Friendship Is Magic: The Next Generation begins thirty years after the birth of Princess Flurry Heart, and the story is... a bit darker and more complicated than My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic before it. It delves into the backstory around Alicorns, where they came from, why Discord is the only Draconequus, and who is the prisoner in the deepest darkest cell of the cosmic oubliette that is Tartarus... (And admittedly, FIM:TNG does take some liberties with the events of MLP:FIM, mostly in regards to Equestria Girls and all episodes after and including The Cutie Re-Mark. That will become more apparent when it comes to the character bios for Sunset Shimmer, Flash Sentry, Starlight Glimmer, and others.) Now, I have done this for years now online, but I think it deserves attention here: whenever I discuss a couple, I always use an ampersand "&" between their names, whereas with platonic pairs/groups, I use the word "and" instead. And also, I think we all take it for granted that same-sex couples in Friendship Is Magic headcanons can have kids. I mean, magic is a thing in this universe, and it's not ENTIRELY written off that sex-changes could happen with magic. Or just, you know, other options with the magic to allow two mares or two stallions to have children together. Anyway, moving on. Sunset Shimmer, one half of the Counselor's Office at the School of Friendship, wife of Starlight Glimmer, mother of Daybreak Dream (aka, Dawn), ex-apprentice to Princess Celestia, and former Thief of the Sun. Sunset is a passionate and hot-blooded mare, outgoing, extroverted, and unafraid to get her hooves (or claws) dirty. A snark is always boiling away just below the surface. Be careful not to mess things up for her, though; Sunset Shimmer is also quick to get angry and end up saying something that she may greatly regret later. One day while she was wandering through her Canterlot Statue Garden, Princess Celestia came upon a small filly wandering lost. There were no tours which had passed through lately, and there was no way that she could have snuck in because the garden was on a promenade hundreds of feet off the ground. She proved to be quite powerful, though untrained, and Celestia opted to take in the filly as an apprentice (and surrogate daughter). When her cutie mark came in, though, and it didn't resemble any of the six unknown marks on the Tree of Harmony, Celestia began to wonder: it is now barely a decade until the Summer Sun Celebration when NightMare Moon will return. Sunset cannot be one of the Bearers. For her part, Sunset Shimmer remembered nothing of her life before she found Princess Celestia. As far as she'd known, she just popped into existence in the garden. The Princess always gave her a canny look whenever she asked about her past, but Celestia always told her that her past was not today. Whatever Sunset could have been before had no bearing on what she was now. On who she was now. Little did Sunset Shimmer know, that an inspection of the Canterlot Statue Garden by Princess Celestia revealed that one of the statues had gone missing: a looming and wretched she-demon... This eventually came to a head, as the emptiness in her past led Sunset to crave more teachings, more spells, more power. Celestia worried for her pupil, as this was not the path she wanted her to follow. Their discussion became a fight, and Sunset fled to parts unknown to Celestia. Modifying her teleportation spell with a magic mirror to allow her to reach alternate dimensions, Sunset searched for answers for nearly a decade amongst all manner of different forms of life. None of them gave her answers as to how she could have come to that Statue Garden from outside. Seething with frustration at her lot, Sunset returned to Equestria, to find it abuzz. Not only had Princess Celestia's hitherto unknown little sister Luna returned, but her apprentice Twilight Sparkle was soon to be coronated as a Princess herself. Wait a minute. Celestia's apprentice?! Sunset's mind went red with anger. Celestia had replaced her, as if their time together had not meant anything. Rationality and logic left her, as she sought one thing: to get close to Twilight Sparkle, take that magic crown that gave her her great Harmony magic, and become crowned a Princess herself. Then Celestia would take her back and love her again! The coronation was far too risky since all three current Princesses of Equestria were in attendance (apparently the Crystal Empire had returned as well since Sunset had been away. who knew?), but a celebratory masquerade ball being held up in the Crystal Empire seemed far simpler to infiltrate. I mean, it was practically begging for a party-crashing if the invitees all wore masks! Casting a glamour on her own mask once she was in, Sunset appeared to each of Twilight Sparkle's friends as another one, casting insults about one by one. As the night progressed, the six Bearers began to fight on their own, throwing out their own deep-cutting curses. In frustration, Twilight throw her crown aside... And then Sunset Shimmer caught it, casting aside her glamour and her mask as she declaimed at Celestia. The crown felt strangely hot in Sunset's magic, and she felt something deep within her resisting it. Fighting this back, Sunset set Twilight's crown of magic on her head... And something burst out from her past - and her body - as her memories came flooding back. The twin monsters Bellabog and Tchrnabog were created from a nightmarish experiment by a great nameless enemy of the Princesses Celestia and Luna. Bellabog, the Thief of the Sun, and Tchrnabog, the Thief of the Moon. Together, they would rob control of the Sun and Moon from Celestia and Luna, setting Equestria into chaos. The battle between the Alicorns and the she-demons was ferocious, and time was not marked by day or night for its duration, but Celestia and Luna called upon the Elements of Harmony and brought down a rainbow. Tchrnabog was left without a body and Bellabog was frozen as a statue. Though little did they know, that Tchrnabog found a new place to hide in the recesses of Princess Luna's mind, feeding on her insecurities and jealousies... Bellabog stood tall above the terrified masquerade ponies, recalling her purpose and her vendetta against Celestia. She had been aware for so long in that statue, and when the bindings came undone, she forgot everything, and then Celestia dared to mold her