MLP Villain Timeline- Pony of Shadows (Main Stygian)

1. Stygian the Unicorn

Stygian was a unicorn who was a scholar who liked to study. He wasn’t magically exceptional nor he was a hero. He lived around the time the Celestia and Luna were teenagers meaning beyond over 1,000 years ago. He mainly liked to study mythical sea creatures. One day he went to the beach to collect sea shells to study but on that day he had an interesting encounter…

2. Stygian and The Sirens

During his findings, he came face to face with The Dazzlings. He was in awe of Adagio and her sisters at first but then Adagio slipped and mentioned how she and her sisters wanted to be empowered by the surface world and spread their negative magic. He managed to get away from them and try to look in his books on how to stop the sirens, but he was too late and his town except for him ended up getting under the sirens spell which caused him to set off on a journey to find a group of Equestrian heroes.

3. Assembling a Team

With his village under attack by The Sirens, Stygian set out to find the Equestrian heroes of legend starting with finding Rockhoof, and then finding the others: Mage Meadowbrook, Flash Magnus, Mistmane, Sonambula, and StarSwirl. Meaning that Stygian was responsible for bringing these heroes together to fight the Sirens.

4. Stygian’s Internal Feelings

Despite, Stygian bringing the group together he feels like he’s nothing special compared to the others Pillars who have done other brave and heavy feats that normal ponies wouldn’t be able to. When it came to the battle against the Sirens, Stygian stood on the sidelines and watched the others banish the sirens to another world. Since that day Stygian felt inadequate and wanted to change that so he could fight alongside his friends.

5. Stygian vs. StarSwirl: A Battle of Ideals

In the 2018 comic annual, Stygian along with the other Pillars have to rescue Celestia and Luna after they get captured by dark forces through a mirror into a alternate dark dimension of Equestria due to Starswirl showing the girls about different portals to other places. Out of the other’s Stygian is mainly against Starswirl for his decision to show the girls the mirrors, which put them in danger. He notes to Rockhoof that after the Pillars are gone, the princesses would only write about StarSwirl’s exploits without the other Pillars hardly get mentioned in Equestria’s history. But despite him being vital in saving the princesses, he still had those thoughts in the back of his mind.

6. The Stolen Artifacts

Months after the Siren defeat and the princesses being saved, Stygian never lost sight of his quest into finding ways to be as strong as the pillars so that he can fight alongside them and after months he finally figured it out. It was a ritual where he needed a symbol of strength from each of the Pillars: Starswirl’s Journal of Sorcery, Rockhoof’s Shovel of Strength, Mistmane’s Flower of Beauty, Meadowbrook’s Mask of Healing, Flash Magnus’s Shield of Bravery, and Sonambula’s Blindfold of Hope. Stygian stole the items for his spell in hopes that he could make copies of the artifacts but he was shunned and cast out from the group.

7. The Rise of The Pony of Shadows

After Stygian was cast out from the Pillars, he wandered Equestria until he came across the Well of Shade and discovered an apparent entity known as “The Darkness or The Shadow” which spoke to Stygian of a power beyond that would make him stronger than his “friends” and he accepted. He merged with “the shadow” and they became one and Stygian was turned into The Pony of Shadows. With his new dark powers he went to claim vengeance on his former friends.

8. The Pony of Shadow’s Initial Defeat/1,000 Year Return

Despite being a formidable force, StarSwirl had a plan to banish the Pony of Shadows, by the Pillars using their symbolic items to magically seal him away in limbo but themselves along with it. Unfortunately, 1,000 years later Twilight, Sunburst, the Mane 5 and Starlight free the Pillars and unintentionally also free the Pony of Shadows.

9. The Pony of Shadow’s Defeat/Stygian’s Return

Despite the Pony of Shadows being free, he was weakened from limbo, so he had to find places of darkness in order to get stronger but due to Equestria being more modernized, he only had one place to draw power from which was the Well of Shade. Despite that he was pushed back into a portal by the Elements and other Pillar’s items and Twilight was about to push him in when she saw Stygian inside of the “the Shadow” and instead she decided to hear his side of the story. There was a lack of communication between Stygian and the Pillars and Stygian went behind their backs to steal instead of just talking to them about his feelings and the Pillars were at fault for not letting him explain instead of shunning and casting him out. StarSwirl realizes he and the others were wrong, and the group frees Stygian while banishing “The Shadow” into a portal. The Shadow was no more while Stygian was free and reunited with his friends.

MLP Theory/Headcanon: Cadence’s Mother

Now when it came to MLP FIM royalty, easily the most underrated princess out of the four is Cadence. In show canon, she marries Shining Armor, rules over the Crystal Empire, and had Flurry Heart but that’s pretty much it. She gets more development in the supplement material such as the books and the comics. All the backstory that we had on Cadence was that according to the books she was found as a baby pegasus by an Earth pony couple, but she had a high tolerance for love and she defeated a sorceress with the power of love and Celestia found her and was transformed into an alicorn as Twilight was. She was then taken on as her niece and went to Celestia’s school. So she’s been labeled as an orphan until the comic Siege of the Crystal Empire, where it’s revealed that she could’ve been possibly related to Princess Amore, the first princess of the Crystal Empire.

Now it’s been stated that Cadence is “distantly related” to Amore, but going back through the IDW comics, books, and other material gives me an idea that Cadence could possibly be Amore’s long lost daughter, rather than a distant descendant.

1. Cadence’s Origins

So in the book Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, Cadence finally gets an origin story and honestly gives us more information on Cadence than her entire runtime on the show.

Yeah, 10 times more information on Cadence than the show, but the main points is that she was a baby pegasus found in a forest before being raised by Earth Ponies in the village, all the way up to her success against Prismia and her accession to being an alicorn and taken in by Celestia as her niece and moved to Canterlot.

2. Celestia and Cadence

Now Celestia took in Cadence as her own niece, and continued to raise her in Canterlot. Cadence studied under Celestia, went to her school and had her final exam as well as went to Canterlot Academy being the high school. Now Celestia met Cadence sometime during Luna’s banishment and continued to raise her and even officiated her wedding. The interesting word to note is adopted niece. For Celestia to regard Cadence as her niece or even adopted niece is that Luna would’ve had to have been Cadence’s mother or something happened to Luna and Celestia took Cadence in since she’s Luna’s daughter but neither of those are the case since Luna didn’t even meet Cadence until after her 1,000 year banishment so that’s off the table but not necessarily Cadence being an adopted niece of Celestia.

