considered a monster even by the other Changelings, with one half of the hive hating him, and the other half fearing him. Kabuto is introduced by asking Chrysalis for permission to experiment on the Mane 6 after the Changelings take over. Later, Kabuto is revealed to have a long history of killing and experimenting on other beings, including other Changelings, often neglecting to use anesthetic just to make the victim suffer. Kabuto even wants to experiment on Neatly Spell, who is a foal. Kabuto is also the only Changeling aware of Chrysalis's plan to build a giant rune to suck all the love out of every living being in Equestria and give it to her, leaving all living beings in Equestria other than Changelings as lifeless husks. Despite this, Kabuto still aids Chrysalis in her plans. When Misfit Actual and his team try to arrest Kabuto, he tries to vivisect them. Finally, he is the only Changeling who is not redeemed, instead being banished to the sun.
  • The Day Love Cried: This side story has a one-shot villain in the form of the nameless Pegasus filly. Due to her inability to build a relationship, she developed a hatred for the very concept of love itself, and decided to take her anger out on Cupid and his mother Venus. Being a Child Prodigy with an unnatural level of intelligence and an understanding of magic, she crafted the Concept Killing Spear, and set about trying to use it to wipe Cupid and Venus from existence, not caring that she would erase countless lives from existence in the process. After being killed by Venus, her spirit is shown the results of her actions of killing Cupid. Even after seeing all the harm her actions caused, she feels no regret for her actions, not even trying to fake remorse in an attempt to avoid being Dragged Off to Hell just so that she can spite Venus by refusing to apologize. For her limited resources and single appearance, this filly manages to cause more evil than almost every other villain in this story.
• Crack Pairing:
  • Averted in-universe between Winona and Big Mac, much to Winona's chagrin.
  • Discord and Fluttershy is also joked about as a pairing and considering how much of a vile bastard Discord is in the Pony POV Series, that is very unlikely to ever happen.
  • In one recursive story the Valeyard and the TARDIS got married.
• Cry for the Devil: Dark World!Fluttercruel is a Serial Killer responsible for untold number of deaths. However, the fic gradually goes more into her relationship with her father, slowly showing she's how she is simply because Discord raised her that way and as a result, her worldview is so skewed she genuinely doesn't know she's doing anything wrong. In fact, she's truly convinced that she was showing Fluttershy love by committing Cold-Blooded Torture on her. Then she was killed and performed a Body Surf into Sparkler's body and something resulted in her beginning to question her worldview. Then Rancor mortally wounds Discord and Fluttercruel's reaction is exactly what any normal person's would be to seeing their father impaled by their own aunt. This got a lot of people to feel sorry for her.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Discord for some since he has had a few Pet the Dog moments, and had a pretty screwed up childhood, but he's still backstabbed EVERYONE who tried to help him get better, committed two completely unprovoked genocides, one of which would make the Nazis Final Solution look tame by comparison, and generally been an utter bastard who only cares about and gleefully admits to it.
• Ending Fatigue:
  • With something of an overlap to the Arc Fatigue and Archive Panic examples above, the sheer size of the final portions of the story compared to other arcs alone may cause this to readers not put off by either of the two aforementioned potential stumbling blocks. Dark World and the Wedding are also notable for how many twists that throw into a whole new strand emerge, with many chances to end being nothing more than twists that just lead to even more of the same. Accordingly, if one actually does not mind those two parts and their Serial Escalation the slower pace of the Shining Armor arc may be a turn-off.
  • The final showdown with Discord and Nightmare Nhilis and the subsequent epilogue to tie up the loose ends. The author stated that the initial draft for the entire story was finished at around the beginning of 2018. The reason the chapters have not been published is due to the disappearance of Louis (again), the main editor and the subsequent scramble for replacement editors combined with real-life problems which constantly delayed the publishing of the remaining chapters.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Havoc, Pandora, Strife, Destruction, and D___t. It must run in the family.
  • Lemon Hearts became this after just her first scene, due to that scene being extremely badass.
  • Judging by reader reactions, Running Gag actually seems to be the most popular member of Misfit Actual.