into one of her little pony slaves...! Her other half, she could sense, was now truly gone, and that meant that it would only be she now. Only Bellabog now. That meant that it would only be her Sun, which she would use to burn the Moon out of the sky and bring down a burning everlasting day on Equestria...! ...or would have if she hadn't forgotten about Twilight Sparkle's crown of magic and the other Elements of Harmony. One rainbow beam blast later, the she-demon lay curled up in a crater in the Crystal Empire. Coming to, Sunset rubbed her head, hot tears on her face. She hadn't realized that Celestia had all too good a reason to keep this past from her. Letting Sunset know that she'd been an ancient and horrible she-demon would almost surely have awakened the beast prematurely. And, now she realized how wrong she was on another score: that powerful spells were not the greatest magic of all. It was friendship. Celestia was glad for her apprentice to have learned this lesson, and considered Twilight guiding her as a pupil of friendship. For what it was worth, Sunset did not much appreciate the Golden Oak Library; as a she-demon, it was far too cramped for her to stand in the main library room, nevermind squeezing through any of the doors. She had to stand by the balcony while Twilight speechified about all the lessons she'd learned in friendship, and it was so... boring. Enough with the lectures, let's get some hooves dirty! Although, Sunset was finally able to assume a pony form just as Twilight and her friends were figuring out their keys to the Tree of Harmony's box, though that was followed quickly by the advent of Lord Tirek... Sunset reluctantly found herself rooming in Twilight's Castle of Friendship, but they'd barely gotten time to settle down before having to deal with three mysterious singers who turned out to be Sirens lost in time. Sirens, created from Windigoes, who were born from ponies consumed by hatred and discord, twisted by... him. Sunset tried to reach out to Adagio, Aria, and Sonata, who were almost her sisters, but they would not hear from her. It took Sunset's encouragement to keep Twilight and her friends from being divided by the Sirens' song, and then the harmony between the seven of them brought down an intense rainbow that destroyed the Sirens' gems. Sunset was less than thrilled with the description that Twilight gave of the pony in charge of that "Our Town". Sounded like a real control freak. Who'd wanna hear out a pony like that, whether her thesis on cutie marks was right or wrong? For her part, she was more interested in the fact that ponies in Ponyville were finally getting used to her presence, and some even treating her with something like respect and kindness. Although, her past was not today, so it's not like she deserved to be treated badly now. After a harrowing ordeal with preventing Twilight from being tempted into horrible forbidden magic by Abacus Cinch, a Crystal Pony in one of the deeper circles of Tartarus, Sunset decided to just take a break in her wing in the Castle of Friendship. Then, she heard a commotion from the map room. Coming to check, it turned out to be Starlight Glimmer, arrested by the Royal Guard. Initially, Sunset resented being stuck with Starlight after the latter's hearing; she reminded her of many of her own worst qualities. But she'd given Twilight her word that she would keep an eye on her, be it a pony eye or a she-demon eye. She got a kick out of shifting from pony to she-demon whenever Starlight wasn't looking just to spook her. Served her right for trying to take Twilight's cutie mark and brainwash the Princess of Friendship. As time passed, though, she came to admire Starlight from her more altruistic moments, and saw that she was really taking her redemption seriously. As it was, she was only mildly surprised when Starlight was named her co-counselor when Twilight started her School of Friendship. (The invasion of Canterlot by the Storm King was something that Sunset almost entirely missed, as she decided to get out and see Equestria on her own. It was just one little Festival of Friendship, after all, not like ponies didn't do that kind of thing all the time. By the time she'd caught wind of it, however, the battle had nearly been won by Twilight and friends, Sunset only just arriving around the same time as the Hippogriff reinforcements.) Sunset found herself & Starlight trading snarky barbs back and forth in their Counselor's Office, no matter which form Sunset took. It was almost like they were becoming... amorous. When Cozy Glow attempted to steal all of Equestria's magic, Sunset was left in flux between her two forms, bobbling helplessly in a bubble with Starlight. As such, she did not much protest when that little sociopath was sent to Tartarus. Soon after, Sunset Shimmer & Starlight Glimmer hooked up. When Starlight & Sunset opted to have a child, it was no question between the two of them that the latter would be the carrier. After all, they had no way of knowing how large the child they had would be, with Sunset's she-demon genes. During such time, Sunset would have to avoid assuming her pony form for the same reasons. And that's how Daybreak Dream was made! (Dawn can assume a pony-ish form as well, though with much more of a tell that she's more than she appears than with her mother Sunset.) The Alicorns' disappearance hit Sunset harder than she would let on; though she quickly cottoned to Starlight's distress about it, she felt she had to be strong for her wife. After time, she was unable to keep it in anymore and confessed that the disappearance of her surrogate mother and one of her best friends was an incredible blow to her. Starlight initially questioned why Sunset kept this bottled up, since she would have been able to support her through both of their pain. Two trees out of balance can lean on each other. Sunset & Starlight are fairly clear that they will follow up on any leads as to where the Alicorns have gone. In other words, Sunset is one of my favorite characters and I feel like she's underutilized in a human environment where the most exciting things she does are... backstage passes and going to a camp. There's magic stuff, but still, I signed up for magic ponies, not for discount magical-girl Barbies. I'm not saying that Equestria Girls isn't okay for other people, but it really doesn't have a place in my headcanon.

2020-07-13 00:40:00 UTC