3. The Crystal Empire

Now the next step in Cadence’s journey is that after her and Shining Armor get married, they end up moving to the Crystal Empire, a kingdom that was cursed to be banished from existence over 1,000 years due to King Sombra. The Crystal Empire is where Cadence is most connected to: her cutie mark is the Crystal Heart, her magic is able to keep out Sombra like the Crystal Heart, one of the residence refers to her as the Crystal Princess despite being gone for 1,000 years. Show wise nothing gets elaborated on Cadence’s connections aside from the premiere episode, but there are some interesting things to take away from the premiere:

Now the interesting thing is that we get more information about Cadence in the Siege of the Crystal Empire comic by different characters. Siege of the Crystal Empire is about how Sombra returns from being destroyed following the events of The Crystal Empire and takes revenge on The Crystal Empire and is also tied in with Sombra’s origin story from the Fiendship comics. For Cadence, some information is learned about her:

Now I bring those up because both Rabia and Radiant regard Cadence as being similar to Amore in terms of looks and power and they’re both over 1,000 years old and have seen and battled Amore in the past. 

3. Cadence and Amore Parallels

Cadence and Amore share similar parallels to each other outside of having pink/purple manes and being rulers of the Crystal Empire.

4. Princess Amore Backstory

To break away from Cadence for a minute, Princess Amore herself has an interesting backstory for a supplemental character. Her backstory mainly comes from The Journal of the Two Sisters but she’s also expanded upon in the comics, specifically Fiendship is Magic #1 and MLP Issues #34-37 Siege of The Crystal Empire. So from all of that here is an official timeline of events based around Princess Amore and The Crystal Empire itself.

5. The Crystalling (not the episode but the actual event)

I briefly want to talk about The Crystalling but not the episode itself but more about the event in The Crystal Empire. From what Spike describes in the episode is that when a baby is born in the Crystal Empire, there’s a Crystalling ceremony held where a crystaller is chosen who picks out the purest shard of crystal and the light and love of the ceremony spreads throughout the empire. Now the one line that stands out to me is when Spike says this:

"And this is going to be a royal Crystalling, so pretty much the whole empire will show up. "- Spike, The Crystalling.

"That hasn't happened in millennia!"- Spike, The Crystalling

So what Spike is saying is that a royal Crystalling in The Crystal Empire hasn’t happened in a millennia AKA 1,000 years. This one fact has a few interesting notes about it:

6. My Timeline/Speculation

So, I’m going to give a possible timeline and speculate how Cadence could simply be Amore’s “long lost” daughter and how she survived/escaped the banishment of The Crystal Empire. This would take place a bit before Sombra comes into play but at the same type during his time of growing up alongside Radiant Hope

So that’s my timeline on how Cadence was Amore’s daughter and escaped Sombra’s banishment of The Crystal Empire.

Why Sunset’s Turn Around In EG1 Makes Sense

When it comes to Sunset Shimmer, she’s easily regarded as the highlight of Equestria Girls and one of the G4 characters of MLP that had a good redemption in Rainbow Rocks and onward. Today however I want to talk about her “instant” turn around and “forgiveness” from the others.

A. Sunset’s Turn Around

In the last 10 minutes of Equestria Girls, Sunset got the crown, turned into a raging she-demon, tried to take over Equestria with her own teenage zombie army, and she got blasted by the Magic of Friendship and got turned back to normal and was instantly remorseful. Most people have said that Sunset has a bad reformation because she was blasted by the Elements and was instantly remorseful like the Elements mind controlled her into being remorseful...except the Elements or the Magic of Friendship doesn’t have the power to do that. If that were the case then any villain that got blasted with the Elements or the Magic of Friendship would instantly be reformed and ask for forgiveness. But the Elements only depower those with dark or negative magic with the exception of Discord.

So, no the Elements don’t brainwash the target into being good it just takes away any upgraded dark power that they have minus Discord. So Sunset wasn’t brainwashed into instantly having a change of heart like the majority thinks she did. On the surface, I can see why people think that but when looking at this scene closer, there’s more to it.

1. Sunset’s Punishment (Physically)

I think out of all the defeats in Friendship is Magic and Equestria Girls, Sunset’s was the most brutal. She got blasted by the Magic of Friendship, that blast slammed her into a crater, and left her not only scorching but she was battered, bruised, and her clothes were torn and her hair was a mess. Like, the Magic of Friendship kinda messed her up physically. Even the Humane 5 had shocked/worried expressions despite Sunset breaking apart their friendship (as in “I know she was a jerk, but we didn’t kill her did we”?). 

So, physically she literally got the demon burned off of her and physically that was more punishment than the rest of the villains got with Luna/Nightmare at second. Discord got turned to stone, but his physical body was fine when he was released. The other villains were depowered and had slight headaches. So physically, she got punished enough to get scared straight.

2. Sunset’s Punishment (Mentally)

Now, the reason why she had her turn around was this. She got humiliated. Sunset believed that she could have greater power with the Element of Magic but her ambitious and selfish nature once getting the crown it turned her into a demon. She wanted to take over Equestria with her own teenage army but she got defeated with the true magic of the Element of Magic end she ended up cowering in front of the student body. The same student body that she spent years dividing. She used to look down on the students of Canterlot High and bully them, but now they’re all looking down at her disheveled state. A quote from the novel perfectly sums her reaction.

Sunset looked around at her fellow students. They stared down at her with disdain. She shrank back and hugged her knees, as vulnerable as ever.- Equestria Girls Through The Mirror Novel

She got rightfully humiliated in front of the whole student body that she used to torment. At that point in that scene, it was her by herself against everybody she wronged at that school united looking down at her. She was vulnerable and she broke down, admitting that she never learned the first thing about friendship and she just drove everyone apart. 

Even in the comics, Celestia mentions the importance of friendship and personal relationships but Sunset shrugged that off and only thought of being the best and stuck with that. She dismissed the importance of friendship and humility and now years later in the human world once she’s at her lowest and most vulnerable, she admits that and genuinely wants to change for the better. 