  • Somnambula (the witch, not the pegasus) to the secondary writers, at least, who gave her a spot in one side story and who wrote her into two of the 4th Wall Breaking Stories.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Some consider the Princess Gaia arc to be this, as not only does Fluttershy not receive true punishment for putting literally millions of lives at risk over what was essentially a temper tantrum, but she even gets an entire holiday in her honor. Also, several people have noted how odd it is that the ponies of Equestria still majority consider the Mane Six heroes despite the Gaia arc showing them just how dangerous and uncontrollable the Elements can be. The author actually addressed the last one in "Under the Stars" to clear it up by detailing that every last Paradise Pony and everypony who used one of the Shards after the G2 apocalypse, as well as Patch, fit the profile for a Bearer, but none of them went Nightmare, and explaining Fluttershy doing it was due to the mental trauma caused by Discord and her being forced to see the cruel side of nature before she was ready (and each Nightmare shown in the truth were also the result of severe mental trauma that simply doesn't happen every day), meaning the Elements aren't so much dangerous as have an incredibly slim chance of allowing their wielders to become Nightmares (a ratio of 1 Nightmare in several hundred if not thousand Bearers, made even rarer by fewer ponies now having them).
• Fan Nickname: Nightmare Ouroboros and Nightmare Encore for Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox.
• Genius Bonus:
  • You're going to need a cheat sheet when you get deep into the G3-G4 Generation Transition POV, as the level of Mind Screw is up there with Primer in the amount of things you need to hold onto at any given time.
  • Melody's given six minutes for her concert in her dying dream. It takes six minutes for the brain to die once your heart stops.
  • The unidentified material used to start the fires in Zebrawa included "iron, aluminum, sulfur, and evidence of some sort of barium compound", baffling the ponies who have no idea what it was. Military variants of Thermite, called Thermate, often include these substances. They're notable for burning at even higher temperatures than regular Thermite, making them even more useful at destroying things.
  • Wind Whistler asks Discord if his hypengyophobia is so great that he'll refuse to accept responsibility for what Diamond is about to do to Sweetie with her Shadow Coffin spell. Hypengyophobia is the fear of responsibility, which fits Discord like a glove.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • At its time, Pinkie's joke about how "Rainbow Dash always dresses in style!" is hilarious. Then we discover exactly why she would know this.
  • In the "Fluttercruel - Black Pearl" chapter, Fluttercruel asks Fluttershy if she'd like to make Rainbow Dash like an infant again, Fluttershy is horrified by the idea. Next chapter, Fluttershy goes Superpowered Evil Side and turns into Princess Gaia, who refers to everyone she's brainwashed as "her foals" and treats them like a mother caring for her children.
  • Another moment that ties into the same discovery: in "Links," shortly before Pinkie Pie escapes from Princess Gaia's Lotus-Eater Machine, she says she had simply assumed that "reality had been rewritten again and we had moved onto generation five of the franchise." It's just Pinkie being Pinkie, right?…Until later, when we learn that she had witnessed the Cosmic Retcon that gave birth to G4 from G3.5's ashes firsthand.
  • Onyx has Fantastic Racism towards the other two races of pony. "Hearth's Warming Eve" gave a valid explanation for why he might.
  • Pinkie's line "and that's how Equestria was made" from "Cutie Mark Chronicles". She does know, and its extremely tragic.
  • Several funny moments regarding Discord in Dark World become this when its revealed Nightmare Paradox was responsible. Of note is when Discord stared at a TV test pattern for several centuries because Paradox rendered him catatonic making him witness his defeat and his daughter's death at the same time several hundred times.
  • In the first chapter of the Shining Armor arc, there's an amusing Running Gag that nopony seems to recognize Shining without his armor on. Then we find out why in part 2 of chapter 19...
  • Makarov's endgame involves using chemical gas weapons to perform genocide on the Dragons. The chapter was actually planned and written before Syria launched a real life chemical gas attack.
  • Word of God compared Nightmare Eclipse to Homura, only in a darker, more evil sense...then the movie happened and the comparison became stronger, but Homura became more like Eclipse.
  • Shining Armor asks the Interviewers after he's killed the Blank Wolf if this will just allow more insertions like Makarov to infect the world, and they tell him not to worry about it. With Discord's final plan hinging on the wolf not being around, perhaps they should have been a little bit worried...
  • If you've read Season Six, then Josh Scorcher's line here Is either going to be this or Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • Diamond Tiara's relationship with her mother qualifies as this considering what the latter turned out to be like in canon.
