Pony POV Series / Tropes I to P

Tropes for Pony POV Series
Tropes A to D | Tropes E to H | Tropes I to P | Tropes Q to Z

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I

• I Am Not Left-Handed:
  • During her fight with Rarigreed, Dark World!Fluttercruel reveals that she can use her mother's ultimate weapon: The Stare. She comments that Discord specifically told her to not use it around the other Elements of Chaos, so that she could surprise them with it if they ever turned on Discord.
  • Nightmare Paradox revealing her friends.
  • It turns out that Shining had been holding back the true extent of his shield magic because the last time he used it, his uncle had just been killed and he crushed the Diamond Dog that did it to death. He gets over it eventually. Twilight, during a fight with a brainwashed Shining during the Wedding, is rather horrified to realize this was the case as he's presently trying to kill her and he's way stronger than she expected him to be..
• I Am Not My Father:
  • Fluttercruel and Fluttershy consider Discord Fluttercruel's father, but she has no desire to follow in his footsteps, but doesn't go out of her way to go against it. Fluttershy is adment that having an evil father doesn't make her evil. Then Fluttercruel actually DOES follow in his footsteps and corrupts Fluttershy worse than Discord did. After fighting her way back to the world of the living, she is more than ready to do exact opposite of what Discord would do, leading to this little exchange:
    Undead Foal: Move you stupid half-Draconequus!
    Fluttercruel: That's stupid little pony!
  • During the Final Battle, she actively denies any attempt by Discord to actually connect with her. Though she does admit that if Discord had contacted her after she was born, she gladly would've joined him, but now she wants nothing to do with him.
  • Also with Fluttershy, who, due to being her basis, considers herself Fluttercruel's mother and treats her as such. Fluttercruel pretty much wants to be anything but Fluttershy.
• I Am Spartacus:
  • When Traitor Dash shows up in Cloudsdale and demands that the hippogriffs hand over the resident Rebel Leader, the entire crowd does a pretty good imitation of the Trope Namer scene. Dash Sherlock Scans the actual target and kills her. The sad part is, she had no choice. She had to kill someone or Discord would destroy the city.
  • It does have an impact, however, as it's one of the things Twilight's Memory Spell reminds Traitor Dash of to break her Discording by showing the Dark World is still worth saving.
• Idiot Ball: Half of why Chrysalis is getting her way, combined with a dash of Easy Logistics - Somehow almost ten thousand Guardsponies can be replaced by "Rookies" in the Canterlot area with a known threat? None of the many other higher ranking officers ever objected to this? No one spots the different communications between units? Hand waved by the fact that a good chuck of the "replacements" are actually very high up in ranks, meaning that the entire process could be secretly processed by a mole in every aspect and department. When the chips came down during the first wedding ceremony, practically every division in the entire Equestrian military outside Canterlot was revealed to have at least one changeling mole and were immediately disabled to prevent them from intervening. The only known groups to not have a changeling spy were Misfit Actual, the guards assigned to the borders and the Night Guard since they weren't present in the Heart World.
• I Hate Past Me:
  • Shining Armor remembers his original high school romance with Cadence due to his history working backwards from the point he was inserted into existence. His blood pressure rises as he sees how shallow his interests in Cadence started out. The final chapter of the entire Pony POV Series reveals also that Shining Armor is Nameless from the Dark World timeline wiped clean of his former identity and imprinted by Cadence's wish for a knight in shining armor. Explaining Pandora's interest in him to begin with, and Nameless' own fixation on him. Needless to say, Shining hates the person he began existence as.
  • During the Rumors in which reality has gone sideways with only the CMC and a few others uncorrupted, Sweetie Belle has a dream flashback to how reality truly went with her and Button Mash first meeting. Having gotten to KNOW Button Mash at this point, she's angry at her past self for trying to recruit Button Mash into the Crusaders and not even trying to really be friends with him. She actively pushes things in the direction of the way Button Mash remembers.
• I Have Many Names:
  • Each of the Alicorns and Draconequi seem to have multiple names, all of which are accurate. This is, of course, due to being fundamental concepts of reality.
  • Dark World!Rarity takes back her original name, but keeps her Rarigreed and Greedity names and gains a new name, Lady Desire, from the Diamond Dogs. Being the Element of Desire, it fits her. She also gains Queen Libra upon becoming an Alicorn.
  • Dark World!Discord has seemingly infinite titles, the majority of which are nonsense such as 'Big Banana Discord'. It's unknown if the same applies to the main timeline Discord or not.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Trixie, due to her Middle Filly Syndrome and being unable to stand out among her four near identical sisters. It got worse when she went to magic school and was unable to excel at anything in particular. This caused her to overlook the fact, as her teachers told her, that she could do almost any type of magic well, including weather magic, which is very rare for a unicorn to be able to do at all. She gets her wish, however, when it's revealed she's an Element Of Magic and has just as much unrealized potential as Twilight Sparkle did, but Trixie still has some issues with being Twilight's "alternate."
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight:
  • The Mane Six try this fighting Nightmare Whisper, Fluttershy's Superpowered Evil Side, but it's only after blasting her with the Elements of Harmony and purifying her that they're actually able to reach her.
  • Most of the fights in the Dark World with the still corrupted Mane Six. All three succeed, but with increasing amounts of difficulty each time, Rarigreed being the easiest and Angry Pie the hardest.
  • Derpy keeps trying this with the Valeyard. Subverted in that the Valeyard really isn't the Doctor and therefore there's nothing to reach. The only way to restore the Doctor is to destroy the Valeyard's regeneration template, then kill him, allowing him to regenerate back into the Doctor, which DOES work.
• Imaginary Friend:
  • Pinkamenia had several, the same ones from "Party Of One", only in her imagination, they were real ponies. They were killed and absorbed by Angry Pie, though. Trixie had Princess Starflower, but left her behind after becoming a star, but Twilight found her while in Trixie's head and she helped her save Trixie. Both come back when the gang are under Princess Gaia's spell and break Pinkie Pie and Trixie out of it.
  • Clover's Gaiden story reveals that Pinkie herself was originally Clover's imaginary friend, brought to life by the world changing spell. This causes Pinkie to have a Heroic BSoD and nearly lets herself be dragged to Oblivion by the Shadows of her friends before Twilight, Zecora, and Luna convince her she's as real as them.
  • Princess Luna had her own imaginary friend that is an owlbear named Olo.
  • Olo the Owlbear and Princess Starflower become alive in the Finale arc to help out their respective owners (Olo is specifically with Moonlight, Luna's avatar). They are created from the benevolent rumor parasites.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • Loneliness comes dangerously close to outright killing Twilight via this.
  • G3 Wysteria dies this way. Celestia's mortal form is also killed this way by Strife in their fight, but being immortal, that body doesn't matter, something Strife knew from the get-go.
  • Dark World!Cadence suffers from this at the hooves of the other members of the Chaos Six. Right in front of a Twilight that she just saved.
  • Rancor wounds Dark World!Discord this way to absorb the spirit of Destruction.
  • Happens to Nightmare Manacle, Whisper, and Granfalloon at one point during Dark World's Final Battle. It would have killed them if Paradox wasn't a Time Master.
• Immortality Inducer:
  • The Elements of Chaos for the Dark World!Mane Six. Discord replaced their hearts with them and so long as the Element of Chaos isn't removed or destroyed, they have Complete Immortality.
  • Turns out the Elements of Chaos themselves were originally the Elements of Harmony. If you need proof, besides Word of God we also have the fact that when Angry Pie tore out Twilight's Element of Magic and left her to die of Rapid Aging, Twilight saved herself by taking in Trixie's Element of Magic, since Trixie was one of the ponies who had died in the thousand years of the Dark World and didn't need an Element that she had never managed to awaken in this timeline.
  • It turns out both the Rainbow of Light and the Rainbow of Darkness do this for their guardians. It's unclear whether or not it effects the Mane Six or not as the Guardians of Harmony, as Celestia and Luna were already immune.
• Immune to Mind Control: Deconstructed in the Finale Arc. Spike states that after Discord and Chrysalis's shenanigans, he had so many anti-mind control spells that they had to actually stop putting in anymore to prevent them from stunting his mental growth as they work by filtering outside input and stop changes being made. Starlight Glimmer didn't get this memo and had too many of these put into her own brain during her days as a student which damaged her ability to accept new ideas or question her own. This is the reason why she is so stubborn and refuses to see anything that doesn't fit her views on equality.
• Implacable Man:
  • The Chaos Six were seen as this by the denizens of Dark World, being they're immortal Co-Dragons of Discord. As shown later taking on Discord's Mooks, against normal enemies, they're still this, it just happens they were fighting other Implaceable Men until then.
  • The Wolf/Stalker from the Shining Armor Arc. A mysterious entity that's dedicated to erasing Shining Armor from existence, nothing will stop it from completing its objective. Not gun fire, not shield spells, not walls, not even being caught point blank at the center of an explosion, followed by the tripod it was attacking toppling into the ocean and exploding. It's been stalking Shining across countries and so far, the only things that can slow it down are Makarov's Death Dome spell (something Shining has tried to replicate and failed) and Princess Cadence's presence. There's very good reason Shining Armor is absolutely paranoid of the thing. Even its resurrected form as a puppy in Rumors is incredibly powerful.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Trixie is told, on short notice, that she'll be doing a magic show at the celebration for Princess Gaia, with no practice, no props, and pretty much nothing to work with. Her reaction is to find a bottle of sake with salt and get very drunk.
• In Mysterious Ways: Subverted with at least the Alicorn Elders, who will give a logical explanation for their actions whenever they're asked, such as Applejack asking why the Father didn't just tell her she was the Element of Kindness (she'd have just saw it as a lecture to ignore), and Dark World!Twilight asking Fauna Luster why the Alicorns didn't stop Eclipse (because Eclipse was too strong to safely fight, but not yet a big enough threat to justify the Elders confronting her directly). The gods prefer to act from behind the scenes
• Innocuously Important Episode: Too many to count, as details very often come up again far later down the road as vital things.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite the unforeseen events of Windigos, the Alicorn/Draconequus War, and Discord's first reign, the Ponyville designed during Generation Transitions still comes into being exactly as planned, three characters excluded.
  • Several aspects of the world tour Shining and Cadence's group is on still happened after Makarov was erased from existence such as there still being a fight in Columbia (though it involved a Nightmare Moon cult) where Audience and Ellis got promoted and Cadence still got her song bird and had to power up (though this time it involved an Eldritch Abomination). Justified as it's implied Makarov devoured and stole the places of the ones who were originally involved, such as the leader of the Nightmare Moon cult.
  • Flash Sentry, in his memories of the future (from his current perspective, time travel is involved), thinks that if Nightmare Diamond hadn't been speeding up the degrading of Camp Everfree, Gaea Everfree would still have snapped and went Nightmare, but only after the humane seven left when Filthy showed up, which naturally would've made things much worse.
  • Wallflower Blush still finds the Memory Stone and goes after Sunset regardless.
• Instant Fan Club: After Princess Gaia's rule, Fluttershy results in getting a sizable following due to how much it healed many ponies. Her popularity as a fashion model not withstanding. Which, according to the Shining Armor arc, has reached as far as the kingdom of Neighpon (a spoof of Japan), where she still has a strong fan-base. She even still receives fan letters from them, though she cannot read them due to being in Neighponese.
• Instant-Win Condition: Completing their rune is this for the Changelings, as if they do so, they'll drain every non-Changeling in Equestria of their emotions and turn Chrysalis into a nigh unstoppable being. Notably, only a few are actually aware this is the rune's purpose, Kabuto included.
• Insult Backfire: General-Admiral Makarov mockingly asks Princess Cadence is she's going sing at him during a face off. She promptly does and kicks his flank in the process.
• Interservice Rivalry:
  • Shining Armor states that this is good for morale... right after stating that the Day Guard are wimps and the Night Guard is afraid of the light (and ignoring the fact that he was a Day Guard before being put in charge of Cadence's branch of the Royal Guard).
  • However, one that Shining doesn't approve of is the one between the 18th Pegasus Legion and the Pegasus Guard, who loath each other over their opinions on the Wonderbolts. Upon discovering all three are going to be in Zebrawa, he is none too happy about it. Thankfully, Cadence manages to turn things a little more friendly though.
• Intoxicated Superpower Snag: Twilight normally has no problem with this... except if she gets drunk. Last time she did, she lost control of her powers and Ponyville had to be reassured that Discord hadn't returned.
• Ironic Echo:
  • A keen reader would be able to spot when two different characters, without ever having previously heard it, say the same phrase in entirely unrelated contexts.
    "If they really believed it they wouldn't be saying it every time they said something" — G3 Pinky & Onyx Tiara
    "Put 'em up! Put 'em up!" — Spike & Discord
  • Ender Dash, the name of Traitor Dash's Super Mode. Originally, the name is due to her wanting put an end to Dark World by resetting it to before the Day of Chaos by taking Discord's Deal with the Devil. Later, after her Heel–Face Turn, she names it that because she's trying to help the group Earn Your Happy Ending.
  • As she's performing a time spell to summon the help needed to defeat Nightmare Eclipse, Dark World!Twilight and Minty Pie give their own version of Eclipse's Catchphrase.
    Twilight: Time march forward. Bonds reach across all.
    Twilight/Minty Pie: We'll wander no longer!
• Ironic Hell:
  • Dark World turns out to be this for Discord, inflicted on him by Nightmare Eclipse. His kingdom will never end, his mistakes are always undone... forever. Never to end. By the time she's defeated and he's freed, he considers being killed over and over again by his family for his crimes relaxing in comparison.
  • Dark World!Fluttercruel is punished for her crimes via one of these. She's inserted into the past as an Earth Pony named Stitches, who's family was slaughtered by Fluttercruel, and ends up being one of her own victims. The experience ends up triggering a complete Heel Realization and Villainous BSoD that finally reforms her.
  • An alternate version of the Nameless Filly is killed by Turris saving Cupid. Her Hell is getting to try again over and over...and over and over and over again, never able to succeed and always doomed to fail.
• Irony: The irony does not escape Fluttercruel that she was made by Discord with the first words she heard being "Time to be cruel" and she becomes not only an Element of Harmony, but an Element Of Kindness.
• It Can Think: The Moochick and Heathspike are surprised to find the primitive ponies building the beginnings of their civilization as before then they'd only known ponies as nonsapient animals. Justified as the ponies only recently became sapient a number of years prior.
• Its All Up Stairs From Here: The World Tower in the Rumors Arc ends up being this for the CMC.
• It's Personal:
  • Shining Armor says this is the case with Makarov when he seemingly threatens Twilight's safety. Subverted in it was actually Dima, who needed to get a hold of Shining for help stopping Makarov and never intended to hurt her at all, so Shining forgives him. Double Subverted when the same chapter, Makarov makes it after trying to destroy a village of innocent zebra and ponies, killing dozens, tries to make Cadence his concubine, and is revealed to have kidnapped several innocent ponies and condemned them to an And I Must Scream fate by converting them into his Co-Dragons. This results in Shining Armor and his group declaring that This Is Unforgivable!, something that's Serious Business to Equestrians, who have forgiveness as a cultural value.
  • If Makarov didn't do it then, then he certainly did by blowing Running Gag's wing off, giving Misfit Actual a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, and trying to murder Twilight while Shining is Forced to Watch.
  • Nightmare Nhilis tries to do this, but the heroes don't take the bait.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: In the Finale Arc, the CMC ask why they are the ones who have to save the world, pointing out they are only children. That is the actual reason why they were chosen: they were heroic and good enough to get the job done, but would've been overlooked by the villain for that exact reason.
• It Was a Gift: Diamond and Silver gave each other dresses one Hearth's Warming as part of an excuse not to get in trouble. They still kept them even though they hate the dresses themselves...
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake: After defeating Discord in Origins, Celestia and Luna received a cake the size of a small castle as one of their rewards.