B. Sunset Being Forgiven/Celestia’s Punishments

Sunset technically wasn’t forgiven by anyone in the first movie, clearly shown in Rainbow Rocks. The students clearly didn’t forgive her, the Humane 5 were wary of her, and even Twilight who gave her a second chance was wary of her for a second in the sequel. Twilight gave her a choice on what Sunset could do with herself: either seek out friendship on her own accord or forever be alone. Rarity even notes how she would need an apology from Sunset and Twilight says that she has a feeling that Sunset will be giving out a lot of apologies. It was kinda left ambiguous and I can kinda see why. For one this was first movie and at the time, it was unknown if there was gonna be anymore movies, so Sunset oddly having this face-heel turn and being remorseful makes sense. I want to note one other thing which is the form of either Celestia issuing punishment.

For Princess Celestia, she already punished Sunset by removing her as her personal student but in the case of Equestria Girls...at worst Sunset stole the crown and went into the mirror but Equestria wasn’t really in danger and no one on that side was affected plus she had the crown for only 10 minutes over the span of about 3 days. Since only Sunset, Twilight, and Spike really know what happened I don’t think Celestia could charge her with anything...maybe community service or being banned from Canterlot or something...but Celestia wouldn’t be able to do anything.

For Principal Celestia, all her and Vice Principal Luna know from the event since (they were mind controlled but they do remember it) was that Sunset turned into a demon, got mind controlled, got freed, was there to see Sunset get humbled, and that’s it. They gave Sunset a punishment in fixing up the front of the school from the hole that she created alongside Snips and Snails, but if we’re talking about realistic human punishment they don’t really have any proof.

So while Sunset’s initial change was rushed, ultimately her overall journey into the better pony we know today helped her in the end and honestly became one of my overall favorite characters.

MLP Villain Timeline- Nightmare Moon

1. Foreshadowing and Seeds Planted

In the mini-series comic, Legends of Magic #1, a teenage Luna magically opens up a portal to the alternate Pony of Shadow’s dimension where she was kidnapped and almost turned into Nightmare Moon earlier. She opened the doorway because she wanted to practice a harder spell so that she could stop Celestia from taunting her because of Luna being less skilled at magic than Celestia. Once she opens the portal and hears voices telling her that she’s destined for greatness, wanting revenge on her sister, and having dark magic inside of her. But she vows that she would never turn on her Celestia.

So Nightmare Moon didn’t make her debut in the main timeline, but the seeds were planted from Celestia’s taunting to Luna opening the dark dimension, so indirectly Celestia is responsible for Nightmare Moon.

The Second Kidnapping

Celestia and Luna get kidnapped again by the minions of the alternate Pony of Shadow and taken to the same dark dimension and the alternate Pony of Shadows wanted to corrupt them with shadow magic turning them into Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon, but the Pillars managed to rescue them in time and was saved.

2. 1,000 Years of Inner Resentment

After the Pillars from the main series banished themselves and Pony of Shadow, Celestia and Luna were left with Equestria as their kingdom. Over that time, the sisters ruled Equestria and stopped many threats and were celebrated. But internally, somewhere along the line she started to grow jealous and resentful over the attention and praise that Celestia received and how ponies played in the day and slept during the night. This led to the downfall of Luna and the rise of Nightmare Moon. But some of the impacts of Luna’s life before her resentment towards Celestia were:

3. The Rise of Nightmare Moon

Some time after fall of the Crystal Empire, Luna started to be distant with Celestia as ponies played in the day her sister brought forth, but shunned her night and slept through it. One day in the Castle of the Two Sisters Luna bitterly went on about being in Celestia’s shadow and having her night overlooked by Celestia’s day and vowed that she would be the only princess in Equestria. With that, she rose the moon which eclipsed the sun, and that darkness mixed with Luna’s bitterness and jealously, turned her into a wicked mare of darkness proclaiming that she will bring about night time eternal and destroy Celestia, this was the birth and rise of Nightmare Moon.

Note: I want to headcanon about Luna turning into Nightmare Moon by tying in the show and comics. So I headcanon that Luna had over 1,000 years of bitterness and jealousy over Celestia and it was strong enough to attract the Nightmare Forces which are the dark counterparts to the Nyx who are the Guardians of Dreams. Both live on the moon but while the Nyx live on the light side of the moon, the Nightmare Forces live on the dark side of the moon. The Nightmare Forces surrounded Luna and enticed her into giving her their dark energy alongside her resentment and jealousy consuming her with that mixture she turns into Nightmare Moon. 

4. Nightmare Moon’s Banishment

No longer Luna, Nightmare Moon began to ruthlessly destroy the Castle of the Two Sisters and aiming her sights on Celestia to destroy her, and claim Equestria as her own Lunar kingdom. She battled against Celestia and managed to get a good hit on her but Celestia used the Elements of Harmony to banish Nightmare to the moon for 1,000 years before she could really do any damage, however it was the darkest moment of Celestia’s life...but it didn’t stop Nightmare Moon.

5. Nightmare and The Nyx

In the mini-series Fiendship is Magic Issue 4, Nightmare Moon after getting banished to the moon, ends up finding a castle on the moon where it’s inhabited by the Nyx, creatures who are responsible for creating the dreams of ponies. She manipulates them into showing her how the dream and nightmare process works in order to try and get another jab at Celestia by messing with her dreams, but Celestia’s mind is too powerful so Nightmare goes after the ponies of Equestria instilling fear into them about Celestia and having Nightmare being regarded as a hero in the real world but Celestia puts a stop to it, but leaves her mind vulnerable. Nightmare then betrays the Nyx and corrupts them into serving her and giving her the power to get into Celestia’s dreams...literally. Nightmare ends up getting into Celestia’s dreams and tries to use Celestia’s guilt over losing Luna to the darkness but it only strengthens Celestia’s resolve and she defeats Nightmare and breaks the connection to her dreams from the Nyx so that Nightmare can’t enter her mind, but it doesn’t stop Nightmare from going into other’s ponies dreams and causing fear and nightmares.