  • During the Wedding arc, Twilight meets up with her old Canterlot friends and learns they had a bet running as to why she never got back in touch with them. All but one of them believed she decided she was too good for them instead of what actually happened (her moving to Ponyville permanently to learn about friendship). Who was that one pony who had faith in her? Moondancer. Yes, the same Moondancer who we later learned canonically was so heartbroken over Twilight not going to her birthday party she became a bitter, lonely shut-in. Alex takes the personal interpretation that the difference between the two lies in how POV Moondancer met up with Twilight much sooner than Canon Moondancer did, thus POV Moonie had less time to slowly decline mentally than Canon Moonie did, further demonstrated as POV Moondancer being described as having an appearance closer to her IDW design while she shows up in her show design◊ as a mini-boss in the Rumors arc.
  • Alex originally had a whole scene written out near the end of the Wedding Arc where the Changelings would have transformed into a "purified" state after Chrysalis was defeated, but he ended up scrapping it due to feeling that it would lead to an "inner goodness leads to outer beauty" message and go against what he was doing with that arc. Then the show ended up doing more or less exactly that, which led to Alex growing disillusioned with the show.
  • Hey, remember the chapter where Applejack sees an alternative Pinkie Pie nightmare known as Granfalloon? Well, take a gander at issue #57!
  • An evil pegasus filly genius. Are we talking about The Nameless Filly or Cozy Glow? Even the author supports the implication that Cozy Glow is the Nameless Filly's Heart World counterpart! Not to mention, the final fate of Cozy Glow in "The Ending of the End – Part 2" mirrors that of The Nameless Filly, where both were deemed Beyond Redemption and are imprisoned for all eternity in spite of being a child.
  • Makarov being a Parody Sue is a lot less funny when you realise that in the years after the Shining Armor arc was written, anime would be dominated by the isekai genre where the protagonists are usually the modern (and most common) form of Stock Light-Novel Hero who are always superior in power and morality which also serves as bland Wish-Fulfillment Escapist Characters aka self-insert characters just like him. The kick to the teeth is that they are the often the heroes of their stories.
    • Expanding on that, the reason Pandora sealed Nameless away in the first place was because he is messing around with other stories and their characters making them revolve all around him while being superior to them. Three years later, Re:CREATORS would have a similar situation in the form of Altair, except she wins.
• He Really Can Act: The cast of the Audio Adaptation. Almost all of them are almost complete unknowns with almost no prior voice acting experience, they all deliver some amazingly convincing delivery. Absolutely selling the characters breakdowns and emotions. Special mention must go to Robot Butterfly (who sadly had to leave) and Wollffeey. especially Wollffeey. Who's voice for Pinkie Pie is so spot on, you'd be forgiven for thinking they'd somehow managed to hire Andrea Libman.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In 'Pinkie's Fourth Wall Breaking Reality Show' (a comical side story mainly existing to tide the readers over until the next chapter by letting them submit parts of it), several of the main six end up wearing full body suits of each other. Pinkie Pie herself actually does this in "The Crystal Empire Part 1" with Fluttershy.
  • King Sombra's methods of protecting the Crystal Heart wouldn't be too out of place with this universe's Grogar. On top of that, both are Lawful Evil Evil Overlords.
  • The fact King Sombra's reign over the Crystal Ponies wasn't just shrugged off and left deep, lasting trauma echos back to one the Pony POV Series was made in the first place.
  • "One Bad Apple" touched on the fact even bullies can be complex characters and have real reasons why they do things, one of the things the author was trying to accomplish with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in this series.
  • Rainbow Dash takes Scootaloo under her wing ("Scootalove") rather early in the Pony POV series. Guess what happens in "Sleepless in Ponyville"?
  • While the end effect was the opposite of what happens in Pony POV (her personality gets more exaggerated instead of reversed), Trixie gets corrupted by an outside power in "Magic Duel" and ultimately becomes a better pony when cured.
  • Epilogue!Discord's favorite pony being Fluttershy, which "Keep Calm and Flutter On" rendered canon. Then Dark World!Discord was heavily implied to have seen the error of his ways, just like Canon!Discord did. Keep in mind Dark World was actually all planned and written before the episode was even revealed, even though the chapter was posted afterwards due to editing and Alex has refused to watch the season or see any spoilers for it until the fic is finished.
  • The Nameless Passenger was revealed to be Nightmare!Twilight. Canon!Twilight becomes an Alicorn in the Season Finale. The episode aired the next day. This was a complete coincidence as well, as the actual chapter was written far earlier and delayed due to editing.