J

• Jaw Drop: The mane cast and the Cakes all do this in tandem when Pinkie Pie says she doesn't want to throw a party for once.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Fluttercruel starts out as just a Jerkass, but Fluttershy's careful work with her ultimately turns her into this. She's still a jerk, but she at least willing to help Fluttershy out.
  • We find out when we see things from her point of view that Fluttershy didn't make her come out to help calm Rainbow Dash, she forced herself to the surface in order to do it. And even when she takes over, the worst she does is pull Fluttershy's leg a few times, showing she's nowhere near as much of a Jerkass as she originally was.
  • Trixie only acted like a jerk because she wanted to stand out so badly due to her Middle Filly Syndrome. What was she like in her own mental plane? A scared little filly in the clutches of Loneliness.
  • By the end of the battle against Nightmare Whisper, Fluttercruel is not only fiercely protective of Fluttershy (to the point of being willing to sacrifice herself to save Fluttershy and her friends), but is also able to manifest an Element of Kindness. She still acts like a jerk a lot of the time, though.
  • Silver Spoon. She was only a bully because her only friend Diamond Tiara was, she's truthfully a much more loyal and kind friend than would be expected at first glance. This is also hinted to be the reason for the heart in the spoon on her Cutie Mark.
• Jump Scare: Done incredibly well in the audio adaptation, during "REHARMONIZED PONIES 06: House Call".
  GET OUT~!!!
• Jury of the Damned:
  • Fluttercruel ends up in one of these after what appeared to be her death, with a court of demonic shadows ruling on whether or not she should exist. The find her guilty, but she fights her way out of it to help the heroes defeat Princess Gaia/Nightmare Whisper and fix the mess she was responsible for. It's left ambiguous as to whether or not this was real or all in her head.
  • Starlight finds herself in one after dying in the Tales Era's Class 2 apocalypse, being on trial for her role in said apocalypse. In an unusual case, she's both the defendant and the judge, with Judicium, the Alicorn of Judgment, serving as her adviser. She finds herself guilty at the end. In another twist, her Defense Attorney was actually Havoc, the Dimension Lord of Hell, and that declaring herself innocent would've condemned her because it means she's refusing to accept responsibility for her actions. The Prosecutor was actually the Father of All Alicorns, the Dimension Lord of Heaven who was trying to get her to accept that responsibility and ask forgiveness so he could give it and let her into Heaven.

K

• Kaiju:
  • Dragon Queen Tiamat. She's so massive that her tea cup is bigger than some entire buildings and so powerful that she single-handedly ended the Hooviet/Dragon War. Shining Armor even compares it to a monster movie.
  • Tiamat's mate Bahamut is also one, though he's smaller than his wife. Seems to be the case with the dragon gods in general.
  • Dracozilla is also mentioned, apparently a thing that actually exists.
• Karmic Death:
  • The blackbirds that have tortured Dark World!Derpy for a thousand years by trying to eat Dinky (who has been turned into a muffin), are ultimately thrown into Ponythulhu's dimension to be eaten themselves, also by being turned into a baked good.
  • There's also Dark World!Discord meeting his end a similar way to how he killed Destruction; being betrayed by a sibling and having Destruction's power torn out of him.
  • Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox ends up suffering the same fate she forced on Twilight so many times; seeing her friends being torn away from her before being forced to merge with Twilight as part of her Alicornification. Rota Fortuna even lampshades this.
    Rota Fortuna: ...You are right. Crimes are crimes, and we should never turn a blind eye to them. You who have judged others, you too shall be judged.
  • In an Alternate Universe version of Rainbow Factory, we're shown that after Rainbow Dash exposed the Rainbow Factory, Dr. Atmosphere was chased by an Angry Mob and met his end falling into the Pegasus Device.
  • Chrysalis ultimately dies and is Reincarnated into an innocent child with her being killed Deader than Dead. This is a direct result of her changes to her plan due to being a Peggy Sue.
• Karma Houdini: Played with in the case of General-Admiral Makarov in Shining Armor's Arc. On one hand, he gets no direct retribution for his attack on Shining Armor. On the other, he's been reminded that he's not the biggest fish in the sea (and that the combined special forces of SEVERAL nations will be actively working to bring him down should he try again) and had his ego thoroughly bruised, which considering his ego has to hurt. He was also threatened with being declared a Persona Non Grata in multiple countries. Subverted ultimately, as he's erased from existence as his final punishment.
• Karmic Jackpot: Happens to both the Mane Six and the CMC during the Rumors Arc after the CMC save the universe. Scootaloo finally finds out who her parents are and why they abandoned her, Applebloom is given the opportunity to alter reality to make it better for everyone (and takes it), and all three Crusaders gain the shields around their Cutie Marks as in canon. As for the Mane Six? One of the alterations Applebloom made was giving them a statue in the town square of Ponyville and all titles from the Princess.
• Kazoos Mean Silliness: In the Dark World arc, while Discord and his minions are holding a funeral for the Valeyard, one of the dirt maids plays a funeral dirge on a kazoo.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Discord's brother Destruction, who Discord ate.
  • Despite both having most of the dead come Back from the Dead following the defeat of the Big Bad, both the Dark World Arc and the Shining Armor Arc have some character's death's stick:
    • Dark World: Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Big Macintosh, and Trixie stay dead due to dying because of age. Loose Canon reveals the same happened with Zecora, making them not eligible to accept the one time offer to come Back from the Dead.
    • Shining Armor Arc: Cool Sun, Shining and Twilight's uncle, stays dead as, according to his own spirit, he still died protecting Shining Armor with or without Makarov.
  • Sunset and Ranger are killed helping stop a megastorm threatening Caruba. We even see their funeral and their souls entering Pony Heaven.
  • Chrysalis is killed off and Reincarnated into an innocent child. Chrysalis as she was is now Deader than Dead, as all of her evil in her soul was completely obliterated.
• The Killer in Me: Amnesiac type, with a twist. Stitches ended up spending most of her life running from Dark World!Fluttercruel as the Serial Killer hunted down and murdered her family, including her...It turns out she's Fluttercruel's future self, inserted into the timeline to become one of her own victims as an Ironic Hell punishment for her crimes.
• Killer Rabbit: Princess Gaia's entire army is pretty much made out of these.
• Kill the God: This is an extremely bad idea in this universe. The only way to kill a deity for good is by erasing them from existence, but doing so also destroys their Concept. IE, if you destroyed Celestia, the sun would not only no longer exist, but would have never existed at all. This is shown best by Cupid's demise. Which triggered a massive cataclysm that erased billions from existence. In addition D__t was erased because he wanted to kill all the Gods. The CMC mention one of the worlds they traveled through was a dead universe ruled over by D__t, showing why he had to be erased.
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • Loneliness. Not only is she a genuinely terrifying character who tries to outright kill Twilight Sparkle, the Princess Gaia arc follows directly afterwards.
  • General-Admiral Makarov for Shining Armor's arc. Things took a turn for the serious as soon as he showed up, whereas before the arc was pretty light hearted minus an early appearance by the Wolf.
  • Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox manages to be this for Dark World, which was already Darker and Edgier. When the story finally turns to her, it instantly becomes a Wham Arc and the stakes go simply from freeing the world from Discord's tyranny, to having to save the entire timeline from being erased from existence due to her "Groundhog Day" Loop. Add in her rather frightening Faux Affably Evil personality and the fact she has the largest body count of any villain in the fic due to having gleefully erased the entire timeline and everyone in it several million times and she's most certainly this trope.
  • Queen Chrysalis for the main timeline.
  • Professor Kabuto serves as this for Misfit's (who have not yet met Queen Chrysalis personally) storyline at the wedding, due to being genuinely frightening and monstrous, as well as very dangerous and powerful, in contrast to the normal Changelings and the much more sympathetic Digger Wasp. Not only that, he comes quite close to killing them and is only defeated by Weaver performing a Heroic Sacrifice (she survives, but genuinely believed she wouldn't).
  • Lord Tirek. His Origins Episode is one of the darkest, most horrifying parts of the entire fic complete with Tirek performing an incredibly brutal genocide on his own race. Justified, as Word of God has said in the comments that the intention of the story was to show why Tirek has garnered such an in-universe reputation as evil incarnate and the in universe version of Satan.
• Knight Templar:
  • The Harmony Queens Alternate Universe has the mane six turn into this in a Shout-Out to the Justice Lords.
  • The Nameless Passenger in Dark World, who is willing to go to any lengths, not caring who is hurt in the process, to take Discord down and get what she wants. She's also trying to make Twilight go down the same path.
  • General Lone Ranger wanted to set up an extermination war with the Changelings to force Equestria to toughen up. While horribly misguided, he had good intentions and was partially driven insane by his son's death.
• Lampshade Hanging: In Amicitia's Loose Canon story, she visits a world where Lady Babylon made a Deal with the Devil with Twilight in a universe were the Changelings never existed and Cadence really was just suffering pre-wedding nerves. The end result is the deal corrupted Queen Rosedust/Chrysalis vs Nightmare Phalanx (Shining Armor), and both take turns lampshading how talkative villains in the story and MLP as a whole can be sometimes.]]

  Queen Chrysalis: Hmph! What is it about becoming a Nightmare that makes a pony want to talk and talk and talk?
  Phalanx: "Don't you even start! I might have been under your spell, but I remember every word or every crazy rant!