6. The Legend of Mare in the Moon/Nightmare Night

Over the 1,000 years of banishment of Nightmare Moon, Celestia continued to watch over Equestria peacefully over the millennia and legends and stories were created one of the wider known legends was the Legend of the Mare in the Moon. Now for Nightmare Moon to have a legend and even a holiday centered around her, ponies must’ve heard about her from somewhere and this comes in form of her dream-walking abilities. If ponies weren’t going to love her, she would make them fear her. The tale of The Mare in the Moon as well as the festival Nightmare Night and The Summer Sun celebration were holidays that were celebrated for 1,000 years to the point where Nightmare Moon became a tale for fillies and colts.

7. Nightmare Moon’s Return and Defeat

1,000 years later at the Summer Sun Celebration on the longest day of the thousandth year, Nightmare Moon was prophesied to return to Equestria and be free from her banishment on the moon and had another chance to bring about eternal night. She escaped via the stars and went after Celestia before crashing The Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville. She then announced to the Ponyville citizens that night will last forever, but one pony wasn’t having it and her name was Twilight Sparkle. Nightmare followed Twilight to her temporary home and finds out about how the Elements are located in the old castle of the two sisters. Nightmare does whatever she can to stop the six ponies from trying to reach the castle such as:

Unfortunately for Nightmare Moon, the ponies that she tried to stop ended up being the spirits to the Elements despite the physical gems being destroyed. The six ponies came together and reconstructed the Elements of Harmony and they used it’s power to blast Nightmare Moon destroying her and purifying Luna back to normal. This was the last of Nightmare Moon and the return of Princess Luna from over 1,000 years.

MLP Tier List: Alicorn Tier (Part 2)

Now that the Bottom Tier is covered it’s time for the top tier, going from Nightmare Moon to Sombra.

1. Nightmare Moon

Why is she the top tier alicorn, and not Daybreaker? Trust me, I thought about these two for a while and then thinking about it, Nightmare Moon would still come out on top. Why? Since she’s the dark version of Luna, she has all the powers that Luna has but has not so much of her morality and both have the powers of dreams, nightmares, and the mind. Like, Luna’s power over dreams and nightmares aren’t a toy. The worst part about it, Celestia can’t do anything about it, it’s stated in canon that Celestia has no power in the dream world so it would stand to reason that Daybreaker wouldn’t either. If Nightmare Moon really wanted to, she could create the Tantabus like Luna did but instead of guilt, her Tantabus could stem from revenge and just let run wild in the dream realm until it turns all of Equestria into a Nightmare, and the only pony who would be able to stop it is Nightmare, herself.  But in terms of magic, the premiere alone gives her an advanced skill set in abilities

Yeah, so Nightmare has a lot of skills under her belt. I’ve tried using the Daybreaker and Nightmare moon fight from Starlight’s dream to see how it would go, and in the dream they’re evenly matched. Yes, Daybreaker knocks Nightmare Moon down, but she gets back up and the two are about to go at it. Nightmare Moon landed a direct hit on Daybreaker, but the issue here is that ITS A DREAM, and anything can happen, so it’s not the comparable. But mainly with Nightmare’s magic over dreams and nightmares which affect ponies in the real world (as shown with the Mane 6 being exhausted in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep) on top of her banishment spells, she wins top tier alicorn. Sorry Daybreaker.

2. Daybreaker

Yeah, Daybreaker under Nightmare Moon. I tried for a good few minutes to see where Daybreaker would stack up and yes no doubt she’s above everyone else, mainly due to her dream fight with Nightmare Moon in Starlight’s dream, but even that is hard because she’s just a figment of Starlight (or Celestia’s) dream. Even then, the fight ends up being a stalemate until Celestia intervenes. Both Daybreaker and Nightmare landed hits on it each other but it was an equal fight. What the heck, I’ll break it down really quick (but I can’t add pictures):

So yeah, the fight is pretty much a draw, so I couldn’t scale anything between Daybreaker and Nightmare but good news for me is that Daybreaker does again appear in the Nightmare Knight comics as an alternate Celestia, who was corrupted by an alternate Pony of Shadows and was turned into Daybreaker along with Luna being Nightmare Moon. This Daybreaker, unfortunately had her powers restricted except for the power of fire, but she doesn’t use her magic that often in the comic. So in the end for her performance, she would out class everyone else but Nightmare Moon being real, and having more in her arsenal, Daybreaker comes in second place.

3. Princess Celestia

Celestia in her own right, despite what the show gives us, is powerful in her own right. She’s the ruler of Equestria and has been keeping Equestria safe and happy for over 1,000 years and has raised the sun and moon. She’s raised the sun for over 1,000 years. I’m going to break down Celestia’s powers from the show and comics and then list her feats, so starting with the show:

So this is pretty much what she does in the show. The comics however has her do a whole lot more in terms of her magic. She still does basic magic like, teleportation, barriers, magic blasts but the comics have more going for her. So in the comics, Celestia has:

So yeah, Celestia is strong in her own right, despite not really showing it in the series. I do feel that it would’ve been better if Celestia along with Luna did more in the series when it came to threats that they’ve dealt with before. I want to compare Celestia to Faragonda from Winx Club. She’s the headmistress of Alfea, a school of fairies and trains her students in magic just as Celestia did with her students. Both characters had past battles alongside others, but the difference is that Faragonda in the present helps out the girls with challenges and defended the school and protected her students without taking away spotlight from the Winx, I would’ve liked Celestia and Luna to be that. But Celestia is strong on her own.

4. Princess Luna

Now Luna is also strong in her own right, even doing things as Nightmare Moon. Luna’s major feats is her dream magic. She’s has control over the dream realm, and honestly she’s at her strongest. Her magical feats include:

So Luna’s also high on this list, despite not having as many spells as her sister, her dream walking abilities are no joke either since dreams are apart of the mindscape. But despite being nearly equal with her sister, Celestia has been stated to have been a more powerful fighter since they were fillies, and that she was more of a fast learner. But show wise, Luna has done more than Celestia in the present.

5. Mean Princess Twilight Sparkle

Easily up here, because she’s a copy of Princess Twilight Sparkle and when it comes magic Princess Twilight is one of the high tier magic users. Mean Twilight is above Twilight due to her personality and ruthlessness. Despite being short lived (less than 24 hours), she was able to go head to head against a base level Chrysalis and would’ve easily overpowered her if it weren’t for the Tree of Harmony destroying her along with the other clones. But considering she’s made up of DNA from Twilight herself, she should have the same magical repertoire that Twilight has and going from the comics and show it’s a lot. Personally, I feel that she was really under utilized and wished she wasn’t destroyed. 