  • It seems, in general, Season 3 is touching on quite a lot of the themes of this fanfic. Particularly hilarious because at the time these scenes were written, the author had not seen any of Season 3 and was actively avoiding spoilers.
  • The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW) Comic book had Rarity become a Nightmare as the Big Bad of the second arc. The villains of the story arc of the fic running along side it are Nightmares of all of the mane six except for Rarity, who was replaced by Spike. Even more ironically, Rarity is presently the only member of the mane six who's Nightmare hasn't been seen in any form.
  • The climax of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls makes a good bit more sense in this verse than in canon since the physical Elements aren't needed to use the Elements and Sunset Shimmer's demon form could easily have been her Nightmare assuming she's a potential Element of Magic like Twilight and Trixie. Equestria Girls wasn't even thought of when that aspect of the series was introduced.
  • Trixie's Reharmonization Chapter begins with her talking about how long her Fan had been waiting for this. It took more than a Year till the Audio Adaptation of that Chapter was released.
  • The Wedding Arc deals with, among other things, a conspiracy in the Royal Guard, with changelings infiltrating it and several pony cities, to the point where it's difficult to figure out who to trust. Sound familiar? (Even better, the author wrote the entire arc in advance a few months before the film came out).
  • The back story has Tirek escape Hell and during Celestia and Luna's reign. Not only was G4 Tirek depicted as having arrived during that time, he also escapes Tartarus in the season 4 finale.
  • The "Reflections" Arc of the comic confirms that, besides the "Equestria Girls" universe, there's an entire multiverse in canon.
  • During Dark World, Rainbow Dash gets a Super Mode called Ender Dash relating to her Element of Chaos. In the season 4 finale, the mane six get Super Modes based on their Elements.
  • In Tirek's Origins Episode, he's an Evil Prince of a Centaur Kingdom and his Start of Darkness came from absorbing a magic that he was told he shouldn't with a spell he hadn't yet mastered, and in the end, overthrows his father's kingdom. This turned out to not be that far off. The story also got Scorpan's species right.
  • Silver Spoon's redemption turns out to be very similar to how Diamond Tiara was ultimately redeemed in canon.
  • Episode 22 of Season 6 is actually titled "P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View)". How's that for coincidence?
  • After Chrysalis' defeat, she's turned into an Alicorn Zebra Filly and adopted by Shining and Cadence to be raised normally. That chapter was written in 2014, long before Cadence gave birth to Flurry Heart, who fits two out of three of that criteria. On a related note, here Cadence was physically born as an Alicorn in the present day, whereas Word of God and Broad Strokes books claim she ascended like Twilight did and the show made a huge deal about her daughter being the first Alicorn in Equestria being born as an Alicorn (The author has said that he considers that part non-canon and has repeatedly said he's not a fan of the idea, as it degrades Twilight's achievement in ascending). We also got to see good changelings, the changeling hive, and the changelings gaining a new ruler after Chrysalis being defeated. Except canonically Chrysalis is still alive. One wonders what other insane preparations she might've done if she got to see that far ahead into the Heart world's timeline.
  • This fic claimed that Changelings couldn't transform into objects. Thorax apparently didn't get that memo. Alex considers him a mutant. Pharynx apparently didn't get that memo either. Of course the two are brothers.
  • In this fic, Chrysalis is Crazy-Prepared when it comes to the main characters, but considers "background characters" insignificant and ignores them, leading to her downfall. The show's Chrysalis does exactly this in "To Where And Back Again".
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Magical Movie Night features a magical mirror that shows its owner her idealized self. Nightmare Diamond used a very similar thing to get Alula and Tootsie to her side, which Apple Bloom later shatters. Eventually, it's revealed they're the same mirror, or rather Diamond used a shard of the former to create the latter.
  • My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) shows that hippogriffs and sea ponies do exist, albeit outside Equestria. The movie's sea ponies were even created by being transformed from other creatures, like how Dark World Discord recreated the long-lost sea ponies by transforming them from normal ponies.
  • In the Dark World arc, Discord disguises himself as a pony with a tornado cutie mark. He does exactly that in "Twilight's Kingdom — Part 1".
  • Nightmare Eclipse, the true Big Bad of Dark World, has a facial scar and a color scheme of dark purple fur and a dark pink mane, much like Tempest Shadow, another Evil Counterpart to Twilight who tries to convince her to give up on her friends.