L

• Large and in Charge: The Princesses, obviously, but even they pale next to the dragon Queen Tiamat, who's so big she blocks out the sun. Bahamut is just as big.
• Large Ham:
  • Trixie even after her Heel–Face Turn. It seems to run in the family, considering her sisters introduce themselves with an elaborate rolecall and "Super Sentai" Stance.
  • Discord is naturally this.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • Played with in most cases: short term memory erasure spells are possible, but only if the target on some level wants to forget. Long term memory erasure spells however, are notoriously unreliable and rarely if ever permanent.
  • Dark World Celestia had her memory wiped by Discord, but it will only be temporary and will return in time on its own, showing even someone of Discord's level can't manage more than that.
  • Bright Eyes lost her memory in the Tales World's apocalypse due to magical backlash, but she regains them over time.
• Last Bastion:
  • Butterfly Island was this during the G3 apocalypse, being all that's left and the location of the final battle.
  • Lickety-Split's home during Rumors, being intentionally set up as a safe zone for the Crusaders.
• Last of Their Kind:
  • The Dark World Mane Six (and Dinky) with the exception of Spike and Apple Pie are the last of the pure blooded ponies, the rest either gradually merging with another species (unicorns with Zebras, Pegasi with Griffins, and Earth Ponies with Donkeys) or being turned into the Sea Ponies or Dragons by Discord. To be specific, Twilight, Rarity, and Dinky are the last unicorns, Rainbow Dash and Derpy are the last pegasi, and Applejack and Pinkie Pie are the last pure Earth Ponies (the Earth Pony/Donkey hybrids still call themselves Earth Ponies, Apple Pie being one). Whether or not Fluttercruel counts is iffy, as she's half Draconequus and her original body is killed, then her second unicorn body transformed into a full Draconequus.
  • Due to Discord's genocides, the Dazzlings/Sirens are the last of the sea ponies, and barring Queen Rosedust also the last of the Flutterponies due to the inter-tribe spell they'd had put on them before the G2 Apocalypse mutated them. They're also the last surviving members of the G2 civilization. This fact makes Celestia hesitant to kill them, as she very much does not want to finish what Discord started by doing so.
  • Lord Tirek is the last Centaur. Because he killed all the others.
• Last-Second Chance:
  • The group gives this to Traitor Dash in Dark World. She takes convincing, but she finally takes it.
  • Invoked by Dark World!Discord, so he can use Twilight's Memory Spell as a way to reveal what's really going on to her and Out Gambit Nightmare Paradox.
  • Discord is given several of these. He refuses them all, but the last one actually nearly works, until Diamond usurps him as the villain.
• Last Stand:
  • The survivors of the G3 World on Butterfly Island are faced with their world dying, a Reality Warper Physical Goddess as their executioner. They decide to fight to the end anyway. Invoked by Strife, as it seems her intention was to enable them the chance to make one of these.
  • The Epilogue version of Cadence, having taken over the changelings and used them as a resistance force against Discord, is confronted by him and the discorded Mane Six, who destroy her refuge and kill many of her subjects. Cadence chooses to fight, giving her remaining subjects a chance to escape. And the sad thing is, she almost wins, defeating the Mane Six and restoring Twilight Sparkle... only for Discord to literally stab her in the back before disintegrating her.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:Subject Trixie begins the same way as the other stories, with Twilight relating a tale to the reader... Until she panics upon realizing that she's not talking to the reader, but someone else...
• Legion of Doom: In the Final Battle of the First Age, Hydia summoned her entire family for one last battle. This includes many G1 witches and warlocks.
• Lethal Chef: Sweetie Belle, as in canon. Implied by Thunderchild that the Catering Corps of the Royal Guard are mostly this.
• Leave No Witnesses: Makarov's philosophy. This includes wiping out an entire Diamond Dog pack just because SOME of them were his mercenaries.
• Let Me Tell You a Story: Pinkie Pie begins doing this after her Split-Personality Merge. They're still perfectly in character, but a lot more profound than you'd expect coming from her.
• Let's You and Him Fight:
  • Subverted. It looks like the Dark World Twilight and Applejack are going to have a fight mistaking the other for still being evil, but they calmly work it out and join forces.
  • Happens a few brief times during the Wedding, though mainly due to some of improperly timed reveals.
• Ley Line: It turns out in the POV-verse, this world has nine lay lines, with three places where the lines converge: Everfree Forest (with the Castle of the Two Sisters as being the true convergent point), a location in the Griffon lands, and a third in the Deer homeland. Zebras, Minotaurs, and Deer are able to use the leylines to access knowledge about the world and other worlds due to the nature of their own magic. In 7 Dreams/Nightmares: Bright Eyes Zecora is able to gain knowledge of the G3 world is either due to her being close to the leylines, or because Ms. Hackney died at the exact time when the G3 world changed, thus her soul being in flux when the timeline changed.
• Light Is Not Good:
  • Princess Gaia is an extremely beautiful Alicorn... Who is effectively brainwashing all of Equestria and turning everypony into little foals.
  • The Elements of Harmony, and by extension, the concept of Harmony itself, turns out that their power is inherently neutral, having the exact same effect on Celestia & Luna, possibly Zecora too, as Discord in one alternate timeline.
  • Morning Star, being the God of Beauty, naturally has this. Due to also being the God of Evil.
• Lighter and Softer: Despite what you'd naturally expect, DARK WORLD actually manages to be this. Despite being set in a Crapsack World and having it's fair share dark and sad moments. Dark World's incredibly optimistic tone and emphasis on AWESOME fight scenes makes it a surprising breath of fresh air after the incredibly brutal Mind Games Arc (Which could easily have been titled "Mind Rape: The Novelisation"). Justified since the Ponies were ALREADY at their lowest when Dark World began, so there really was no where else for them to go but up. And the story show's this by having them go from triumph to triumph in almost every chapter.
• Lima Syndrome: In the Smiles Guaranteed chapter of the Wedding Arc, Sweetie asks Twilight if maybe Chrysalis truly learned to like her when she was the Changeling Queen's prisoner. She has, but not nearly enough to stop her.
• Living Lie Detector:
  • After looking into the Truth, Applejack looking into ponies' eyes has this effect. She's the Element of Honesty so it really fits.
  • Dark World Applejack also has this, as the Element of Deceit lets her sense it.
• Load-Bearing Boss: The Redlight District implodes into Oblivion after it's victims are purified. Justified, as that was Nythy's trap.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Played for Laughs when Trixie can't follow the rapid-fire conversation of the rest of the group due to being a relative latecomer.
• Logical Weakness:
  • The Concept Killing Spear will Ret-Gone anything it pierces. However, it is still a spear, and it can't do anything to what it cannot pierce. In an alternate universe where Turris, the god of defense and barriers, saved Cupid, the weapon breaks against him.
  • Timberwolves are made of wood. This makes them vulnerable to termites, an infestation of which will turn them rabid.
• Logic Bomb:
  • This is basically an explicit superpower of Apple Pie in the Dark World, her Element of Laughter allowing her to manipulate or impede the flow of mana by invoking paradoxes. This allows her to do things like (accidentally) triggering a Heel Realization in Twilight Tragedy, destroy a zombie army simply by pointing out they can't be dead and alive at the same time, and (of course) make a giant-cyborg-spider-vampire's head (followed by its entire body) explode by pointing out how it's programmed to destroy harmony and protect chaos but half the group have BOTH sets of Elements inside them.
  • On the last one, Rarity and Twilight promptly lampshades the most common version of this tope.
    Rarity: Why do paradoxes always make robots explode? Shutting them down I understand but exploding?
  • Invoking these is needed to break the Rumors curses during the Rumors Arc.
• Long Game:
  • Celestia has spent a thousand years planning to purify her sister, with the School for Gifted Unicorns having been founded as part of her plans, with Hoofington's school possibly being a back up. Some characters theorize Ponyville was founded for the same reason.
  • Chrysalis spent a very long time planning to attempt a take over of Equestria.
  • The concepts planned for the Centaur Empire to be guided into a benevolent empire to benefit the world. Unfortunately Tirek had other plans.
  • Morning Star introduces black magic to Equus to prove once and for all that mortals can't be trusted with free will, even though it'd take a long time to do so.]]
  • D___t's Shadow of Existence planned Bright Eyes' entire life to find a spot where he could devour her unborn concept and devour her to reconstitute himself.
  • Deities in general work this way, as time is not an issue in the spirit world, much less something they really had to worry about aat all. This is especially true of Rota Fortuna, who planned fate and all of its many branches.
• Long-Lived: According to Word of God, Granny Smith is over two hundred years old and is the longest-living pony in Equestria.
• Loose Canon:
  • A few chapters are explicitly stated by Word of God to be "optional canon" and the readers are allowed to decide for themselves rather or not they're part of the canon or just interesting What If? situations.
  • Pinkie Pie's side story is even more so, to the point it can be even a completely different story if the readers so choose.
    • This may not be the case anymore, thanks to "The Foal of Omelas" chapter.
• Lost Technology: Early on in the series, it was shown that the Canterlot museums had technology that seems that are so advanced that they look seem to come from our' (read humans). It turns out that the technology is from G2, whose technology had developed so far to become compatible to the human world. However, when they suffered a magical apocalypse when creating G3 world (AKA: Th Lost Age, Age of Dreams), their technology became regressed. A potential future shows a time capsule being uncovered and allowing much of it to be regained through a ton of hard work.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Princess Gaia puts ponies, mainly foals, into a trance where they experience their greatest desires... And the next chapter, she comes for the readers too...
• Ludicrous Precision: Twilight is able to time events to the point second in her head. She explains that some of the more complicated spells require that kind of mental precision in order to cast.
• Mad Goddess: Princess Gaia/Nightmare Whisper.