6. Princess Twilight Sparkle

If it weren’t for Mean Twilight’s ruthlessness, Twilight would easily be next on the list. I already talked about her feats as a unicorn but as an alicorn her feats are even stronger and higher. For this, since she has so many spells in her arsenal I’m going to list the most impressive feats displayed in the show and comics via magic

Show Wise:

Comic Wise:

So Twilight as an alicorn is strong in her own right and honors her title as the Element of Magic.

7. King Sombra

Out of the enemies, aside from Nightmare Moon King Sombra in his base form alone is a power house in both the Season 3 premiere and the Season 9 premiere. He was so much of a threat that in his alternate timeline in Season 5, Equestria was at war. Out of the villains individually, aside from Nightmare Moon and Discord he’s third on the list in terms of power and feats.

Powers:

Feats:

So Sombra in his base form is in a league of his own, even more so than the Legion of Doom empowered by the Bewitching Bell. This is why he’s in the top half of the alicorn level tier.

8. Princess Cadence

Out of the princesses, sadly Cadence gets the short end of the stick when it comes to development but her power set isn’t one to scoff at. I still wish she got more development in general. So here are her powers and her feats:

Feats:

So while she’s underdeveloped, Cadence is no slouch in the magic department and her feats are nothing to sneeze at. She has more feats against enemies going for her than Celestia and Luna in the present.

So this is the top tier level of the Alicorn Level tier.

Battle Royale (Equestria Girls Edition)

So I decided to do a bracket list on who would win in a fight between the Equestria Girls she-demons. Based on this, I wish there was one more she-demon so that it could be balanced but since it’s not, I only had five which is why in the first round Gloriosa doesn’t go against anyone. Now for these match-ups I chose randomly from a wheel generator for fairness. I’m going to list my reasons why who wins, but first I’m going to list attributes of the girls.

Demon Sunset

Power Set

Physical Attributes

The Dazzlings (Full Power)

Power Set (Given that Adagio refers to their powered up forms as their true power which was displayed in Shadow Play, I’m taking those into account)

Physical Attributes

Midnight Sparkle

Power Set

Physical Attributes

Gloriosa Everfree

Power Set

Physical Attributes

Juniper Monstar (couldn’t find a gif or upload an image of her “demon form”

Power Set

Physical Attributes

With those attributes out of the way, lets get started with the fights. But Gloriosa automatically goes to the final round for being picked at random as the middle ground.

1st Fight- Demon Sunset vs. Juniper Monstar

This fight easily goes to Demon Sunset due to her having more of a magical arsenal than Juniper who has none. In terms of strength Juniper is strong and is taller than Demon Sunset (who scales to Principal Celestia at best when she’s on the ground) but Demon Sunset can fly and even though Juniper can throw projectiles, Demon Sunset can just catch them with her magic. Demon Sunset could throw any magic attack at her or even hypnotize her and Juniper loses.

Winner: Demon Shimmer

2nd Fight- The Dazzlings (Adagio) vs. Midnight Sparkle

So for this fight I wanted to make it fair...and 3 vs. 1 isn’t fair so for the sake of this, it’s Adagio vs. Midnight because Adagio does the most stuff in Rainbow Rocks. Now both can fly and shoot magical beams. Adagio has her sonic singing while Midnight could disperse it with a straight forward magic blast which would leave Adagio vulnerable to a face attack (like Twilight did to Tirek in the S9 finale). Adagio could summon her astral form to do the fighting for her, but Midnight would most likely catch on and would need to strike Adagio down or even just strike her pendant with enough force to destroy it. Adagio would be depowered, her astral form destroyed and at Midnight’s mercy.

Winner: Midnight Sparkle

*Results of 1st Half*

 1st Fight Winner: Demon Sunset Shimmer

2nd Fight Winner: Midnight Sparkle

3rd Fight- Demon Shimmer vs. Midnight Sparkle

Both of these girls are transformed into she-demons. Both are empowered by a form of the Elements. In Demon Sunset’s case, she’s empowered by the physical crown of the Element of Magic, while in Midnight Sparkle’s case, she’s infused with a combined raw form of the Elements of Harmony. Now Demon Shimmer has a light advantage in height and wingspan and she has more of an arsenal but I doubt that most of her arsenal would be effective or benefit her against someone arguably more powerful than her

Demon Sunset like Adagio has one clear weakness, the physical crown. If Midnight knocks the crown off of Sunset’s head or even knocks Demon Sunset out hard enough she could just take the crown off of Sunset’s head and she’s depowered.

Winner: Midnight Sparkle

Final Fight: Midnight Sparkle vs. Gloriosa Everfree

Now for Gloriosa her abilities are able to ensnare others in vines that are strong enough to grow back even if blasted apart. None of the Equestria Girls who had attacks were strong enough to destroy the brambles with Twilight being the closest due to levitation. Gloriosa could ensnare Midnight in brambles but Midnight’s powers start from her horn and spread to her hands so she could easily break out and destroy the brambles. All Midnight would have to do is blast Gloriosa with a direct hit and knock her out or destroy the geodes and she claims victory.

Final Winner: Midnight Sparkle

Ever After High Character Tier List

Aa

Ok, I decided to do my second Tier List on the characters of Ever After High, now there were some tier lists with WAY more characters, but I decided to do this one. So I’ll give my personal opinion on each character and why they’re in the spot that they’re in.

Expect “needing character development” to come up a lot 

They’re In The Show I Guess

They’re Alright

Sadly Wasted Potential: (This is a long one...)

She’s next to Dexter in the corner...meaning you can barely notice her. It would’ve been nice to see Courtly have shorts with Lizzie and Raven respectively apologizing and having the Wonderlandians show her around and have her get used to everything. She was a good villain, but she got wasted afterwards.

Grew On Me

Really Like

Favorite Characters

Ever After High: Way Too Wonderland Rewrite

Ok, so I’ve decided to go back and look through my Ever After Rewrites and I skipped over Way Too Wonderland because originally, I only had my two issues about the final fight and ending but I’m going to elaborate a little bit more on those as well as more things.