  • In 2014, the Shining Armor Arc has the titular pony in question travel in the world as Cadence's bodyguard using a fleet of airships as the main mode of transportation. Come "Once Upon A Zeppelin", it's revealed that Shining Armor suffers from airsickness. Becomes Harsher in Hindsight for the poor guy in question...
    • The first stop Cadence's flotilla goes to is a griffin-dominated nation that bans musical numbers? Are we talking about Columbia or Griffonstone? At least the former has a valid reason about avoiding traffic pileups and accidents while being only in effect during business hours.
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Forgotten Friendship has two for the POV!Verse:
    • In the POV version of Rainbow Rocks, there's an extra paragraph in the description from POV!Trixie (who is already a Sixth Ranger for the Mane Six) being upset that EQG!Trixie is still destined to be a pawn for evil and retain her Jerkass self, spell or no spell. Twilight proceeds to comfort her by saying that she's only like that because she never had to grow out of it without going through any trials and never opened up to others. When all of CHS remembers only the bad stuff about Sunset, guess who was the only one that ends up helping Sunset get her memories back?
    • When the first previews for the special came out, many of the readers started jokingly asking if Entropy/Maud Pie was involved. Not to mention, the flames are fanned even further when it's revealed that a rock is responsible for the whole mess!!! Now what did she say about having the right stone again?
  • In an early chapter (written around 2012-2014), Silver Spoon's father, Silver Axe changes his name to Silver Tongue after traumatizing his daughter with the namesake axe during the day of Discord. Season 7's "The Perfect Pear" reveals that ponies can indeed change their names to fit their current situation!!
  • In 2014, Cranky and Matilda get married during the Wedding Arc, predating their canon marriage in "Slice Of Life" by around a year!!
  • The Dark World Changelings transformed into a more beautiful form after changing leaders, which happened in canon eventually. Alexwarlorn would come to regret this, having become disillusioned with the concept of Beauty Equals Goodness (at least in regards to physical beings rather than spiritual ones), and his disillusionment with the show began when it happened for real, resulting in a scene of this happening with the prime changelings happening after the wedding was scrapped.
  • In here, Mother Deer's original form is the Tree of Harmony meaning that the tree itself is sapient. Later on in canon, "What Lies Beneath" would reveal that the Tree of Harmony is indeed sapient.
  • My Little Pony: Best Gift Ever has two instances of this:
    • Dark World reveals that every year Santa Claus exists and he delivers a lump of coal to Discord every year without a single failed attempt. This special shows that there is indeed a canon counterpart of Santa Claus in the form of the reindeer sisters Aurora, Bori, and Alice.
    • On the topic of Aurora, Bori, and Alice, they also act as The Hecate Sisters when it comes to gift giving. Sounds like our trio of Interviewers...
  • Grogar was written in here to be an expy of Darkseid. Years later, Tirek Gaiden would reveal that the titular character's main motivations is formed from falling with love with an Abstract Apotheosis unintentionally making him an expy of Thanos, effectively recreating one of the most famous comic book rivalries in here.
  • Scootaloo's parents are revealed in here to be from different races. A few years later, "The Last Crusade" reveals that this is indeed the case.
  • Twilight using a super version of the rainbow laser due to empowering from various sets of the element bearers across past, present and future. Are we talking about the climax of The Dark World against Nightmare Eclipse or FIM's "The Ending of the End – Part 2"?
  • Amicitia's aka Alicorn!Twilight's body in the POV series is grown like Celestia's. Guess what was revealed in "The Last Problem"?
  • In 2012, Nurse Redheart's Butterflies chapter reveals that after the Princess Gaia incident, Fluttershy sometimes transforms into a butterfly to go to the hospital and visit dying patients with no friends or family, so someone will be with them in their final moments. Sounds a lot like SCP-4999.
  • Discord tortures Aloe and Lotus by fusing them into a two-headed pony with A Head at Each End. In "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" the same thing happens to Lyra and Bon Bon, only they're happy with it.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The extra paragraph included in the POV version of Rainbow Rocks about how EG!Trixie is only as she is because she never faced the trials to make her grow as a person POV!Trixie did. Come Forgotten Friendship...
• I Am Not Shazam: Pandora stated she didn't want to talk about ____ or "Ruin" and many readers believed ____ was named Ruin, when she was actually talking about Destruction.