M

• Magic Feather: Twilight realizes after she activated the Element Of Magic without the physical Element that all the physical Elements Of Harmony do is provide a medium for their power to flow through. Turns out friendship is just as good of a medium. Sadly this isn't quite the case as they aren't able to repeat it, though Dark World shows it can be done.
• Magic Versus Science: Discussed in Clover's Gaiden Story by Twilight, Pinkie, Zecora, and Luna. The Earth Ponies of the golden age had forgotten of magic, despite having a near 20th century era technological society, while the Pegasi and Unicorns had extremely primitive technology, but had equally advanced civilizations based on their magics, and thus both were surprised to find it was possible for the other to exist (though subverted in that it didn't result in conflict). Luna praises the present civilization for having advanced both at the same rate and blended the two to result in a civilization that's in some ways superior to the Golden Age, if not as advanced. She also mentions Strife once set up a conflict between equally advanced civilizations, one based entirely on magic and the other on technology, and had Judicium, Concept of Judgment and Balance, decide who was correct in their assumption they were superior. Judicium judged that magic and science were equals, something Strife's experiment proved correct.
• Main Character Final Boss: Downplayed. Nightmare Eclipse is the final boss of the Dark World arc. She is a future version of Twilight, a corrupted alicorn who has learned time magic and is using it to keep the Dark World timeline in a 1,000-year "Groundhog Day" Loop to punish Discord -the former Big Bad- for all eternity. Every time the current Twilight and her friends have defeated Discord, Nightmare Eclipse finds some way to corrupt that Twilight into another Nightmare Eclipse, absorbs her to increase her own power, and then begins the loop again with new versions of Twilight and her friends. After defeating her and finally breaking the loop, Twilight fuses with her to become a fully ascended alicorn: Princess Amicitia.
• Make Way for the New Villains:
  • Subverted in "Origins". While Discord does eat Havoc's Avatar, it was Cadence who actually mortally wounded him and Havoc's now completely insane Avatar let him do it, and its explicitly stated Discord is less dangerous than him due to only getting a faction of the Avatar's power since it was dying at the time. That and its debatable how much of a villain Havoc was.
  • Also subverted by Rancor in Dark World. While she did mortally wound Discord and steal Destruction's power from him, she had no intention of replacing him as the Big Bad. She just wanted to take Destruction's power so it could actually be used for it's proper purpose instead of for his sadistic games and just walks out of the story as soon as she gets it.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right:
  • Any time in the "Groundhog Day" Loop that Twilight and company beat Discord and saved the world, Nightmare Eclipse would interfere and cause everything to go to Tartarus so Twilight would cross the Despair Event Horizon and become her.
  • The Hooviet Empire was supposed to implode about 20 years ago, freeing the Deer from their oppression and preventing them from causing any more harm to the world. When the Shadow of Chernobull escaped Pandora's Box and into the physical world, it became General Admiral Makarov and altered history so the Hooviets never fell and grew back into a dangerous superpower once again. The goal of the Rebels is to Set Right What Once Went Wrong by erasing Makarov from time.
• Mama Bear:
  • Princess Gaia's birds come to take away Dinky Doo as they've done with most of the other foals in Ponyville. Ditzy Doo (AKA Derpy Hooves) proceeds to grab a mop and use it as a quarterstaff to beat the living tar out of them for trying to get to her daughter.
  • It turns darker when Cheerilee, as Princess Gaia's Knight, is willing to use lethal force to keep the foals in her care safe and happy inside their Lotus Eater Machines. Princess Gaia herself later realizes the power of this trope and invites Ditzy Doo to become another Knight so she can extend that fierce protective instinct toward all of Princess Gaia's "little foals."
    • This seems to be Princess Gaia's policy now, at least in the Loose Canon. She extends her offer of knighthood to both Trixie and Twilight's mothers, trying to turn their maternal instincts to her benefit. Though we discover in "Playtime" that Ditzy didn't accept.
  • Do not harm or try to do anything to Pip if Luna will find out. Fluttershy and Fluttercruel find this out the hardway, even if she shows restraint.
  • Even though she's insane, Screw Ball/Golden Tiara breaks out of the insane asylum and kills a Timber Wolf and a Cockatrice with her bare hooves to try and get to Diamond Tiara when she realizes her daughter needs her.
  • Remember Mimic's Dying Moment of Awesome? She did it because she's Celestia and Luna's mortal mother and she was protecting them from Discord.
  • Exploited by Discord to make his earthly mother, Shady, into his loyal The Dragon. Unfortunately for him, she cared about him enough to see how far he had gone and finally help stop him.
  • Dark World!Fluttershy. Even though Fluttercruel tortured her in her own mind for five hundred years to the point she wanted to die just to end both her own torment and what Fluttercruel was doing to others, she still loves her daughter with all her heart (in part due to seeing that Fluttercruel honestly believed said torture was showing Fluttershy love). She helps her friends stop her for the same reasons as Shady did, then followed it up by going into the Draconequi domain and standing up to the Draconequi and Havoc to protect her. Havoc is so impressed by her actions he lets her take Fluttercruel with her for reconditioning.
  • A mortal pegasus though it would be a bright idea to kill the son of the Love Goddess Venus (who's concept includes maternal love). Venus proceeds to descend to the mortal plain in an Unstoppable Rage so great that the earth shakes and blow a heart-shaped hole through the pegasus' chest before she can even attack. Then reduce her house to a molten crater as a follow up. According to some legends of the even, she didn't stop there and had Pandora erase the mare's soul from existence or destroyed her identity and made her a new child to repay the one the mare killed. According to Celestia, the legend doesn't do justice to what Venus really did.
    Celestia: For if a mortal mother's fury is terrible, imagine the wrath of a mother with the power of creation at her hooves.
  • Don't threaten unborn souls in Fauna Luster's presence. It will clop her off.
• Manchild:
  • Fluttercruel has a habit of throwing childish temper tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Then again, she is pretty much a newborn, something Fluttershy picked up on, causing her to treat her like a child whenever she does something wrong.
    Fluttercruel: Shut up shut up! You don't know anything so stop spewing dragon fewmets like you know me or someone you met twice!
    Fluttershy: Oh my my my, such language. We're going to have to clean that mouth out.
    Fluttercruel: YOU WOULDN'T!
  • Ironically, Luna's second side story reveals that Fluttershy pretty much became the Alicorn equivalent when she turned into Princess Gaia.
• The Man in the Mirror Talks Back: Fluttershy and Fluttercruel talk back and forth with each other, even using the mirror as a way to show that they're two separate entities.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • Rancor betraying Dark World!Discord results in this reaction.
  • Another occurs when the group realizes Dark World!Pinkie Pie has been Secretly Dying since her redemption (though Applejack and Rarity more that the OTHERS found out). Even Odyne!Cruelty stops in her tracks from shock.
  • The biggest comes when the Nameless Passenger reveals her true identity.
  • Happens in Misfit's portion of the Wedding Arc when Professor Kabuto injects himself with the potion that lets him go One-Winged Angel. Misfit because he'd proved dangerous already and the don't know what he just did, and the Interviewers (and possibly Weaver, Diver, and Bombardier) because they do know.
  • Diamond absorbing the Spirits of Dark Magic naturally leads to this.
• Mass Super-Empowering Event:
  • Sort of. It's revealed that the G2 Apocalypse spread and enhanced the effect of the Rainbow of Light making animals near it more intelligent, granting groups of cows and other lifestock, as well as Griffons and Keylongs (which ultimately merged with the Griffon species over the centuries), sentience.
  • It also mutated the Dazzlings into the Sirens and gave them some of their powers.
• Master of Illusion: Princess Gaia, aka Nightmare Whisper. She is called the "Kindest of Lies" after all.
• Mayfly–December Romance:
  • Referenced by Rarity in her Reharmonizing chapter; she knows about Spike's crush, but is afraid to address it because she knows that by the time he's an adult, she'll already be 'in a rocking chair'.
  • Subverted in Dark World. After a thousand years, Spike's an adult and Rarity hasn't aged a day thanks to her Element of Chaos, meaning once Rarity is free from Discord's control, there's nothing stopping them from hooking up. On top of that, since Rarity is immortal, Spike won't have to outlive her.
  • By the end of the Dark World arc Rarity becomes the Concept of the Mortal Realm! And she and Spike are now married and rulers of the new un-corrupt world.
• May It Never Happen Again: Nightmare Eclipse, the Big Bad of the Dark World arc, has been keeping the timeline in an endless 1,000-year "Groundhog Day" Loop to punish Discord for all eternity. After she is defeated and the loop is finally broken, one iteration of Rainbow Dash — specifically the one Eclipse brainwashed into Nightmare Manacle — ascends to alicornhood and becomes Princess Fidelitas, the Goddess of Breaking Loops and Cycles, with the power to stop any being like Eclipse from ever coming into existence again.
• Meaningful Echo: When ponies are praising Princess Gaia originally, it's because they're brainwashed. In the final chapter, Fluttershy is still praised as Princess Gaia by a lot of ponies her actions actually helped out of genuine love and respect.
• Meanwhile, in the Future…: Played for Laughs in the Shining Armor Arc. Several times in Chapter 20, something Shining comments on will be accompanied by a cutaway to the present (Shining's future) dealing with it. Justified as Shining is living in San Dimas Time, so it really is happening 'meanwhile'.
• Meaningful Rename:
  • After her Heel–Face Turn, Trixie renames herself "the One and Only Trixie", which is what Twilight called her when she guided her to breaking free of Loneliness' clutches.
  • Ascension to godhood is normally accompanied by a new name.
• Merciful Minion: Monarch and Cricket, two Changeling brothers who were sent to kill Trixie while she was leaving Canterlot, ultimately can't bring themselves to tell their superiors she didn't show, which would condemn her to death (having had second thoughts about murdering an innocent mare as it was), instead opting to kill a stray cat and turn the bloody knives in to their superiors claiming they'd done the deed.
• Mercy Kill:
  • Rainbow Dash and Rarity nearly do this to Nightmare Whisper to stop Fluttershy's suffering.
  • Liarjack breaks the curse on Epilogue!Applebloom, which kills her, but that's what she wanted, to die so she could be reunited with her loved ones in the after life.
  • After Shining kills Yablokovodka, one of Makarov's Alicorn Cyborgs, Mother Deer comforts him by assuring him it was an act of mercy and freed the poor pony trapped inside.
• Merged Reality:
  • One of Amicitia's 'Happy Ends' she made was one of these were the Wish Spell worked far better and created this with the Tales reality and G3 reality.
  • During her "End of the World" Special, Apple Bloom uses her temporary omnipotence to make what parts of rumors reality were beneficial, such as Sweetheart's Healing Hands powers becoming real and genetic.
• Merger of Souls:
  • Played With with the Shadows of Existence merging with mortal ponies. The Shadows are only half a soul, so while the merger works it's not two full souls fusing together. This happened quite a bit during the G3 Apocalypse due to Shadows being allowed in to do so in preparation for the new world. And sometimes instead of making a new soul, it's the Light and Shadow of the original pony, in which case they recreate their original soul, though primarily molded by the Light's new Shadow.
  • Played straight with G3 Minty and Star Song. The former was created when Clover's wish resulted in her, her husband, and their son becoming a singular being in body and soul. The latter is the same, being the result of the Dazzlings (at the time all five of them) merging into one due to having the exact same, mutually exclusive collective wish. It's implied the same happened to others who wished for the same exact, mutually exclusive wish.
• Me's a Crowd:
  • The Alicorns and Draconequi can both do this with Avatars and Detachments. However how skilled they are with it varies from god to god, with Luna being incredibly skilled at it. Discord couldn't do so until the present, but he's not very good at it, and loses control of several of his.
  • In the Nightdrake Banneret Villain World timeline, he uses massive amounts of avatars of his child self to do his business.
• Messianic Archetype: Nightmare Whisper thinks of herself as this. And in a way, she is-in the same way the God-Emperor of Mankind is.
• Middle Filly Syndrome:
  • It is strongly implied in the fic that this is the main reason why Trixie became the Jerkass she was before getting better.
  • Its made even worse by that fact that she and her sisters look nearly identical, making it even harder for her to stand out among them.
• Midseason Upgrade: At the end of the Princess Gaia Arc, not only does Fluttercruel formally join the group with her own Element Of Kindness, the mane cast figures out how to channel the Elements of Harmony without the physical Elements themselves, which is not only much more convenient, it means someone stealing the Elements of Harmony won't work anymore. The latter turns out to be Subverted, as it was kinda a fluke.
• Militaries Are Useless: Subverted in The Wedding Arc. Despite most of the Royal Guards being quickly taken out by Chrysalis's manipulations, the survivors quickly rally together and prove very effective in taking out key targets in Chrysalis's operation. Actually proving vital to Canterlot's liberation and Chrysalis's eventual defeat.
• A Million Is a Statistic:
  • Discord is very casual about the genocides he committed and commits.
  • The Reset Button nature that has actually been going on in Dark World is this as well, with but timelines rather than ponies. Effectively making the inhabitants of those timelines even lower than mere statistics. However, while Nightmare Paradox and her Psycho Rangers see no harm in this (except Mirror), those that know of their actions In-Universe treat these crimes with the appropriate amount of horror.