Equestria Girls Ship Tier List

I decided to do an Equestria Girls Ship Tier List because I wanted to do one and never thought about Equestria Girls ships and this went differently than I thought it did. Most of these comes down to character interaction honestly. So here we go.

1. Y’all They’re Sisters

2. Dislike

3. Don’t Really Care

4. Fine...I Guess

5. Friends

6. Like

7. OTP

Kalda Queen Signature Diary

Icy Walls, Icy Halls

There’s only so much you can take, until you get bored of being homeschooled. It’s always the same icy palace walls, the slippery icy halls, the cool chilling breeze, don’t get me wrong I love my castle but I need something more besides just me, my pet snow owls, and ice guards and dark snow pixie servants. But this is what happens when you’re the daughter of The Snow Queen. Yes, the Snow Queen that’s destined to kidnap a boy to make hers forever...yeah no thanks. I don’t see the point in that part of the tale but ruling over the cold and ice, that’s my cup of tea. I wish I could talk to my mother about it, but something happened at a royal function between my aunt and my mom and she had to go away on winter business. So that’s not happening but enough about that.

So, instead of home school I’m transferring to Ever After High...on the other side of the fairy tale world. Yeah, so the thing about the Snow Royal Family is that there are two royal families for the North and the South, The Snow Royals of the North with my aunt, uncle, and their daughter Crystal Winter, and the Snow Royals of the South for me and my mom, but after I’m done at Ever After High, I’m going to be the Queen of Winter and anyone who’s gonna try and stop me will be frozen on ice. Literally.

Kalda Queen Outfits

Kalda Queen- Legacy Day Outfit

Kalda Queen- Thronecoming Outfit

Kalda Queen- Spring Unsprung

Kalda Queen- Dragon Games

Kalda Queen- Epic Winter

Kalda Queen- The Snow Queen

Ever After High OC: Kalda Queen

Class Schedule

Mini Headcanon: Chrysalis and The Crystal Empire

I want to address a potential headcanon that I have about Chrysalis and when she went to the Crystal Empire. Now in the comic Siege of the Crystal Empire she notes to Radiant Hope and Sombra that she knows about the umbrum ponies and made her way to the Crystal Empire before.

She mentions that she and her changeling guard made their way to the Crystal Empire, most likely because of the light and love of the Crystal Empire especially during the Crystal Fair making it a buffet for changelings. But the umbrum beat her to it and crushed the positive emotions of the the crystal ponies making their trip pointless. 

From her flashback she’s also in her full bodied form from The Tales of Queen Chrysalis meaning that this takes place before her conquest on Timbucktu due to not having her crown she stole from King Orion.

Not to mention The Siege on Trot where she and the changelings got their holes due to a blast from Celestia and was banished to a volcano for hundreds of years.

According to the comic, The Tales of Queen Chrysalis, The Siege on Trot takes place hundreds of years ago, and The Fall of Timbuktu takes place in the 1,000 year gap same as Sombra, Discord, and Nightmare Moon’s defeat.

Now with the umbrum, they’re creatures made from smoke and shadow and feed on despair and misery of the Crystal Ponies who are ponies that are bathed in love and light. The umbrum attempted to take over the Crystal Empire at one point so their first princess, Princess Amore created the Crystal Heart in order to trap the umbrum and save the empire. 

The Journal of the Two Sisters gave an origin story to not just Amore, but the Crystal Heart and Crystal Empire.

So with all this information, I think that I put together a timeline for Chrysalis and her involvement with the Crystal Empire and potentially having a relationship against Princess Amore

So that’s my headcanon about Chrysalis and her relation to the Crystal Empire and Princess Amore.

Something I notice...

Sunset really does that “bashfully looking away from Twilight” after Twilight makes an amount of physical contact with her...just saying.

Friendship Games Review

So I decided to re watch Equestria Girls Friendship Games and I had some thoughts on it. Initially, it was my least favorite out of the Equestria Girls movies...and sadly it still is. Easily, where it falls flat is the characters, and I think the issue is a mix between having too many characters and characters not having a lot of development in general. The stars of this movie are Sunset Shimmer and Sci-Twi (more on her later) but everyone else gets pushed to the side. So, let me explain:

1. Too Many Characters= Not Enough Development

This is the biggest issue of Friendship Games, this movie has TOO MANY NEW CHARACTERS! I can do a tally of how many new characters were in each movie (major roles only and no human counterparts of ponies with the exception of Sci-Twi) and this movie still has the most and for my enjoyment, I’m going to do it:

So yeah, Friendship Games has the most amount of new characters and somehow with the Shadowbolt 5 getting promotional art, and two dolls each...they have no character aside from being rivals of the Mane 5...but even that doesn’t go anywhere. They don’t have a rivalry at all, they set up the opening titles to see who’s paired up with who:

And none of them are even rivals to each other. They hardly interact with one another. Sure, they’re rivals in terms of the sporting events, but in terms of character interaction, the Shadowbolts bully Canterlot High, pick on Twilight (for no reason), and are kinda just jerks until the end of the movie when one of their own turns into a monster and they decide to help out...but then in the books and Dance Magic, they go back to their old ways and then repeat the same lesson. But the issue is that, Friendship Games tries to put in so many new characters that those new characters, don’t get development. I didn’t care about the Shadowbolts. In Equestria Girls, Sunset and Flash had characters to them, in Rainbow Rocks the Dazzlings had characters to them, Legend of Everfree, Gloriosa and Timber both had characters to them for me to care, Cinch had character to her, in which I cared, the Shadowbolts I didn’t care about. Honestly, they could’ve either replaced the Shadowbolts with background characters, or have the human counterparts of more ponies be their rivals which would make more sense:

Yeah, I think this image speaks for itself with Sunset taking center stage and the Mane 5 literally being behind her. For me, this is the start of the Mane 5 getting shafted from the movies and making Sunset and Twilight the stars. The Mane 5 don’t really do anything, except play the games and get their magic stolen while Sunset is more of the main focus while on the rival team, Twilight is the main focus. The sad thing is, this could easily be fixed, and since they like to parallel stuff from the previous movies (more on that later), I think what could’ve worked was have each of the Mane 5 connect with Twilight in a way that Princess Twilight did for them in the first movie, and in turn Friendship is Magic, it would’ve worked as a nice parallel to Twilight meeting the Mane 5 in Equestria. Because Twilight hardly interacts with the Mane 5 besides Pinkie and Fluttershy, and with Applejack helping her. But I think it would’ve been better and honestly strengthen Twilight’s relationship with the others if each of them displayed their elements while helping Twilight in some sort of way:

The Mane 5 could be involved, but it would be a nice inverse of the Mane 5 helping out Twilight, like Princess Twilight did for them, kinda paralleling the first movie and they could parallel some events in the series:

This could’ve given the Mane 5 more to do and have better interactions with the Twilight of their world, from the stuff they learned from Twilight in Equestria. But unfortunately, they get sidelined for Sunset Shimmer and her magic issue.