• I Knew It!:
  • At least a few people called The Reveal that the Interviewers were born from Amicita and essentially created Shining Armor months in advance. One particular fan sent private messages to both of the main authors saying that he had figured it out a year before it was officially revealed, and was specifically told by both of them not to share it with anyone.
  • That same fan figured out that Cobweb was Trixie the moment she appeared.
• Iron Woobie: The Dark World heroes, both the redeemed Mane 6 and the Sixth Rangers. Given they live in a Bad Future, they're clearly hurting, but they don't let that stop them. Even Apple Pie shows she's suffered a great deal of loss and pain, but remains a hope filled optimist.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Trixie is revealed to be one. Having Middle Filly Syndrome due to not being able to stand out among her identical looking siblings or excel at any type of magic, she acted like a jerk to stand out and constantly wanted to be special. Then Discord gives her a horrific Mind Rape, leaving her mind at the mercy of Loneliness. After a horrible fight, she finally gets free, only to try and keep herself separate from the group out of fear of losing her individuality. Oh, and to make matters worse, she's a victim of Fantastic Racism due to her father not being a unicorn.
  • Fluttercruel. Yes, she's a Jerkass, but the way she described Fluttershy coming back into control and her being crushed up inside her and what it feels like for her to be the one whose stuck inside makes it nearly impossible not to feel sorry for her. The poor girl doesn't even consider herself alive, just a copy of Fluttershy…
  • Diamond Tiara is the poster filly of this trope…just as much of a bitch as her canon counterpart, yet it's hard not to feel bad for with her relationship with her mother.
  • Filthy Rich/Onyx Tiara. Think about it. If you were aware of how Pegasi and Unicorns once used your sub-species as effective slave labor, and how no one else of your sub species seems to care and in fact have friendships with them despite all that you and your kin endured because of them, wouldn't you be a little bitter?
  • Coffee Swirl.
  • As shocking as it sounds, Dark World!Fluttercruel manages to become this by the end!
    • Hell, Dark World Discord became this! Thanks in no small part to Nightmare Paradox/Eclipse being so much worse.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Many readers thought Traitor Dash was too far gone and would have to die, and were pleasantly surprised when the author managed to successfully redeem her.
  • Dark World 31 had Nightmare Paradox supposedly let loose a World-Wrecking Wave that kills everyone but Twilight and destroys all life on the world before making Twilight become her. Not only had Word of God already outright said Dark World would have a happy ending, there were still several chapters left and Fluttercruel was the Element of Kindness, something that wasn't possible in the present loop. Ironically, this actually managed to convince some people Dark World had a Downer Ending.
  • Chapter 58 of the finale arc is titled "the end" and the chapter ends with Diamond Tiara revealing that the printing press was destroyed a while ago after she had already written the ultimate rumor — that Celestia and Luna were Tirek and Grogar in disguise all along — and tells Apple Bloom that her whole quest was pointless. Since the author had already stressed multiple times that the arc WILL have a happy ending, and because of the author's self-admitted hatred for Shoot the Shaggy Dog endings, none of the readers were the least bit fooled.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The Valeyard in Dark World crossed it roughly five hundred years ago with what he did to the Master (repeating what Discord did to him, only unlike Discord, Word of God has stated the Valeyard did it just to kill him over and over and over again.)
  • The Nameless Passenger crossed it a long, long time ago by coming up with a plan to punish Discord for eternity that involves repeatedly erasing the Dark World timeline from existence to trap him in a "Groundhog Day" Loop for eternity, erasing all its inhabitants as well.
  • General-Admiral Makarov/The Shadow Of Chernobull crossed this by by taking four innocent ponies based solely on the irony of their names to convert into his Alicorn Cyborg Co-Dragons (which condemned them to an And I Must Scream fate).
  • Queen Chrysalis did plenty of horrible things, but the point were she definitely crosses this is with the reveal of her real endgame: use a rune to rip the emotions out of every creature in Equestria and absorb them to become a being even stronger than Discord. Let us reiterate, Chrysalis is such a monster she's willing to reduce an entire country to Empty Shells for power simply because she wants power (instead of the more sympathetic motive of being for her Changelings: the Changelings don't even know this is what she's really up to!).
  • Lord Tirek crossed it when he performed genocide on his own race, including his family, while his father was Forced to Watch. The less said about how he did it, the better.