• Mind Manipulation: Discord and Chrysalis both love this, but from opposite views and ways of doing it. Discord inverts a pony's personality and then sends them on their way. Chrysalis doesn't change the pony's personality if not needed, and instead changes their loyalties.
• Mind Rape:
  • Discord's corruption are portrayed thusly, having severe effects on all those he corrupted and leaving long lasting mental scars. He's still using the supernatural type in order to manipulate Diamond Tiara into freeing him, all the while doing the mundane type by asking contradictory questions to keep her torn between rather she's right or wrong, being good or bad, and so on.
  • Fluttercruel accidentally does this to Fluttershy!
  • Luna does this to Fluttershy and Fluttercruel at the end of the Gaia arc as punishment for their wrongdoing.
  • Both Twilight and Rainbow Dash suffer from rather severe cases during the fight with Nightmare Whisper. Fortunately, a memory spell is strong enough to break the effect.
  • Most of "Character Rerailment" is the now Nightmare Diamond Tiara doing this to Silver Spoon in an attempt to convince her she only exists to be her minion. Thankfully, Silver manages to break free.
  • Chrysalis enjoys doing this and forces Applejack to do use her Living Lie Detector powers for this as well. When she's freed, Applejack and Applebloom use the Power of Love to return the favor.
• Mind Screw:
  • The CMC, Spike, and Silver Spoon Time Travelers. They manage to jury-rig a time machine and travel to Generation 1, Generation 3, the real world, and sideways through time. As if that weren't enough, the G3 universe was Retgoned from time, meaning it no longer exists to travel to! Its stated they probably broke half the known laws of physics and (according to Doctor Whooves) several unknown ones!
  • Starlight's trial in the afterlife has many moments of this, such as Starlight being literally in two places at once, something that is this trope for her In-Universe. This was intentional on the part of the writes to show how mortals cannot grasp the nature of the spirit world.
  • The discussion in Shining Armor 13.5 about North and South Ponia, which even in universe is considered this and confuses all present.
  • In Shining Armor 15 Part 1, Shining Armor has a dream involving Pandora. Pandora is the Goddess of Imagination and Hallucinations, and her Realm reflects that, being a nonsensical labyrinth with imaginary creatures running all over the place. And Shining spends the entire dream on the ceiling.
    Shining Armor: ...What the buck?!
  • Time doesn't exist in the spirit world in a conventional fashion. This can make things really weird and confusing.
• Mirrored Confrontation Shot: The cover art for the World Tower chapters of the Rumors Arc have this with Applebloom and Diamond Tiara.
• Mirror Match:
  • The Final Battle of Dark World is between the mane cast and their potential evil future selves (though Pinkie and Fluttershy aren't present and Rarity's counterpart is absent).
  • The Final Battle of the Wedding Arc seems to be this: Princess Cadence vs Queen Cadenza (Alicorn!Chrysalis, who's Alicorn form is Cadence's Evil Twin due to the two being different halves of the original Cadenza) for the title of Changeling Queen.
  • The CMC get faced by a trio of Shadows of Existence assuming their forms during Rumors.
• Mirror World: In the Finale Arc, this is were Alicorn!Applejack, Razarro, and Starlight go to confront Dark World! Nightmare Dash and her other Nightmare friends to save the Interviewers and Shining Armor.
• Misfit Mobilization Moment:
  • During the Wedding Arc, Minuette (a dentist and one of the Master's regenerations), Twinkle Shine (a hair dresser), Lyra (a musician with a human fascination), Bon Bon (a candy maker), and Moth (a reformed Changeling terrified of her own species) end up discovering something is wrong, and formulate a plan to sneak into the castle to find out what's going on. Not only do they succeed, they free Moondancer from Chrysalis' mind control (scoring the heroes first victory in the arc), then resolve to do something about the impending invasion, joined soon after by Lemon Hearts.
  • Next chapter, Prince Blueblood and his fillyfriend Arcane Spell (a castle maid) even up finding somepony (namely Cadence, imprisoned by Queen Chrysalis) trapped underground. Their response is to bust down a crystal wall and then proceed to storm the Wedding Hall with Blueblood of all ponies being the one to lead.
  • Ironically, Misfit Actual also play a major role in fighting Chrysalis. Also counts as their team essentially consists of themselves and any able-bodied pony they can find, including the previously mentioned Blueblood and a group of triplets from a different part of the guard.
  • Invoking this trope is the entire counter plan of the gods during Rumors: picking chosen heroes that are 'nobodies' by the villain's standards and thus wouldn't be expected.
• Missing Backblast: Averted during Shining and Dima's battle against Makarov's golden helicopter. Luckily, when Shining walks into the backblast of a rocket launcher, he has his shields up.
• Mobile Factory: The Storm Empire apparently has these, since their entire operation is mobile. Weapons, equipment, new airships, even action figures, are all produced on their airborne fortresses
• Mood Whiplash:
  • "Happy Cake Adventure" starts with a Stylistic Suck storybook style story told by Pinkie Pie. It ends with another dwelve into the end of the G3 universe.
  • The latest Dark World chapters are rather guilty of this as well. Given where it takes place, it's not all that surprising that any light moments invoke this.
  • The audio adaptation of the Reharmonized series usually ends on an optimistic note. Cue the ominous ending theme "He Watches, He Waits" that reminds us all of Discord's inevitable third coming.
  • Starlight's 7 Dreams/Nightmares chapter. Part one? Her discovering Paradise Estate with her friends and helping Bright Eyes make a plan to use the Rainbow of Light to make a utopia. Part 2? Begins with the end of the world and Starlight discovering she died in the explosion when Mortis comes for her.
  • Clover's has Minty's Dream section transition into Pinkie's reaction to discovering she was Clover's Imaginary Friend given life by the world changing spell.
  • Chapter 16 of Shining Armor. The majority is just ponies being ponies enjoying the country they're in. The tail end of Part 2? Makarov's endgame is revealed to involve'chemical weapons capable of horrifically killing any living thing that breaths it, the Defiant is found with all hands on board dead, and it ends with Makarov successfully outmaneuvering Misfit Actual, capturing them, delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the lot of them, and blowing Running Gag's wing off. According to Word of God preserving this trope was exactly why they were so dead set on not splitting it into three parts.
  • Chapter 21 Part 2 of Shining Armor, while also dealing with Discord and having dark moments, seems to lighten up as the group has some R&R in some peaceful nations...then they end up having to stop a gigantic storm in Caruba, with hundreds if not thousands of lives on the line. And then, Sunset and Ranger die and the rest of the chapter is spent mourning the dead.
• Mook Depletion:
  • Discord in Dark World gradually loses minions as the Arc continues and they fight the heroes.
  • Likewise, Discord and Nightmare Nhilis by the true Final Battle. Though, it turns out they can conjure some mini-bosses while they're at it, not wearing down the heroes to win, but wearing the heroes down so the hero don't have the strength to take the villains alive.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: You've got flawed heroes who, while good, are not perfect (not even Celestia), the Draconequi who have a form of Blue-and-Orange Morality, the Alicorns, who have members that are willing to sacrifice the needs of the few for the needs of the many (for the most part), and Discord's pitch black morality.
• Mordor:
  • Draco Island, where the two gods of Dragonkind, Queen Tiamat and Bahamut live, is apparently this to most species, though for Dragons it's obviously far more pleasant and Tiamat herself is generally nice.
  • Maasailand. A terrifying location with scorpion-shaped towers, red glowing lights, and plenty of scary imagery. Running Gag even describes it as such, only more evil looking. It is also home to a group of extremely nice pacifists who simply consider things other countries seem as symbols of evil as symbols of peace.
• More than Mind Control:
  • It's implied in "Teacher, Teacher" that Cheerilee was so broken by seeing how badly all the young ponies she teaches were broken by Discord that she willingly supports Princess Gaia's sending everyone to their Happy Place. While she was brainwashed to some degree, she does admit a part of her wanted to do it and Princess Gaia talked her into it largely.
  • Sweetie Belle develops Stockholm Syndrome towards Chrysalis, so she needs talked down after being freed from Chryssalis's brainwashing.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • Fluttershy turned out to be far stronger than Fluttercruel ever expected and she ends up the one being browbeat into submission instead. Lucky for her Fluttershy is nice enough to share her body with her.
  • Invoked by Professor Kabuto, who made himself look like easy prey so whoever came after him would be taken off guard by his actual strength.
• Multiple-Choice Chosen: In the finale, Luna sacrifices her physical form (she will eventually regenerate, but it will take quite some time), reducing herself to existing only in the dream world, to briefly awaken ALL OF PONYVILLE (and some of Canterlot and Cloudsdale) to the various timelines they became the Elements of Harmony. The Element of Magic is still extremely scarce with only Celestia, and Moon Dancer present... (Trixie and Gilda don't awaken because they're Elements of CHAOS, which here are more ying-yang than evil opposites the two sets were meant to be used in tandem, but Tirek corrupted the Rainbow of Darkness to his side and had to be destroyed, and was remade into the Alicorn Amulet which was corrupted AGAIN by the First Witch Lilith).
• Multiple-Choice Past:
  • Word of God left where Loneliness came from and what her true motives are intentionally unrevealed so readers could decide those things for themselves.
  • Makarov, mostly because he keeps changing his story...
• Multiple Endings: Kendell2's Ditzy Butterflies: Best Mother and Knight Mysterio's Reharmonizing: Old Wounds give alternate versions of Ditzy's reharmonizing, but both have been declared Loose Canon by Word of God, leaving it up to the readers which one they consider canon, if either.
• Multiple Headcase:
  • In Reharmonization, Discord turned Aloe and Lotus into this.
  • Tiamat, the Queen of the Dragons, has five heads. While each has it's own mind, they never fight though.
  • Yamato no Orochi is mentioned and is Luna's version of Celestia's Orion form.
• Musical World Hypotheses: The Alternate Universe variety, spontaneously bursting into song is treated as perfectly normal In-Universe to the point Twilight is somewhat confused when Celestia mentions this was the proper response to stress in previous ages, leaving Twilight wondering when it WASN'T normal. Also, Luna originally was going to do away with this during the Cosmic Retcon of the G3 universe, but Pinkie and Minty kicking her flank with a musical number changed her mind and she actually thanks Pinkie for doing so later.
• Mutants: The Tales Apocalypse spawned a number of these. The most dangerous seems to be the Dazzlings.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Rarity's reaction to yelling at Sweetie Belle and nearly hitting Sweetie Belle with a sharp circlet, coming close enough to cut a few hairs in her mane, in a fit of rage.
    Rarity: Reality came down on top of me like Luna's moon fallen from orbit. What had I done? WHAT HAD I DONE-?!
  • Fluttercruel's reaction when her attempt to teach Fluttershy about the crueler side of nature makes her be corrupted instead of helping her.
  • The denizens of Sunny Town have this reaction whenever Applejack's Living Lie Detector gaze forces them to remember their misdeed through Princess Gaia's spell.
  • Rainbow Dash's reaction to how her dealing with Discord's Sadistic Choice turned out.
  • This is basically the default reaction of the Dark World!Mane Six when they're redeemed, though for multiple reasons; Twilight for her actions as Tragedy, Applejack for believing Discord's lies for a thousand years, Rarity for her greed causing her to neglect Sweetie Belle to the point of forgetting she existed, Rainbow Dash for realizing Discord had lied and never ended to destroy Sky Ocean and Cloudsdale should she fail, and Pinkie Pie for her monstrous actions and possibly condemning some of her adopted foals to Hell with her teachings. Fluttercruel even gets one when her possessing Sparkler causes the Discording she was born with to be undone, allowing her to grow a conscience and realize not only were her actions wrong, but what Fluttershy had really been trying to tell her all those years.
  • Dark World!Applejack has this reaction shortly after Twilight gives her and the rest of the Dark World heroes (minus Apple Pie, who settled for Restrained Revenge, and Rainbow Dash, who isn't present) a What T He Hell Hero speech for beating up the dying and powerless Discord. It kicks in when Discord begs them to spare his nieces, Screwball and Diamond/Mad Tiara and she realizes he actually has reason to think they would. The rest have the same reaction eventually, but Applejack seems most effected by it.
    Applejack: Don't ya be stupid! We'd never be savages like— (looks down and sees Discord's blood on her hooves)
  • Starlight has this reaction when she discovers that the "All Wishes Come True" spell would have broken reality.
  • All of Nightmare Eclipse's former Co-Dragons have this reaction when their memories are restored in the fake Ponyville they ended up in. In part because, if Rainbow's presumption is correct, their souls were purified by the six sets of Elements that defeated Eclipse but their bodies weren't, so now they're sane and well aware of every horrific sin they committed.
• Mysterious Watcher: While the mane cast have met them repeatedly, the Interviewer(s) seem to be everywhere something is happening, just observing and documenting. The latest chapter reveals they somehow got their hooves on Razzaroo's Apocalyptic Log (which by all accounts shouldn't even exist anymore), which they give to Twilight Sparkle in The Stinger of that chapter.
• Myth Arc: There's two.
  • Discord's third coming was slowly built up through the actions of Diamond Tiara's.
  • Dark World was built up through Vision Quests before the story finally returns to it.