2. Sci-Twi

Now, I like Sci-Twi as a character, but I didn’t like the fact that she was a Fluttershy-esqe, character. Throughout the movie, you just feel bad for her. All of Crystal Prep doesn’t like her (that’s never stated as to why), Cinch is blackmailing her, Sunset is getting on her case (rightfully so but still), her only friend is Spike. She’s essentially a doormat in this movie, and for me I think it would’ve been better if she like Twilight at the start of FIM before she learned about friendship, this Twilight didn’t know about friendship either, but she was put into different circumstances, but it would’ve been better if she was like Twilight from the first episode. 

So I think it would’ve worked better if Twilight had more of a personality that was like her Equestrian counterpart, before she discovered friendship...and I know Moondancer already did that, but the difference was that Twilight was asocial and indifferent to the notion of friendship while Moondancer pretty much became a carbon copy of first episode Twilight...but speaking of Twilight-esque characters, time to move onto Sunset Shimmer.

3. Sunset Shimmer

Uh...I’m in a mixed bag here. On one hand, I liked her arc about trying to figure out how the magic operates in the human world, and she felt responsible since she brought it there in the first place...on the other hand I can understand the crew trying to have Sunset come full circle by paralleling the ending of the first movie (more on this in a bit), with her helping Twilight like Princess Twilight did for her...but for me it wasn’t executed very well and could’ve been better. Once again, I do like how Sunset’s arc in this movie was to find out what was going on with the magic and why the Humane 5 pony up without their instruments, also learning that she can’t always rely on Princess Twilight for help...despite it being hella cute that she was even willing to go back to Equestria to see Princess Twilight and was worried. On my initial viewing of the movie years ago, I was mad at Sunset for yelling at Sci Twi (...I love Twilight and I was biased), and thought that she had the nerve to yell at Sci-Twi for the stuff that she caused...and then it hit me that was reason why she yelled. Going back on the scene, I realized that she wasn’t necessarily mad at Twilight she was mad at herself.

Sunset Shimmer: What do you mean you don't know how?! (Sunset brought the Element of Magic with no knowledge of what it could do or how it’s magic worked, but did it due to greed, selfishness, and power)

Sunset Shimmer: Is there anything you do know?! Like how to get our magic back?! Or how to fix the portal to Equestria?! (Mane 6 wouldn’t have magic if it weren’t for Sunset bringing the crown...and by extension the portal because Princess Twilight wouldn’t modify it because she wouldn’t even know about the human world if Sunset hadn’t stolen the crown)

Sunset Shimmer: You're supposed to be so smart, but did you ever think that you shouldn't be messing around with things you don't understand?! (Sunset was one of Celestia’s top students, and is one of Canterlot High’s top students, but she can’t find a solution to the problem that she ultimately caused in the first place)

Sunset Shimmer: But you don't! And worst of all, you put the lives of my friends in danger! (She attempts to figure out solutions but can’t find one and doesn’t understand the magic and because of her bringing the crown, the Dazzlings were lured to Canterlot High, and Sci-Twi is accidentally draining magic from her friends weakening them...and Crystal Prep thinks that Canterlot High is cheating)

So, this is the part where she’s confronting Twilight and while yes, she let her anger boil over to the point of yelling at Twilight, she knows that none of them would be in this mess if it weren’t for magic being at Canterlot High and her words directly:

Sunset Shimmer: Crystal Prep is never gonna believe we won fair and square if there's magic around. And that magic is only around... because of me.

One other thing that I liked, that wasn’t explicitly stated in the movie, but shown (throughout the first three movies in fact) is that Sunset has times where she feels inferior to Twilight:

Speaking of the Midnight vs. Daydream fight AKA the climax of Friendship Games, I’ll say this...at least Midnight’s defeat didn’t parallel Sunset’s defeat in the first movie which was a scene by scene copy of Nightmare Moon’s defeat from the first episode, but it was still paralleling the climax of the first movie...but it wasn’t done well in my opinion.

4. The Climax

Going to be honest, this was initially the only thing I took from the movie, and still do. We get an evil version of Twilight Sparkle, and since I’ve covered my love for Midnight Sparkle many times in many posts, I’m just gonna state that I love Midnight Sparkle, I’m glad she came back in Legend of Everfree...according to the drafts for Season 9 of Friendship is Magic, Princess Twilight was either going to turn evil, or through desperation turn into Midnight Sparkle, like Luna did as Nightmare Moon...so close, but yet so far. But even the greatness that is Midnight Sparkle...couldn’t save this climax or this movie. Once again, I understand they were trying to have these parallels, with this being a parallel to the climax of the first movie...although a bit better. The climax tries to have Sunset relate to Twilight with her being overwhelmed by the magic of the crown and understanding Twilight...but it falls flat for a few reasons, one of which I mentioned earlier.

So the climax wasn’t as satisfying because of the lack of character interactions between the two, to make me feel something and both girls situations were different, yes both got changed into something else by powerful magic as well as powers, but Twilight’s goals were warped by the magic, while Sunset had her motivations and plans worked out from the beginning.

