So, from the middle of tornado season (it’s been nuts all day and is promised to be the same tomorrow), I’m going to discuss something that has a frivolous source, but I think is a big deal: people going in later and changing a creator’s work.

First things first. I, gentle readers….am a brony.

For those unfamiliar with the term, it means I watch the latest relaunch of the My Little Pony enterprise, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I blame being sick and images on deviantart for getting me curious enough to watch it, but the first and last two-parter episodes of Season 1 were too epic to ignore, and the opening for Season 2 was just as good. Now we’re approaching the finale for Season 2, and suddenly, my writer’s britches are in a bunch.

Between the two seasons, Lauren Faust, who has worked behind the scenes of such shows as Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and The Powerpuff Girls and conceptualized MLP: FiM, left the show in the hands of other staff who came on board. On one hand, I can tell the difference in the stories, but on the other, it wasn’t so drastic a change that I think anyone who wasn’t a writer would have noticed. She did have her hand though in some of the character and story creation for the second season before she left. One of which is the upcoming finale, the first half premiering this weekend. As could be expected, the Hub is making quite a big deal, and several facts have already been released. SOMETHING is going on at a wedding between Twilight’s brother (who knew she had one? This is the season of finding out about families we didn’t know existed for the main characters…) and Princess Cadence/Cadance (her spelling is up in the air officially), a niece of Princess Celestia (and one would assume Princess Luna too, but she is frequently forgotten, poor dear).

When I first read that, my mind went, “Oh, another pseudo-relation like Prince Blueblood of Season 1. Meh, okay, I can go with that. Maybe the two are even related.” The former character was a unicorn stallion, not an alicorn like the two princesses. (Alicorn, btw, is a highly incorrect term for the unicorn/pegasi combos in the fandom. Incorrect because, as unicorn fans know, alicorn is a unicorn’s HORN.) Alicorn in this universe seems linked to goddess, due to how long-lived they are and their strength of magic. The two princesses for example have been around for over 1000 years (Admittedly (spoiler), Luna spent most of that sealed away in the moon) and have the ability to raise and lower the sun and moon, a.k.a. controlling day, night, and life as we know it. It makes sense there are only two of them. But then my curiosity bit me in the butt and I went to the show wiki to look the character up, because sometimes pictures are released early too.

And I see a purple and pink alicorn and I about broke. Especially since I knew Faust had even said how powerful/rare the alicorns were in an interview. This led to a little investigating, which turned up that when Faust was part of the show, Cadence wasn’t an alicorn at all.

And this is where as a writer, I am moderately annoyed on her behalf. As my giant diatribe above notes, there are reasons there are only two alicorns in the series. They serve a purpose, and lord knows Luna is frequently forgotten as it is. So why on earth would they throw in another one? Unless it was because people had a brain break when Prince Blueblood was a unicorn, but that was explained so I have issues with that. I’ve heard speculation that she’s meant to replace the old Celestia toy in Hasbro, since the character was originally pink but became white, but that makes no sense because Faust created her. Writers tend to do things for reasons…or subconsciously for reasons that end up being relevant later (I did that with The Last Guardians trilogy, it’s funny NOW).

…All I have to say is there had better be a PLOT RELEVANT reason why Cadence suddenly had to have wings and a horn both, or else I might mutiny. I’m already half-tempted, just because how Luna became Nightmare Moon hasn’t been explained YET, which is annoying. I mean, before it made sense that her own power corrupted her due to feeling jealous and ignored by her older sister. But Faust broke that bubble, and now I demand a reason.