  • Morning Star crossed this when he cast the Pandora's Box filled with Dark Magic down to Equus in the first place, just to force his parents to send him to 'fix' mortals by creating a disaster only he could solve. To note, this directly caused the destruction of several cities full of innocent people, the creation of Hydia's Coven, and giving rise to Tirek himself. Morning Star basically caused a gigantic disaster with eons long consequences solely to prove a point.
• Narm: Some readers felt that the Shining Armor arc's attempts to treat Makarov as completely ridiculous but still a serious threat to be a bit jarring at points.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has it's own page.
• One-Scene Wonder: Nightmare Granfalloon, Pinkie's potential Superpowered Evil Side has only appears in one scene in an Alternate Universe, but left quite an impression on readers due to being absolutely terrifying. She later appears as one of Nightmare Paradox's Psycho Rangers.
• Paranoia Fuel: The Gaia Festival. Imagine living in a world where you made a mistake, and because of that mistake hundreds, if not thousands of vengeful, murderous ponies are lurking in the shadows, hellbent on murdering you horribly, and you have no way of knowing if your so-called "friends" are truly friends, or one of those vengeful ponies. That is the world Flutterhy now finds herself in.
• Player Punch:
  • Sunset and Ranger's deaths are this. Especially due to the suddenness of it.
  • At least attempted in the Wedding Arc a few times.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • All of G3 for a lot of people.
  • A more minor example is Ace from My Little Pony Tales, by having him refuse to leave Melody no matter what and generally be a good husband for his wife, having mellowed out from the Jerkass he was in canon.
  • Flash Sentry's appearance seems to fall into this trope, as he's given a more interesting personality and actually covers Twilight during her fight with Death Stalker while actually taking some bruises for his efforts. If nothing else readers find him interesting and his brief appearance imply some greater mystery to his character.
• Ron the Death Eater: Celestia and Luna get this from fans, mainly due to their treatment of Fluttershy (which overlooks the fact she just tried to take over the country, brainwashed billions, and nearly killed billions of unborn children, and is now an Alicorn who needs to see the true gravity of her mistake in order to properly adapt to it) and Celestia's punishment of Nightmare Moon and Discord, despite being confirmed both the fic's Word of God and the show's Word of God that she fully intended to redeem Luna but couldn't herself.
• Seasonal Rot: The Wedding Arc has poorer editing than previous chapters (thanks to Louis, the main editor of the story, disappearing for several months, leaving Alex to edit the arc all on his own— and it shows), has some potential pacing issues, is sometimes inconsistent with established events and even itself, expands the potential for Archive Panic and Ending Fatigue, and also risks Arc Fatigue with the sheer length. Even the people that like the arc think that certain parts could be handled better.
• Shocking Moments: Dark World 24. I mean, Good Gravy! What a penultimate boss fight! It would make an awesome final boss in any videogame and then things get even more epic with the real final boss.
• Squick:
  • Golden Tiara (a.k.a. "Screwball") can squeeze through tight spaces with ease, like slipping through cell-bars or squeezing her way through drainage systems. How does she do this? Why, by voluntarily dislocating her own bones.
    Golden Tiara: "Ya disconnect this bone connected to the hip bone, you disconnect this bone connected to the shoulder bone, you disconnect this bone connected to the neck bone, wait, better not touch that one on second thought. Fold myself up, if I try really hard I'm sure I could fit into a soup can. Really scared the hay out of an orderly one time, you'd think they'd never saw a mare hiding in a box half her size before! Took a while to get out, especially since he fainted on top of me."
  • Strife and Mortis have had kids together! To clarify Strife is draconequus (like Discord, and you all know what he looks like) and Mortis is part skeleton!
  • The description of Queen Cocoon from Chrysalis' Origin Story. Chrysalis has good reason to be disgusted by her appearance.
  • As Shining Armor was created from Amicitia, this means he is technically Cadence's nephew as well. Hell, when it comes to souls (which is what we're talking about when we're discussing Cadence and Shining Armour as concepts). It's been made clear that every being in existence is the child of Fauna Luster which means that in a way, all creatures are siblings and... But it's okay! They're not biologically related, so it's not creepy at all!
• Tear Jerker: Now on its own page.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Rancor. She's just gained a power up by taking Destruction's power! What's she going to do with it? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Because she's probably never going to appear again!
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The first episode of Reharmonized Ponies begins with the ending of Epilogue, the picture slowly burning away to reveal the ending of "The Return of Harmony".