5. Principal Cinch

Principal Cinch is one of the more unique villains in the EQG series. For starters, she’s the only adult villain in the Equestria Girls series still to this day. Second, the she’s the only antagonist to not use magic at all, she pressured Twilight to release the magic but she never used magic herself. But to be clear, she was the main antagonist for the movie. The Shadowbolts were nothing but bullies and the rival team for the Friendship Games, their molded after her principles and curriculum and reputation, so the Shadowbolts are molded after Cinch’s teachings. With Sci-Twi, while she unintentionally steals the Mane 6′s magic, she gets close to them because she’s competing in the Friendship Games, but not by choice, but because Cinch blackmails and manipulates Twilight with her desire of the Everton study program. This principal manipulates one of her best students with an application towards her future, in order to preserve her reputation at Crystal Prep. Sci Twi, is a victim (I’m getting to this one cause HOLY SHIT...). Midnight Sparkle? Even she was indirectly created by Cinch because she pressured Twilight into releasing the magic she collected...so that’s Cinch. She’s not like the other Equestria Girls villains and even the Friendship is Magic villains...and MY GOD she was great! For a fresh take on an antagonist, Cinch was a great villain and the worst part, she doesn’t need magic to do it. She’s the example of a realistic real-world antagonist. Of course, Cinch would be the strict principal of the rival school and how she ultimately cared about herself, but how she did it...I would be terrified of this woman if she was my principal. 

Cinch not only served as a foil to Principal Celestia, she also serves as a foil to Princess Celestia, in terms of education. They serve as a contrast to each other. And ESPECIALLY with their treatments of Twilight.

So, yeah with that Friendship Games, is my least favorite Equestria Girls movie, because of mainly character interaction and I think they attempted to have too many characters. This was pretty long.

Friendship is Magic Tier List: Alicorn Level (Part 1)

So for the Alicorn level, since I have 18 characters, I’m going to split this into 2 parts, bottom 9 for Part 1 and top 9 for Part 2. So starting with the bottom 9.

9. 3rd Power Tirek

Tirek over the course of the show is shown the most in this form, out of all of his powered up forms and with this form he mainly relies on strength rather than magic. This form is also inconsistent on how he achieves it:

So for the sake of this, I’m going to use 3rd form Tirek being the result of stealing a good amount of the 3 types of ponies magic and taking Chrysalis’ magic while in her base form, because it makes the most sense. With that Tirek gets into alicorn territory by literally having the magic of earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi. His main method is magic drain but he also has regular magic spells like: levitation, portal creation, magic blasts but the majority of his strength comes from his brute force and his magic draining has limits.

So with this, Tirek wins as the strongest member of the Legion of Doom in more ways than one mainly because he’s a magic absorber but because of his brute strength.

10. Love Empowered Chrysalis (A Canterlot Wedding)

I think this is the strongest form that Chrysalis had even beating her Bewitching Bell form. In this state, she’s empowered by Shining Armor’s love from impersonating Cadence and feeding off Shining Armor’s love for Cadence (which in the comics he flat out had a crush on her since high school so that could play a huge factor). Her most notable feat in this form is defeating Celestia in a magic duel, however she was on the receiving end at the start of the battle, and was even shocked that she won, as well as Celestia not giving it her all (considering what Celestia did to Chrysalis in the comics where she was a similar state in fact). But in this form she showcased:

But Love Empowered Chrysalis takes the next spot on this bottom tier list.

12. Bewitching Bell Chrysalis (The Ending of the End)

So, I just mentioned above all these abilities that Chrysalis did in her empowered form (possibly even base form), yeah Bewitching Bell Chrysalis does NONE of that in the finale to help her to her advantage. The Bewitching Bell has enough of Grogar’s magic to turn Cozy Glow into an alicorn, empower Tirek to his third form and for Chrysalis...gives her regalia, larger wings and a vibrant colored horn and eyes. Her main use of magic...blasting beams and that’s all she does in the finale. Her only notable feats was beating Starlight in a “fight” and breaking Twilight’s barrier. She doesn’t even SHAPE SHIFT into anything to try and confuse the Mane 6 or Starlight, one of the abilities that her species is most notable for and the most deceptive! She even nearly loses a beam struggle to Rarity and Spike. The only reason why she’s here and not lower is because she breaks Twilight’s barrier, something that Cozy with the same empowerment couldn’t do. Also Tirek could take her magic if he wanted to.

13. Base Chrysalis

Now despite being empowered by love and other forms of magic, Chrysalis in her base form is strong in her own right (I want to argue if not stronger than her Bewitching form). Now for this I’m not going to count anything she did in A Canterlot Wedding because during that time she was feeding off of Shining Armor’s love. So I’m going to include feats from the show and the comics.

Despite having a larger skillset, she falls in the lower tier for a few reasons

But base Chrysalis, despite all of that is still a force to be reckoned with.

14. Alicorn Cozy Glow

Alicorn Cozy Glow despite being enhanced by the bell is still the weakest of the trio (not that she wasn’t before the power up). She primarily uses magic blasts, used a forcefield once and portal creation once. I’d say that her most notable feat was going against Starlight in a 1 vs. 1 and actually winning...and that’s it. Like out of the other alicorns, she wouldn’t be able to take any in a fight...because this is pretty much her first fight and has no battle coordination. She just blasts whatever pony is in front of her but she misses. Yes, she’s obviously alicorn tier because she’s an alicorn but if not for her brief win against Starlight, I would rank her lower, not even in alicorn tier.

15. Nightmare Rarity (comics)

Nightmare Rarity is an interesting one. She’s basically Rarity taken over by the Nightmare Forces which corrupted Princess Luna into Nightmare Moon...in the comics. Her feats of magic are:

That’s pretty much it. Throughout the comic, she doesn’t even do anything offensively that much. She blocks a blast from Luna (S1) with one of her hoof shoes and the other time is where she lands a direct hit on Luna, but she doesn’t fight that much on her own. If she would’ve fought more I would’ve ranked her a bit higher.

16. Flurry Heart

She’s up here because she’s an alicorn mainly. Prior to getting her powers under control, she was able to blast powerful beams of magic (about four floors above her room in the castle), has a baby cry strong enough to shatter the Crystal Heart, but after she has standard powers like barriers, and magic beams. She’s above second form Tirek due to having powerful magic above his power level.

17. 2nd Form Tirek

I already talked about 3rd form Tirek and this is just him in his previous stage. In this form he can’t really do that much besides drain magic, and blast beams. He has a little bit of strength, but not as much as his higher forms.

18. 1st Form Tirek

He can shoot little beams from his magic and he can transfer his magic but that’s it. This is his weakest form.

Finally, with that concludes the Bottom Tier of the Alicorn Tier list. Next up is the Top 9...