N

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Seems to be a natural part of being a Draconequi, who represent Nature's Fury. So far we've heard of Discord, Destruction/Disaster, Dispute/Strife, Pandora/Pandemonium, Havoc, and Entropy. Entropy is also commonly revered to as "Mother The-End-Of-All-Things" by her children. Pandemonium's birth name, Desire, is an Odd Name Out in a way.
• Necessary Fail:
  • In the Finale arc, Diamond Tiara's mother is shown that if she had never gone insane, she would have become Spoiled Rich from "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", since that tragedy helped humble her and teach her how important her family and friends are.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Fluttercruel honestly wanted to teach Fluttershy something important for her own good, to let her learn the cruel part of nature, it ends up corrupting her for real as opposed to being just brainwashed by Discord. Fluttercruel gets absolutely horrified realizing this.
    • She also gets Fluttershy, and herself, drunk, which Word of God admits may have had something to do with their behavior following and made Fluttershy more vulnerable to the darkness than she otherwise would be.
  • While it's Loose Canon, it's implied that the Mane Cast are, unknowingly, being manpulated into commanding Princess Gaia's army via a boardgame they're playing with Gaia herself. If this is believed, Rainbow Dash unwittingly guides Gaia's army into "Gaiafying" Gilda.
    • If this is true, it is quite possible that Trixie and Twilight Sparkle are unwittingly providing a front for Princess Gaia to brainwash their own mothers into being her knights.
  • In the aftermath of a battle, your friend-suddenly-turned-enemy lays indefinitely helpless before your group. To help console each other on this tragedy and related circumstances, one mentions that it is not too late to restore or redeem this friend. If you think that taking matters into your own hooves and executing your petrified former friend, Discord, by pulverization is not a logical next step, you are smarter than Galaxia, whose deed costs her life, sets the stage for a 1000 years of tyranny, and worst of all, could have been easily avoided.
  • During the battle between the Dark World!Elements of Harmony and Discord's remaining minions, Spike has to choose between helping Rarity and Twilight, both of whom got separated from the main group while fighting Fluttercruel and Angry Pie (respectfully). He figures Rarity will need more help and goes after her; in fact, not only has Rarity by this point killed Fluttercruel, but Twilight ends up overpowered by Angry Pie, who rips out her Element and leaves her for dead.
  • Applejack deciding to turn down her Living Lie Detector powers in Canterlot to respect other's privacy due to how important keeping secrets can be there. Not only does it prevent her from detecting Chrysalis, she ends up being brainwashed. Chrysalis, being Chrysalis takes time to rub it in her face.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Discord's corruption actually helps the Mane Cast overcome pre-existing problems with their psyches and improve for the better. It also helps Trixie discover she's the second Element Of Magic and join the group as a Sixth Ranger.
  • Not to mention the fact he made the other Sixth Ranger, Fluttercruel, in the first place!
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Princess Luna is a lighthearted version. For some reason, she wrote a play where she makes a Deal with the Devil with three Earth Ponies, only one of which made the wise choice and was spared while she claimed the souls of the other two. Interestingly enough, this was actually correct about the canon version as well.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
  • Dark World!Discord had an army of these as Mooks, including ninja-pirate-mutant-killer bees, a giant-cyborg-spider-vampire, and 300 of Goblin Cowboy Samurai.
  • It's mentioned in "Family Bonding", he actually had a secret army of Ninja Pirate Zombie Robots, but they were reactivated by a rogue mage and destroyed by Celestia, Luna, and the guard one thousand five hundred years ago.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Discord abandons Nythy to his fate. Justified, as he was furious with him for nearly doing the same to Diamond Tiara earlier.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • The Valeyard gives a brief one to Dark World!Derpy in 'The Ultimate Foe' while having all the heroines disabled and (if nothing is done) slowly dying. It backfires when his focus on Derpy distracts him from the others, allowing them to counter his attack. This, along with everything else he did to her, drives her over the Rage Breaking Point and into Tranquil Fury, at which point she beats him to death (since his regeneration template had been destroyed, this means the Valeyard incarnation is Killed Off for Real).
  • 'Angry-Cruel Love' has Angry Pie dish one out to Twilight, ending it by ripping her Element of Magic out.
  • 'The Real Hoof Blues' has Proto-Nightmare Twilight deliver one to Angry Pie in revenge. It's so brutal the heroes have to step in to hold her back and when she's brought back to her senses, Twilight wonders how many times over she'd have killed Angry Pie if she weren't immortal.
  • A post Heel–Face Turn Nightmare Bannerette (the same one that served Eclipse) ends his fight with Abandon this way. He stomps the head of the Eldritch Abomination into the ground, finishing him off with a Finishing Stomp that crushes his skull.
• No Immortal Inertia:
  • When Liarjack breaks the curse on Epilogue!Applebloom, she instantly starts aging until she turns to dust. Of course, this was what Applebloom was wanting to happen, so she can finally die and be reunited with her family in the afterlife.
  • According to Luna, this is what happens to anyone wielding the Rainbow of Darkness/Elements of Chaos when they lose them or give them up, as it only regenerates damage not create new life force. The Rainbow of Light/Elements of Harmony provide The Ageless style immortality and merely cause their user to grow normally from then on out.
• No Kill like Overkill:
  • How Discord killed Mimic for knocking out his tooth.
  • This is more or less General Admiral Makarov's response to anything.
• No Medication for Me:
  • According to Word of God, this caused some versions of Golden Tiara to go insane, but is subverted with the main one as she did't get medication until it was too late.
  • Discord apparently did this once.
• No Name Given:
  • Loneliness' never actually names herself, that's just what Twilight calls her and she doesn't seems too fond of it. What her real name, if she actually has one, is left open.
  • The Father of the Alicorns is never named. According to Word of God, His name can't be pronounced by mortals.
  • General Admiral Makarov's true form is never actually named outside of the Rebels nickname for it (the Shadow of Chernobull). This is because Pandora never got the chance to name him before he went berserk and even when she shows up, she simply calls him 'son,' 'junior,' or 'Nameless.'
• Non-Standard Game Over: When the CMC free the ponies trapped in the Redlight District, the whole place implodes into Oblivion and they receive a mocking message invoking this trope from Umbra Breeze.
  Umbra Breeze]: [[spoiler:"Congratulations, You Have Uncovered A Hidden Death. Tis A Sad Thing, That Your Adventures Have Ended Here. Trophy Unlocked? Oblivion!"
• Noodle Incident:
  • Applejack mentions a rather crazy adventure Applebloom had when they visit Canterlot that somehow got the little filly temporarily turned into a Sea Pony.
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders somehow managing to summon a fire elemental. Topped by them apparently having a spectacular time travel adventure that we only get tibits of.
  • The last time Twilight got drunk. Apparently, Ponyville had to be reassured Discord hadn't come back afterwards.
  • Luna's conflict with a revived Tirek for dominion over the night over 1000 years ago. All that's been revealed is the Rainbow Of Darkness brought him Back from the Dead, he fought Luna, and was defeated, after which Luna claimed his chariot as her own.
  • Celestia has mentioned in two different stories of cases were an assassin trying to kill her actually knocked on her bedroom door out of politeness.
  • Apparently, around the time Dark World!Discord took over, every sentient cow somehow managed to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. Other than one being seen hanging out with Ponythulhu, that's all we find out about this.
  • The Dark World!Mane Cast tend to mention random crazy events at various points that have happened, such as a time when Discord flipped everypony's gender for awhile or that Rarigreed once had a Pony-Eating Rock for a pet until Angry Pie thought it laughed at her.
  • Shining Armor tends to mention events like this (given his Deadpan Snarker personality), such as a time he ended up accidentally getting having a misunderstanding with a Neighponese Samurai at a party leading to a drunk Neighponese Prince trying to start a fight with him.
  • Corporal Ellis Bitter Apple tends to tell stories to this effect, since we ultimately only get snippets.
  • In each of the Gaiden chapters, the pony narrating mentions an incident where Patch ate poisonous mushrooms, which was why they all had trouble believing her about Paradise Estate.
• No Ontological Inertia: Taking a cue from Dungeons & Dragons, this trope is Played With. Permanent Magic's effects remain in place so long as the spell is active, but go away when the spell is broken, while Instantaneous Magic is finished once its cast and the result becomes the new norm for target and thus subverts this trope. The former is easier to perform than the latter is, which is why Discord, despite his power, only uses the former normally out of sheer laziness. However, it should be noted Permanent Magic can still result in serious injury or even death from secondary results, as shown with Silver Spoon being left gravely injured after the day of Discord.
• No Place for Me There: This seems to be the ultimate outcome of a Nightmare actually achieving their goal; a world were they themselves have no place, often due to the very crimes they caused to make it that way. Nightmare Mirror's world has no deceit, meaning she can't hide from the horrible crimes she committed did to achieve it and turns herself in to the Princesses. Nightmare Granfalloon (one of them, anyway) recreates a stable version of G3 by brainwashing everyone and rewriting reality, leaving only herself unchanged, at which point she turns the spell on herself and remakes herself into a copy of G3 Pinkie just like she did everyone else because there was no place for someone like her in it, and her friends wouldn't be happy without G3 Pinkie there with them.
• Not Hyperbole:
  • Shining sometimes has moments like this due to being a Weirdness Magnet, but one in particular is describing the Mammoth Tanks the Hooviets use.
    Shining Armor: Ok, so we weren't dead, but we're going to have to fight against two tanks' who's schematics actually say 'designed to kill everything.' That was not sarcasm, they literally say that. Except in Roedinian.
  • Applejack's threat to have the unicorns turn Twilight into a filly so she could spank her if she does something stupid during her solo mission during the Wedding, turns out to be this.
• Not Brainwashed:
  • Twilight initially assumes that the New Fluttershy is just a discorded Fluttershy, this backfires when she uses the memory spell to no effect, instead receiving a headbutt to the face from an irate Fluttershy. Notably, it has failed both times that it has been used on her.
  • The Valeyard in Dark World is revealed to not be the Discorded Doctor, but instead a pure evil regeneration of him when Twilight tries the Memory Spell on him, only for him to No-Sell it and nearly cause a copy of his personality to replicate over hers.
  • Played For Laughed, as during the Wedding Arc, with ponies brainwashed left and right, the heroes jump to conclusions a few times, thankfully this just results in some cut-away gag of them patching each other up after the gratuitous unseen fight scene.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
  • Shining Armor 18 has General Admiral Makarov erased from existence, altering the world Shining Armor, Minuette, and Cadence find themselves in considerably, including altering characters like Bond's entire personality and adding his now alive parents to the cast.
  • The Wedding Arc chapters "Orange Butterfly" and "Sisters" has this happen: Scootaloo learns to fly and earns her Cutie Mark. Sweetie Belle also seems to have learned some magic from Chrysalis while under her power.
  • The Rumors Arc ends with Apple Bloom rewriting history to Set Right What Once Went Wrong throughout it, changing the timeline considerably.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • Loneliness is pretty much the queen of this trope. We don't know what she really is, what her true motivations are, or even how she came to be in the first place. Her true form, if she even has one is never revealed. And she's much scarier because of it.
  • One of her forms is suspiciously similar to a Draconequus like Discord. Then again that could be her taking inspiration from Twilight's imagination.
  • Shining Armor's Arc use multiple versions of this trope for Psychological Horror. Throughout the first part, strange things keep happening to Shining Armor but there's nothing logically there to cause trouble...then we find out he's being stalked by a nigh-unstoppable spectral wolf seeking to Ret-Gone him and realize all those incidents were it. After Shining learns of it, his growing paranoia over it turns the arc into a type two, as it's never clear rather the wolf really is there or not. There's also the fact that at this point just what it really is and where it came from is unknown inuniverse and out.
    • There's also a bit of this from the fact that Makarov's true form has never been shown in details except for glimpses.
  • Bright Eyes' Gaiden chapter has a Type 3. Throughout the Nightmare part, Bright Eyes keeps getting the feeling of a malevolent presence there with her whenever she's emotionally vulnerable from guilt or fear. At the end, it turns out this wasn't just her fear of facing her past, but D___t's Shadow of Existence stalking her, waiting for a chance to steal her soul and infant Concept to reconstitute himself.
• Not Quite Dead: As of the Finale Arc, turns out Nightmare Eclipse's Co-Dragons weren't destroyed upon their defeat but simply (somehow) lost their memories, living in a fake Ponyville. They've also had their souls purified, though their bodies weren't.
• Not So Above It All:
  • A major theme is that the Princesses are not infallible. And can also be silly at times.
  • Grogar apparently enjoyed the mocking play made by Discord about him. He also apparently joined forces with Discord to vaporize a minion who suggested a Beard of Evil looks stupid.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • In a rather bizarre version, Applejack ends up having this with herself. To prevent herself from going Nightmare in the event this universe breaks off from the main one, she ends up meeting her Orangejack self and at first, they don't get along at all, but gradually discover how much they have in common, such as being hardworkers and how much they care about their family and loved ones. Then again, this was actually the point.
  • Dark World!Spike figures out this is what Discord was trying to do by removing the spell keeping his instincts under control, Discord was trying to prove they were the same, that they couldn't beat their base nature and be different from it. Spike proves him wrong. In an epic fashion.
  • Fluttershy realizes that in someways she and Chrysalis are alike in terms of how both in their insanity were so focused on one side of nature that they rejected the other side.
  • Dark World!Fluttercruel tries this on Rarity twice, first about her willingness to kill then with their respective mooks. Rarity will have none of it.
  • Professor Kabuto tries this with Garnet, due to both being medical personae. Garnet does not like being compared to him. He later notes Chrysalis more or less surrounded herself with ponies who represented different aspects of her own personality.
  • Tirek and Majesty come to a mutual understanding that they're similar in their power, ruthlessness, and in some ways savageness. The different is Tirek loves himself above all else, while Majesty loves her friends, subjects, and family above all else.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: Subverted with the Alicorns and Draconequi, which at first appear to be this, but that was mainly due to being in an extremely stressful, difficult situation none of them are happy about when first shown, and then a war between them soon after. In actuality, they tend to get along perfectly fine and do their jobs well together.
• Nuclear Mutant: While the blast wasn't nuclear, the Tales Apocalypse is more or less depicted as a magical nuclear holocaust. As a result, many of the mutations spawned from it can come off as this. Especially the Dazzlings, who were normal sea ponies before the blast mutated them into the powerful sirens they are in canon.
• The Nudifier: When he was a baby, Spike received a slight magic surge from Twilight and ended up accidentally doing this to Shining Armor with his magic fire, sending his uniform to Princess Celestia.
• #1 Dime: A particularly chilling subversion in the Bad Future; Twilight Tragedy notes having a strange obsession with a pair of potted plants, always feeling that it's of utmost importance to keep them watered and in the sun at all times. Why is this? Because they used to be her parents. Thankfully they're freed in the end.