• The Woobie:
  • Special mention goes to Pinkie Pie. This version (at least in her own memories, which Word of God has said may or may not be true), she's the G3 Pinkie Pie who had to watch her world be destroyed, remembers it, and had to see one of her best friends sacrifice herself to save her from being erased from existence. She doesn't show it much, but when she does it's heartbreaking.
    • Now its been revealed that after spending the Twilight of her world trying to save her best friend Minty, Minty dies right in front of her while Pinkie begs for her to wake up and then she comes across another of her friends Rarity on death's door. All she can do is tell her everything is going to be OK and watch her die along with their world. Though she did manage to save Minty from being erased from existence by fusing her with the G1 Twilight to create our Twilight.
  • The entire G3 world. No matter what your opinion on that gen was, its hard not to feel sorry for them after what they're put through, especially after their fight to save their world ultimately . Thankfully, Apple Bloom, during her time as The Omnipotent, finally gives the ones without Reincarnations a happy ending.
  • Bon Bon's sister Moth probably qualifies too. She actually is a Changeling who honestly does love Lyra, Bon Bon, and the duo's adopted daughter, and hasn't harmed them, but showing genuine love for them is physically uncomfortable for her (basically, it's the changeling equivalent of vomiting) and events like Twilight's use of the Want It Need It Spell nearly kill her. Her reaction to the Spa Twins also implies she's to some degree terrified of other Changelings. Gets increased in the Wedding when her kind launch their invasion, making her terrified for her life. Not to mention that she gets beat up a lot after revealing herself to the heroes.
  • Rarity's reharmonization chapter reveals that she went through disturbingly realistic post-traumatic stress disorder after Twilight brought her back to normal. Poor thing.
  • Derpy, in both universes. In 'The Ultimate Foe', the Valeyard takes great glee in pretty much tap dancing on every emotional scar she has.
    • Again in 'Crushed Pearl Necklace' when her daughter Sparkler has to be killed due to having been possessed by Cruelty.
  • Dark World!Rainbow Dash both before and AFTER her Heel–Face Turn. Before she's a conflicted, guilt-ridden Tragic Villain who hates herself for what she's done under Discord. Afterwards she finds some of her past actions coming back to bite her, finds out her childhood friend Fluttershy's been dead for five hundred years, and worst of all, finds out her best friend Pinkie Pie is dying of Rapid Aging. Then after the battle is over, Rainbow goes to hug Pinkie...only to go right through her; Pinkie Pie had died during the fight and been helping as a ghost ever since.
  • Fluttershy, ever since Pearl Necklace. She is viciously Mind Raped by Luna, told point blank by Celestia that one more screwup will earn her a one way ticket to the sun, she very nearly gets gang raped if not for Coffee Swirl's rescue, and now assassins are after her. All because she thought she could help make the world a little less painful.
  • Stitches, an Earth Pony foal and one of Dark World!Fluttercruel's victims who had to watch her father die in a giant blender (It Makes Sense in Context) and mother and all but two of her siblings be slaughtered by Fluttercruel, all simply because they were healing ponies out of the goodness of their hearts. Then Fluttercruel gets her and puts her through a horrifying And I Must Scream fate while torturing her to death. It turns out that she is Fluttercruel's future self, implanted in the timeline into this family as an Ironic Hell for her crimes, and after realizing this goes into a Villainous BSoD when her memories return.
  • Shining Armor, due to being a Weirdness Magnet. Not only is he being chased by a cosmic entity trying to erase him from existence, he has an insane Parody Sue General Ripper out to make his life a living Hell, all for things completely out of his control. Even discounting the weirdness, he's still got to spend about two years away from his beloved little sister and family while he's living with the guilt of his uncle Cool Sun sacrificing himself for his sake. Did we mention the Wedding hasn't even happened yet?! He and Twilight would already have a lot to talk about.
  • Bon Bon during the Wedding Arc. Not only does she end up getting dragged into the battle with the Changelings, she discovers her beloved 'twin sister' was actually a Changeling and she never had a sister.
  • Celestia's sister Venus. Her son was murdered in cold-blood with the Concept Killing Spear. While that is horrific in and of itself, but due to what killed him, he was erased from existence with only her and her family remembering he had ever been. Worse? This also retgoned her relationship with his father, meaning her true love forgets they ever met or had a son. Needless to say, a lot of readers felt sorry for her.

---