O

• Offered the Crown: Happened to Celestia and Luna after defeating Discord the first time.
• Offing the Offspring:
  • Discord almost made Silver Spoon's father do this.
  • Screwball tried to kill Diamond Tiara when she first went insane. She doesn't remember doing this until Discord restores her sanity. This is rewritten in Applebloom's Cosmic Retcon so she tried to injure her.
  • Derpy's biological mother tried to drown her for her eyes and Speech Impediment. Applebloom rewrote it so she 'only' got her lost in the woods.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • A repeatedly mentioned even was Luna fighting a resurrected Tirek for dominion over the night. She won and took his chariot as a prize, which was the one she used on Nightmare Night.
  • Queen Tiamat vs the Hooviet Army. The Hooviets never stood a chance. In Tirek's Origins Episode, it's mentioned that the Centaur's army of dragon killers fared no better, but likewise isn't seen.
  • Minty Pie's Hero of Another Story adventure in the Dark World.
  • It's mentioned at the end of Clover's Gaiden story that Luna and Celestia had to defeat one of the Eldritch Abominations that escaped Tartarus in an unseen adventure. It's later shown in a Loose Canon story, which featured another one of these with the Guard defeating the cult that released it offscreen. Celestia also states events like this happen from time to time (as Shining Armor's story reveals, there's an actual protocol for calling in the Princesses), and the Mane Six are only actually summoned if the Elements of Harmony are required to defeat a threat.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Pinkie Pie, of course. After her Split-Personality Merge, she learns to weaponize this.
• Off the Rails:
  • Doing this to Nightmare Eclipse's carefully crafted "Groundhog Day" Loop was the entire reason Rancor was thrown into it.
  • The Rumors Parasites can only be cured by convincing their host to do this to the Rumor they're based on because it's seriously out of character for them, trying to derail the scenario in other ways will buy time, but can't actually end it.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Both Nightmare Whisper and the undead foal in her crystal heart have this reaction when Fluttercruel's Element of Kindness awakens.
  • Fluttercruel has this reaction when she accidentally reveals herself to Celestia, on account of being the "daughter" of Celestia's archenemy. Celestia nearly face hoofs in response, as she's really sick and tired of everypony being afraid of her when they first meet. Though her inner thoughts reveal she would have reacted on instinct had she not sensed Fluttercruel's Element Of Kindness.
  • Discord, in the past before he became an Evil Overlord, gets this when Luna drags him off to face his parents. Considering his father is the embodiment of mass destruction and one of his teeth is twice Discord's size, this is a pretty reasonable response.
  • In Bright Eyes' Gaiden story, Twilight and company have this reaction to realizing Zecora overheard all the stories. Thankfully, the Zebra has a belief in Reincarnation so she accepts the revelations rather easily.
  • Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox has 'the Hydra wasn't the doozy' flashbacks upon realizing that the apparent 'last chance all or nothing assault' the Bearers did to her and her Nightmares was the set up to their real final attack...and she just allowed Discord to distract her long enough for Twilight to charge it.
  • The Interviewers have one when it turns out, for the same reason he's immune to Makarov's Charm Person ponies, their normal 'ponies don't realize their presence is strange' status doesn't work on Shining.
• Oh, My Gods!:
  • Celestia and Luna's names are used like this. Except by them, who being the Physical Godesses everypony else does this too, say "our mother and father" or "our parents" instead.
  • Draconequi tend to use their mother, Entropy, in the same fashion. They also sometimes refer to her as "Mother The-End-Of-All-Things"
  • Changelings use Queen Rosedust.
• Oh, No... Not Again!:
  • In Dark World, Apple Computer is informed his children had to save somepony from pony-eating rocks. His reaction is simply to state in frustration that "Ah thought we got rid of those things."
  • In the Shining Armor Arc, Minuette has this reaction to Private Running Gag getting attacked by a cat, which is apparently a common occurrence.
  • When the Misfit Units and the Doctor end up being threatened by a group of Hooviets, this is Shining's reaction:
    Shining Armor: Ugh, great. We're under attack...AGAIN! *Head Tree*
  • Also happens when the third of Makarov's Co-Dragons cuts his riot shield in half, the first time happening with a chainsaw wield cyborg Diamond Dog.
  • Happens again after Makarov is erased from existence and he finds he still ended up having to deal with an Eldritch Abomination, complaining that he thought dealing with the Shadow of Chernobull would be the end of that.
• The Omnipotent:
  • The Elders are this, being so immensely powerful that their sheer power alone would destroy the universe should they enter it personally rather than an Avatar. And Havoc said even an Avatar of his strong enough to defeat Discord would level Equestria's east coast just by manifesting. On a few occasions, they've shown the ability to alter what's considered reality with a word. Entropy is capable of erasing even deities from existence just by saying "You don't exist", and the other Elders are capable of easily willing themselves back into it should she do it to one of them, and small bit of Fauna Luster's power obliterated the Windigos as the Fires of Friendship. However, they are big supporters of free will, and this combined with the damage they could potentially cause, means they normally act from behind the scenes.
  • While fixing the damage caused by the Rumors, Apple Bloom briefly becomes this. According to Word of God, she's the most powerful Titan who has ever or will ever exist. She's so powerful even Discord can do nothing against her.
• Once is Not Enough:
  • Twilight assumed that Loneliness had been destroyed when she used the Memory Spell on Trixie. She was wrong and ends up being impaled for it. It takes Trixie blowing Loneliness up twice in a row to permanently destroy her.
  • Defied by Bright Eyes who's Genre Savvy enough from watching horror films to be aware of this trope and impales Cruel Eyes/D___t's Shadow twice (the second time through the heart), then vertically bisects his head with enough force to leave her sword embedded in his chest, just to be sure.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Pinkie Pie does a heroic version during the Battle in the Center of the Mind with Angry Pie by merging with Pinkamena to become her G1 counterpart, Surprise. It's a lot more badass than it sounds.
  • Loneliness does this after Trixie's memories are restored, turning into a monstrous Mix-and-Match Critter (heavily similar to a draconequus). She takes on one final form after this, the Great and Powerful Trixie.
  • Another heroic example-when Discord's mind games finally break her, Luna turns back into Nightmare Moon...and the process causes her to remember how kindly her sister treated her Quirky Miniboss Squad, which allows Luna's personality to remain intact and in full control of her abilities as the Mare In The Moon.
  • Fluttershy of all ponies does the evil version in the second half of Fluttercruel's staring chapter, turning into an alicorn named Princess Gaia.
  • Cheerilee gets her own transformation as Princess Gaia's Knight.
  • It's implied that this happens to any pony that accepts a Princess' power (ie. Gaia's knights, Luna's guards, etc.).
  • And now, Gaia's been forced into it, after Applejack forced her to confront that she's lying to herself. Everyone, meet Nightmare Whisper.
  • Princess Celestia is revealed to be able to do this (maybe), creating a giant fire monster modeled off Orion.
  • When Misfit Actual confronts Kabuto, he injects himself with a serum that transforms him into a giant centipede like creature.
    • Queen Chrysalis' predecessor Queen Cocoon also performed this trope, with Kabuto's being based off hers, due to him having been the one to alter her to allow it in the first place.
  • Abandon does this after Rarity is purified revealing his true form and shedding his Creepy Doll disguise. 'Spike' counters by revealing his true form, a post Heel–Face Turn Nightmare Bannerette (the same one who had worked with Nightmare Eclipse).
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • Applejack is revealed to be this, as her real name is Abigail Jacqueline, but only Luna actually calls her that.
  • General Admiral Makarov's true form is only known as the Shadow of Chernobull, a nickname the rebels seem to have given him. He actually doesn't have a name of his own because he went berserk before Pandora could give him one.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Zecora was able to shake off Discord's influence by herself, and Scootaloo managed to avoid being Discorded entirely. Except not with Zecora, that's just what people believed.
  • Applejack's Living Lie Detector powers protect her from Princess Gaia's Lotus-Eater Machine, but she then awakes to find everypony else trapped in her illusion. The similarity to Twilight's situation when they were all Discorded doesn't escape her either.
• Only the Chosen May Wield:
  • The Elements of Harmony, naturally, but also their Chaotic counterparts, the Elements of Chaos. However, there's a bit of a twist: worthiness is embodying the attribute, not necessarily embodying it positively, but the Element can only be used to their fullest potential if they do. Further more, following being turned into their current form, the Elements of Harmony draw power directly from Fauna Luster, who can withhold her power and render the combined form of them unusable unless replaced with something else, such as sheer extremism. The corrupted versions also have different names, such as the corrupted Element of Magic/Friendship being called Domination and the corrupted Element of Fantasy being called Deceit.
  • After retrieving Cupid's bow, Lovestruck (Cupid's successor and Reincarnation) is instructed to bring it to her adopted mother Venus. Due to it previously being used for evil by the False Princesses, Venus and several of her siblings put an enchantment on it so that only someone worthy of it can so much as move it to prevent this from happening again.
  • The Alicorn Amulet in this verse is an evil version, as it will only allow those it chooses to use it. As Sonata found out the hard way, trying to use it otherwise can end badly if you're not strong enough to forcibly subjugate it. Trixie is considered such because she's descended from its creator, and it'd actively tried to bring her to it for years.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: For the readers, something seems wrong with Twilight when she starts acting like a Jerkass at a party at Canterlot Castle during what would seem at first glance to be her time before going to Ponyville. However, this is intentional, as a tip off about the nature of the current reality, since a few seconds later, she somehow finds herself talking to Smartie Pants.
• Opponent Switch: The Dark World!Mane Cast do this for their second fight with Paradox's Psycho Rangers with Derpy and the newly arrived and recharged Princesses fighting Nightmare Manacle, Applejack fighting Nightmare Whisper, Twilight taking on Nightmare Granfalloon, Apple Pie and Spike holding off Nightmare Mirror, Rarity battling Nightmare Banneret, and Ender Dash keeping Nightmare Paradox busy. While it doesn't make it a Curbstomp Battle, it evens the odds due to the new match ups countering the Nightmares' powers more effectively and ultimately forces Paradox to recall her Nightmares back into herself as opposed to the Curbstomp Battle the Nightmares dished out before.
• Opposite Day: Epilogue!Discord asks Twilight Tragedy if it's this when he shows a fleeting moment of empathy for someone else. Hilariously, she replies that no, it's not, that's next week.
• Origins Episode:
  • The Origins Arc serves as this for Discord, Celestia, and Luna as well as the Windigos.
  • 'A Fading Future' explains the origins of Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox.
  • 16.5 of the Shining Armor Arc is one for General Admiral Makarov. Or rather the backstory the Shadow of Chernobull made for him.
  • Origins: Queen Chrysalis serves as one for Chrysalis.
  • "The Birth of King Sombra" explains both Sombra's origins and how he and the Crystal Empire fit into the POV universe.
  • Wedding: Kabuto is partially this for Kabuto, explaining some of his backstory: he's the son of one of the Changeling's greatest Alchemists and bio-engineers who raised him to exceed himself. His father was evidently killed by one of his own creations going berserk. It also explains that he's well over a century old and artificially extended his life span.
  • 'The Dazzlings' is this for...well, the Dazzlings/Sirens. They were sea ponies and somewhat friendly rival band to Melody's band the Rockin' Beats until the Apocalypse happened, mutating them into the sirens we see them as in canon and killing two of their band-mates and sisters. Now ostracized by society for either their monstrous appearance or their support of the Wish Spell, they manage to befriend the Rockin' Beats and survive together until a lynch mob attacks them. As the group is being brutalized, until Adagio awakens their Magic Music, resulting in their Start of Darkness and them becoming the villainous sirens from canon.
  • A Rainbow Discovers the Truth turns out to be one for Nightmare Eclipse's Nightmare Manacle.
  • Tirek's Gaiden story "The History of Tirek" serves as this for him and the Moochick. And Ponykind itself, shocking how they gained sapience.
  • Sunset Shimmer got one, showing how she ended up as Celestia's apprentice.
  • Starlight Glimmer also has one, showing her Start of Darkness.
  • Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Though ironically, it's about them being happy as kids rather than a Start of Darkness.
  • Queen Majesty gets her own, which eventually collides with Tirek's.
• Organic Technology: The Deer Rebels use magically grown fungus as the power supply for their vehicles.
• Our Angels Are Different: Angels are described as being mortals who earned their wings with good works, mortals who took a burden after their death, or spirits made to serve as messengers between Concepts and Mortals. Only one Angel has been seen so far in the series, and that's Starlight, an Angel of Death, which seems to be of the second type. We later meet the Scootaloo Army of Awesome, Scootaloos from hundreds of thousands of timelines where their reality was destroyed... who become the personal army of Alicorn Rainbow Dash. Considering Saint is shown to be a title given to mortals who did great things in life, it's possible that Sweet Heart and Dark World!Applebloom may qualify as well. Given Half-Light Noon's statement, they're apparently respected quite a bit.
• Our Demons Are Different: General-Admiral Makarov/The Shadow of Chernobull is commonly called an 'Imagination Demon' but Mother Deer implied it wasn't the case but 'close enough'. The Shining Armor crew also apparently had a run in with a 'fear demon' somewhere in Zebrafrica, but this was a largely Noodle Incident. The creatures sealed in Tartarus are quite demonic in nature, but are actually entities from a destroyed universe. True Demons are Fallen Draconequi like Discord. Makarov being the child of Pandora the Draconequi of Imagination is most likely what Mother Deer meant by 'close enough'.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Most are of the Unfinished Business variety, as was the case with Squire from Patch's Gaiden story. Rarity's golems are also of this variety, as her Element of Desire allows them to use her as a medium to complete it, at least in its purified form. However, some, namely the mane six's loved ones in Dark World, have already gone to Heaven and returned to guide their loved ones back to the light. Considering Apple Bloom had the help of the Father of All Alicorns, it's possible he enabled it.
• Our Hero Is Dead:
  • The G3 timeline ends with Strife killing most of the heroes (Minty and Princess Rarity being the only ones she doesn't kill directly). Though all of them are given Reincarnations in the new timeline in some form, as they weren't on the 'delete' list (Strife only did it to give them the chance to make a Last Stand instead of fading away with no chance to even try and save their world).
  • 'Angry Cruel Love' ends with Dark World!Twilight having her Element ripped out by Angry Pie, being left to die of Rapid Aging and seemingly dying at Trixie's grave.
• Our Souls Are Different: They're composed of two parts, a Light of Existence (the heart) and a Shadow of Existence (the appearance), both containing parts of the pony's personality. If erased from existence, the Shadow ends up in Entropy's Realm (what happens to the Light hasn't yet been stated). What's more, its stated that there's no 'Law of Conservation of Mass' when it comes to souls, meaning the same person can have multiple reincarnations (Dark World!Twilight being the reincarnation of G3 Minty's Light and Minty Pie being the reincarnation of her shadow, for example), but the soul will still exist independently of the reincarnation.
  • Word of God elaborates on it due to later events in the story possibly making things a bit confusing.
    Alexwarlorn: Shadows by themselves are philosophical zombies, memories, thoughts, ideas, but it's all play acting on what they remember when they felt such things...
    Lights of existence... imagine there were traits of yourself that would remain even if you were reincarnated and had whole new experiences.
• Our Titans Are Different: Titans in this universe are mortals who have the might and power of a god, but have not become true deities with the cosmic responsibility that comes with it. Lord Tirek, King Lavan, the Sirens, and Lilith the Witch Queen are all examples of Titans, being mortals who mutated into world threatening sapient cataclysms. Queen Majesty is another, though benevolent, one, and notably seems to be a natural born Titan. Apple Bloom briefly becomes one while fixing the Rumors' damage to reality. According to Word of God, she was the most powerful to ever exist.
• Out-Gambitted: Applejack's view of the Bad Future implies that version of Twilight manages to do this to Discord, simply by writing a letter to herself when she's briefly unbrainwashed, allowing her to regain her memories behind Discord's back and begin plotting his defeat.
• Out-of-Character Alert:
  • A number of these happen during the Wedding Arc due to Chrysalis having brainwashed more ponies.
  • Invoking this trope is how the CMC free ponies from the Rumors curse: making them realize they're behaving out of character and causing the curse to die.
• Outdated by Canon: Pinkie Pie used to be terrified of this happening, with one scene showing her stealing the Doctor's TARDIS in a panic while raving under her breath about stopping the world from being Jossed, and a later scene having her explain that, in her mind, if the Pony POV universe was ever rendered incompatible with canon, then it would cease to exist, an obvious tell of her trauma over the G3 world's erasure. Afterwards, she is told this wouldn't happen if canon does turn out different.
• Outscare the Enemy: During the Final Battle of the Age of Myths (G1), a group of goblins try to attack Paradise Estate...and run into the Crabnasties. They proceed to run away. Fast. Of course then one of Hydia's relatives Ashley scares them back into the battle right afterwards.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • Button Mash from the Rumors Arc due to having gained video game Personality Powers thanks to various factors. The Rumors world is designed to run by horror movie rules, but he's running by video game rules. This makes him a valuable ally for the Crusaders, since he can fight monsters they'd struggle against head on to help them get to the person they need to save.
  • Daring Do during the same Arc. She's AK Yearing transformed into a real life Daring Do thanks to Pandora, meaning like Button Mash she runs on different rules and is able to better save ponies and aid the CMC. Justified as this was exactly what Pandora was going for.
  • Rainbow Dash transformed into the Mare-Do-Well, once more during Rumors. the Rainbow Factory rumor wasn't prepared for a comic book superheroine to show up and her Enemy Without has to cheat and pull out new powers out of nowhere just to keep up.
  • Nightmare Bannerette serves as this, as Abandon was illprepared to deal with him.
  • From Loose Canon (then Ascended Canon) Lovestruck, who was transformed into Cupid's successor and a Demi-Goddess with Venus' help. Her powers allow her to use her full power without being detected, allowing her to better save ponies without giving herself away.
  • In general, it seems every hero the Concepts set up to combat the Rumors was this trope. Justified, as with the world rewritten to run on horror movie rules, they NEEDED heroes who ran on different rules to keep people alive.
  • Princess Gaia. The group just went looking for Fluttershy and had no idea there was a new Big Bad on the loose. When they do find out, they have no idea what she's capable of, as her powers seem to exceed even the Princesses, or what her real plan is.
  • The Outer Concepts during the Rumors Arc, who no one saw coming.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Happens quite frequently, mainly due to the frequency of Confusion Fu and Indy Ploy. This is especially true in Dark World, where Twilight invokes this due to their enemy being Discord.

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• Painting the Medium: Dialog of the Shadows is written striked out to reflect their nature.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Despite his Blue-and-Orange Morality, Havoc does genuinely love his family. Attack them unprovoked and you'd better hope the Alicorn Elders will protect you, because they're the only ones who can.
  • Teddy in Sweetheart's Gaiden story. Some corporate thugs are sent after Sweetheart to try and scare Starlight and company into stopping their project. Teddy may have ended up in the hospital, but so did the thugs. A pack of Simurghs attacks the family after the apocalypse. Teddy breaks one's neck while fighting to protect his family.
  • Shining Armor has this mentality towards both those under his command and innocent civilians. Harming any of those is going to clop him off.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Pretty much any time Cadence disguises herself in the Shining Armor arc except the time she sneaks along on the mission in Nambutu.
  • In Shining Armor 14, The SAS pose as "private security" for Equestrian archaeologists since Guards have legal restrictions on operating outside Equestria. Minuette and Twinkle Shine aren't fooled at all.
  • Justified with Blueblood during the Wedding: while his disguise is simply him naked with messed up hair, anyone who knows him would never in a million years believe he'd ever willingly do it. It works perfectly.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Poor Scootaloo...
  • While they haven't outright abandoned her, the post "Sisterhooves Social" rewrite reveals their parents have a habit of dumping Sweetie Belle on Rarity all the time. According to Rarity, they do this so often that Rarity has Sweetie Belle in her care more often than their parents do. No wonder Sweetie Belle loves Rarity so much...
• Parents as People: Given the focus on characters in general, most parents who appear are portrayed as this naturally.
• Perfection Is Static:
  • When the mortal world was being created, Morning Star, the Alicorn of Perfection and Beauty, was so obsessed with making it beautiful and perfect, he grew to hate everything that didn't fit into his vision. He hated the Draconequi for being personifications of chaos, mortals for being flawed and making mistakes, and his own siblings because their ideas for creation clashed with his. His idea of a perfect world had no conflict, violence, or natural disasters, populated by gold and silver ponies who never changed from birth to death and made nothing but the most beautiful works of art. But because his siblings and parents did not agree that the world should be that way, he started hating them more and more, and eventually turned his back on them and fell to evil.
  • In Dark World, the Valeyard dismisses the idea of true perfection and calls it "frozen in a state of being, unable to adapt." He proclaims himself "perfectly flawed" instead, which almost makes Twilight have an aneurysm from the Logic Bomb.
    Twilight: ?! ... That's not perfection! A truly Perfect Being would either be able to adapt instantly to any situation or not need to!
    Valeyard: Please. Perfectionism's right up there with "logicality"; oversized weaknesses I don't chain myself down with. Logic is just being able to be wrong with authority. That's why the perfectly logical donkey always starves to death when faced with two equal sets of hay.
    Twilight: THAT'S NOT LOGIC! The logical thing to do is PICK ONE because starving to death with food right in front of you's the most illogical thing EVER!
• Persona Non Grata: After his attack on Shining Armor, Makarov is threatened with this (in multiple countries) in order to keep him from trying anything again... for now. He eventually stops caring.
• Physical Goddess: The Princesses, as to be expected. All three of them. In fact, Princess Gaia may be even more powerful than the other two combined. We find out later there's an entire pantheon of Alicorns. The Draconequi also qualify and there's a whole pantheon. There's actually an entire Fantasy Pantheon of gods of various types.
• Place Before Time: There have been many previous universes, dying naturally and being replaced with a new one. A few stories involving the gods showcase such periods.
• Place Beyond Time:
  • The Spirit World and every subdimension or reality found there are repeatedly mentioned as being places time does not exist, or rather the inhabitants aren't moving linearally through it and it's entirely possible to go back to the dawn of time and travel to other universes along their own timelines. There's a lot of Mind Screw involved, as the mortal mind is not meant to experience reality in this way.
• Playing the Victim Card: Fairly common among the villains. Mainly due to most of them using it as a justification for their misdeeds rather than accept responsibility for their actions. It's notable that a large number of the inmates in Hell do this when seen, which is implied to be part of why they're stuck there: they refuse to accept that they're the only one responsible for their own evil.
• Plot Twist: Who actually realized Onyx Tiara was partially discorded at the start of Mind Games part 2?
• Police Are Useless: Subverted. The Guard is actually quite competent at dealing with most threats that don't require the Elements of Harmony to defeat, and even assist the Princesses in defeating a Eldritch Abominations on occasion according to Loose Canon. This is best shown in the Shining Armor Arc, which focuses heavily on them.
• Pony All Along: The Changelings aren't a separate species but a fourth Pony tribe. Even the Changelings themselves weren't aware of this.
• Ponies Are Flawed:
  • A recurring theme in the story is everypony, even Celestia and Luna who are literally considered goddesses (even by themselves), aren't perfect. The only ponies who ever were are Celestia and Luna's parents.
  • Princess Celestia tells Pinkie and Applejack that this is one of the things that they, and everypony else, have a hard time accepting. She explains that, instead of accepting this, ponies try to rationalize or justify their bad decisions — which is one of the most dangerous thing that they can do. This is a lesson Pinkie must learn to help prevent her Sanity Slippage when the POV timeline breaks off from the canon timeline.
• Ponyville Is The Center Of The Universe:
  • The Loose Canon Coffee Swirl series arguably deconstructs this; thanks to the constant crossfire his town is caught in with the Elements of Harmony living there, the titular pony has developed a lot of mental issues and is convinced that his life is completely outside of his control.
  • In the main series its deconstructed as well, as the state of disrepair Ponyville was in in "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" are revealed to be because Ponyville blew through its repair budge due to all the disasters.
  • Averted in Shining Armor's Arc, where it's just Shining Armor that seems to be running into all variety of bizarre events and situations no matter where in the world he is at the time.
• Posthumous Character:
  • With the exception of Pinkie Pie, Star Catcher, and Sky Wishes, the hero cast of the G3 stories are dead long before the story starts and its told via flashbacks by Pinkie Pie. Though some of them do have Reincarnations in the main timeline...And then Apple Bloom resurrects those who didn't via Cosmic Retcon while she's temporally The Omnipotent during the ending of the Rumors Arc.
  • Starlight in the Nightmare portions of 7 Dreams/Nightmares Side Stories, as she's killed in the explosion that caused the collapse of the Tales society. Including her own.
• Post-Scarcity Economy: In Nightdrake Banneret's Nightmare World, with Nightmare Banneret able to (apparently) conjure anything out of thin air (including custom creative works), Equestria economy has pretty much ceased to exist... and with everyone able to have whatever they want instant, government was soon to follow.
• Post-Script Season: The Discorded Pony POV series starts out as an anthology of the Ponies POV after being Discorded, then the Reharmonized develops another anthology from the canon of the Discorded material. Once Trixie is fixed up, a narrative starts to form setting up that Discord is coming back for round two, and it breaks completely into serial form when Princess Gaia shows up. This is interesting because the writer originally wanted to stop with Epilogue, but decided to do the Reharmonizing Series... Which in turn was decided to end with Rainbow Dash's reharmonizing, but ideas just kept coming until the writer has had to literally force themselves to settle for an exact ending.
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
  • The entire myth arc kicks off with the ponies not being perfectly fine and dandy following Discord's mass Mind Rape from the second season premiere, and are in need of serious emotional and psychological help.
  • While Cadence and Shining Armor's magic prevents most ponies from suffering the same from Chrysalis' mind control, Octavia, Moon Dancer, and Twilight Sparkle all need varying personal touches.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Fluttershy's ideal paradise where everyone is happy and carefree is powered by Fluttershy herself turning into Nightmare Whisper and absorbing every bit of pain, every bit of anger, or sadness, of any negative emotion into her own self. That's right, all the suffering of the entirety of Equestria, stacked on one single pony. She explicitely refers to herself as "Forsaken Foal of Omelas", in reference to Ursula Le Guin's iconic short story.
  • Many of Makarov's weapons are powered by unicorn horns. The allies also fear he's also using his prisoners to power his Skyfall weapon though that turns out to not be the case.
• The Power of Friendship:
  • A given, considering what fandom this is for. Its even stated that Trixie had just as much potential as Twilight does and is even a second Element Of Magic, but because Friendship Is Magic, she was holding herself back by refusing to make friends. She gets better in the end though.
  • This works as well as the Power of Love to break Changeling brainwashing.
  • During the Final Battle with Nightmare Whisper, the group's friendship and desire to save their friends acts as a medium for the Elements Of Harmony, allowing them to use them without the physical Elements.
• The Power of Love:
  • Shows up in the Wedding Arc, naturally. While the Changelings use it as a food source, it's revealed that showing true love to a brainwashed victim while aware they're brainwashed is the key to breaking their mind control.
  • Familial love is later used to free Applejack by Applebloom. They then use the familial love of the Apple Family to supercharge Applejack's truth vision and obliterate one of Chrysalis' self deceptions (namely that her past is dead), leaving her writhing on the floor in agony, letting them escape.
  • Venus is literally the Goddess of this trope.
• Precursors: Several.
  • The Centaur Empire, which was once the biggest and most advanced Empire in it's heyday and predated Ponykind as a sapient species. Sadly, Lord Tirek is the Sole Survivor of the Empire because he destroyed it, and he is most certainly an Abusive Precursor. The Empire as a whole may count as Benevolent Precursors to a degree, as they treated the then nonsapient Ponies fairly well.
  • The Age of Myths was this to the Age of Wonders, being all of G1. The Paradise Estate Ponies in particular count as Benevolent Precursors, as they actively defended Ponyland from any threats that may come up, including defeating Grogar every five hundred years if they couldn't keep him locked up.
  • The Age of Wonders was this to the current age being the My Little Pony Tales society, until it was destroyed by a Class 2 Apocalypse. To a degree qualifies as Benevolent Precursors, as some of them genuinely DID try to make the future brighter for the civilization to succeed them. Also count as Benevolent Precursors to the Lost Age, which they used their wish spell to create.
• Precision F-Strike: Makarov wanted to hear "I surrender, Solomon" from Shining. He got "Go fuck yourself". Notable for being the actual f-word, not buck, because it's aimed at a male half-deer.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  • Dark World!Derpy gives one before finishing off her No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of the Valeyard by imploding his rib-cage.
    Derpy: Sorry, I'm the Doctor's friend. You're the Valeyard, the Doctor is out, but he'll be back in soon.
  • Dark World!Rarity has a nice one right before she tears out Fluttercruel's Element of Chaos and kills her.
    Dark World!Rarity: MINE!
  • Nightmare Purgatory (the one who became Nightmare Paradox) gives one to Discord in the first cycle just before impaling him and burning him to death with Hellfire.
    Nightmare Purgatory: Now, look forward to Hell.
  • Bright Eyes gets one that counts as a Shut Up, Hannibal! when she interrupts Cruel Eye/D___t's We Will Meet Again Final Speech by stabbing him through the heart, just before bisecting his head to finish him.
    Bright Eyes: Sorry, but that's not happening.
  • Minuette gets one just before feeding the Master to the Blank Wolf:
    'Minuette: I'm stopping the drums - forever!
• Prequel: Origins is this, serving as an Origins Episode for Celestia, Luna, and Discord.
  • Generational Transitions as well, which chronicles the end of the G3 universe.
  • 7 Dreams/Nightmares Gaiden is another, detailing the end of the Second Age of Pony civilization.
  • The Shining Armor Arc is this, detailing events starting as early as the first episode of the TV series. Subverted in that it turns out due to Shining being Immune to Fate, San Dimas Time is in effect and it's be happening alongside the rest of the series rather than before it.
• Prequel in the Lost Age: The Age of Wonders is mentioned by Celestia briefly and factors in majorly to the backstory. The 7 Dreams/7 Nightmares season is set during it.
• Psychic Static: The Rebels that Shining encounters mentally recite everything as if they were Hooviets as a precaution in case Makarov manages to get in their heads. This is why all segments from their perspective appeared to be Hooviets.
• Psycho for Hire:
  • Dark World!Fluttercruel big time. She's the only one of Discord's minions to actually enjoy what he orders her to do and gets a big kick out of killing people.
  • The League of Auxiliary Minions could also count, considering the glee they take in doing wrong the one time we see them. Justified, as one of Shining's hallucinations implies Discord made them from Dark World!Makarov.
  • General-Admiral Makarov is a iffy example. On one hand, he's an utter psychopath who enjoys the horrific things he does for the Hooviet Empire. On the other, he's actually the one pulling the strings and in fact the only reason the Empire was still afloat at all, so the 'For Hire' part is questionable.
  • Professor Kabuto is this for the Changelings. While most Changelings don't take active sadistic pleasure in what they do and are merely doing what they, wrongly, believe is needed for the well being of the swarm, Kabuto is a psychopath who enjoys performing sadistic medical and scientific experiments on innocent creatures (including his own species). He's so psychotic that even the other Changelings hate and fear him. This was the reason Discord's side recruited him during Rumors: all they did was make him an Earth Pony and make his crimes legal, he's perfectly willing to do the rest himself.
• Psychotic Fillymare: "Psycho" is a stretch, but it's quite clear that Princess Gaia is rather childlike, even throwing a tantrum when she doesn't get her way.
  • Dark World Fluttercruel is much more clear cut on the "psycho" part — when she throws a temper tantrum, ponies die badly.
  • General-Admiral Makarov is a Type C. He's extremely powerful both literally and figuratively, but also extremely childish and spiteful, throwing a temper tantrum any time he doesn't get his way. This in some ways makes him more dangerous because he's willing to kill someone just for getting his name wrong.
  • Queen Chrysalis also counts as a mix of Type B and Type C, but she's considerably more downplayed than the others. She is legitimately powerful and intelligent and having an absolutely horrific long term goal, she's also driven by her foalhood desire to conquer Equestria, and while occupying Canterlot treats her slaves more like a child playing dollhouse than a conqueror, and overall seems to have not thought out or cared about what she'd actually do with her new power while waiting for her main plan to reach completion other than whatever she feels like. In this case, it adds a sense of wrongness to her character that helps sell the fact something is seriously messed up with the Queen.
• Psycho Rangers:
  • Nightmare Paradox has fused with five other Nightmares from previous cycles, the six of them forming one of these to the heroes. However, only two of them are the actual Superpowered Evil Side of their counterpart, due to the Elements having changed hooves (Nightmare Mirror to Rarity, Nightmare Granfalloon to Apple Pie, Nightmare Whisper to Applejack, Nightmare Banneret to Spike, Nightmare Manacle to Derpy, and of course, Nightmare Paradox herself to Twilight).
  • The Dazzlings/Sirens seem to be this to the Princesses. Not only do they use Evil Knockoff versions of the Elements of Chaos in contrast to their Elements of Harmony and are sisters, as Sonata points out they're a twisted version of the idea the Princesses represent. Whereas the Princesses use their power, admiration, and fame to inspire ponies to become stronger, the Sirens use theirs to dominate, control, and make themselves adored. During their confrontations, the Sirens are also shown to be the Princesses equals or possibly betters in combat due to the amount of power they'd obtained by that time, and their artificial Elements of Chaos are able to counter the Princesses Elements of Harmony.
  • A trio of Shadows of Existence are sent after the CMC in their forms during Rumors.
• Punch-Clock Villain:
  • Well, Punch Clock Hero Antagonist, but Anarchy still qualifies. He's just doing his job and really wants to get it overwith. He even says that he'd be the first one to suggest a better solution, simply because a full Cosmic Retcon is way too much work.
  • Rancor in Dark World. She's literally only in conflict with the antagonists because Her Parents ordered her to help her big brother Discord out and when its not her turn to fight the heroes, she has absolutely no animosity towards them (ironic considering she's the Anthropomorphic Personification of animosity) and is downright friendly, even asking Rarity for her autograph because she was Melody in a past life. She is a Blood Knight and enjoys fighting, but its Nothing Personal, just her job. When she completes her actual mission, namely stealing Destruction's power back from Discord and throwing a huge wrench in Eclipse's plans, she bids them farewell and heads back to Oblivion to a party in her honor and admits in comments that she has no interest in coming back.
  • There's also Dark World!Discord's Magnificent 300 Goblin Cowboy Samurai. They outright say its Nothing Personal, they're just contracted to Discord and thus have to follow his orders out of honor. The moment said contract expires, they leave peacefully since...well, they don't like Discord any better than the heroes do but it'd be dishonorable to help fight him.
  • Discord himself in Dark World: he's only a villain anymore because he's forced to be by Eclipse, the moment he's free of her, he starts acting on his Heel Realization.
• Puppy Love: Sweetie Belle and Button Mash become an Official Couple later on.
• Pure Is Not Good: Nightmares in this universe are the result of a single aspect of an Alicorn, or mortal doing so in a 'half way' transformation into one, consuming the rest. In a sense, they become a pure, distilled version of that trait, but also not including the other required traits so as to balance it out. So for example Nightmare Mirror is Pure Honesty, without any since of compassion or mercy and refuses to accept lies existing for any reason.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Trixie, at the transition between the Princess Gaia and Butterflies arcs, bids farewell to the heroes and heads back to her hometown, removing herself from the plot for the forseeable future. She eventually returns during the Wedding and remains for the finale arc..
  • Dark World!Rainbow Dash is left at Sweet Rock Acres after her Heel–Face Turn because, due to her Heel Realization, she's presently suicidal and needs time to get her mind in order. She returns later on just in time to help the group take down Odyne!Cruelty. She and the Princesses are Put on the Bus after the latter are freed because the Princesses are presently powerless fillies, and Twilight doesn't want to put all their eggs in one basket on the off chance Discord had one last trump card up his sleeve.

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