Fanfic / Ponies of Olympus

Ponies of Olympus is a series of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic stories by Bico that heavily incorporates elements of Classical Mythology into the backstories of the side characters (primarily the Princesses). Starting with the second story, a Story Arc about Spike taking levels in badass and the plans of the God of Evil Erebos starts taking shape.

Stories in the Ponies of Olympus timeline:

• Ditzy Don't: After Ditzy Doo messes up one too many times, Rainbow bans her from the weather team. Ditzy turns to Twilight to help her get over her clumsiness, but can she and the rest of her friends get the job done or will it only result in further calamity?
• Rolling In Beaches: When Spike and his friends go on a trip to Daypony Beach, he's rescued from the sea by a strange filly. Despite having reservations about this mute pony, Spike and his friends welcome her into their group. However, the restless ocean — as well as the innkeeper's warnings about the mysterious "ponies of the sea" — has everypony nervous, and when a nearby clan of dragons becomes involved, things go from bad to worse.
• Head of a Dog; Tail of a Lion: After being worked like a dog, Spike decides that the Princess Summit is for the birds. His trip to the market goes to the dogs when the Crystal Empire is subjected to an unprecedented raid on their home turf and Spike suddenly finds himself in a gilded cage. It seems that birds of a feather flock together, though, and he is treated as top dog, so when his eagle eye spots some underpawed dealings, will he let sleeping dogs lie or will he beard the lion in its den?
• Somebody to Love: Rarity has been unlucky in love, so when Princess Cadance offers to use her special talents to help her in her quest she enthusiastically agrees. Will Rarity ride the wild wind of romance, or will harsh reality put out the fire?
• Atlas Strongest Tournament: The Atlas Strongest Tournament is a tradition which stretches back to the beginning of the history of the Atlantean continent, and this year Princess Luna is officiating the tournament. Rarity receives a visit from her old Spinese master as young Scootaloo enters the tournament. Meanwhile, Darkness is gathering as the Queen of the Changelings begins her own secret plans for revenge against Twilight Sparkle and Ponyville.

Tropes present in this series:

• Action Mare: Rarity (reluctantly), Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, Ran Biao.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Lyra is implied to have a crush on Twilight, and it's suggested she only entered the tournament to impress her.
  • Ran Biao's original feelings for Rarity, something Rarity never even noticed.
  • Scootaloo has apparently developed a crush on Spike as well, which he is completely oblivious to.
• All Your Powers Combined: By the final match of the tournament, Aurelia has copied the fighting skills and techniques of every competitor.
• Always Second Best: Ran Biao to Rarity. It's part of the reason she hates her.
  • Except not really. Her reasons for hating Rarity are more complex than that; see below.
• Always Someone Better: Ditzy, in her Mademoiselle Doo persona, fills this role when she shows up Rainbow Dash in the middle of Ditzy Don't.
  • Of course, this is due to the Magical Mimicry spell Twilight used on her, giving her all of the mane 6's traits.
• Anachronic Order: Though published afterward, Somebody to Love is the first of an undetermined number of stories intended to flesh out the Time Skip between Rolling in Beaches and Atlas Strongest Tournament, with the subsequent Head of a Dog going backward from there.
• Beam-O-War: A brief one between the Jupiter Lance and Sonic Wavebow.
  • Twilight and Luna jointly against Chrysalis and Aurelia.
• Becoming the Mask: Aurelia warns her team about this, and we see a few of them get a little too into character with the ponies they're impersonating.
• Berserk Button: Applejack accidentally stumbles on Spike's. It's a temporary one, but understandable after walking in on Rarity and Ran Biao making out.
• Big Bad: Erebos seems set up as this for the series. On top of that, he also caused Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis' own corruption from whatever she used to be, and is implied to be connected to Discord and Sombra as well.
• Big "WHAT?!": There's a group one when Lao Wu says Rarity will be competing in the competition. And Rarity is one of the ones shouting, given that this is news to her at the time.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Most obviously when Lao Wu begins speaking in Chinese and Rarity responds for the most part in English.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Pinkie, naturally. Especially when acting as announcer for the tournament.
• Brick Joke: Spike's floaties in Rolling in Beaches.
• Bring It: Several times during the tournament.
• The Casanova:
  • Luna's bodyguard, Argent Javelin. Unlike Spike (see below), he's well aware of his effect on mares and enjoys it.
  • Star Dream, the first candidate Rarity seeks for romance in Somebody to Love. Besides juggling a crowd of admirers (of both sexes), he's got seven evil exes for any prospective suitor to fight.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: At the end of Rolling in Beaches, Luna and Celestia show up with the Elements of Harmony in tow only after Spike tapped into them already to destroy the Rainbow of Darkness and undo its damage.
• Chekhov's Gun: At one point in Ditzy Don't, Twilight is shown reading a book called "Magical Mimicry". This ends up being where she gets the spell to give Ditzy personality traits of Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity.
  • The advanced training Spike gets in the use of his magic fire comes in handy for defeating Garble, as does the advice he gets from Zecora and Iron Will earlier in the chapter.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Razorwing turns out to be the dragon of the Everfree, and under Chrysalis' control.
• Chick Magnet: Spike. In addition to Rarity finally realizing she returns his feelings, Wavedancer and Scales both develop crushes on him and Scootaloo has developed one as well.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Rarity, first when Spike shows interest in Wavedancer, then when Ran Biao tries to seduce him. Sweetie Belle uses this as evidence to get Rarity to admit that she has stronger feelings than friendship for Spike.
  • Scootaloo turns into this as well.
• The Corrupter: Erebos. He was the one who manipulated Luna into becoming Nightmare Moon, and transformed Chrysalis into a changeling. On top of that, Luna suspects that he's trying to do the same again with Spike.
• The Corruption: As per G1, this is what the Rainbow of Darkness does to anything it touches.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Ran Biao trained her flame breath to be strong enough to melt Rarity's metal acupuncture needles; however, her reliance on this leaves her vulnerable to Rarity's diamond backup needles.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The thugs who harass Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo in Storm Alley don't last very long.
  • Pretty much every fight Rarity's in. She barely even breaks a sweat.
    • Subverted with Ran Biao, who actually proves a match for Rarity though she still loses.
  • She seems to have picked this up from Lao Wu — the first match we see him in lasts all of a minute.
• Cute Mute: Wavedancer in her Earth pony form, due to the Rainbow Pearl (which transformed her) being stuck in her throat.
• Dance Battler: One of Scootaloo's techniques apparently looks quite similar to ballet. Rarity teases her about it.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Name checked by Rarity when she sarcastically asks Twilight if she thinks her Crystal Pony spell is this.
  • Ironically ends up saving her life when the changelings trick Scootaloo into nearly killing her; even with a hole in her, the Crystal form keeps her alive.
• David Versus Goliath: Spike versus Garble (now a fully grown dragon) in the Atlas Strongest preliminaries.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Scootaloo accidentally comments on Featherweight's cute smile during their preliminary match.
• Disability Superpower: Derpy's general... oddness makes her unpredictable in a fight. Scootaloo only beats her by being easily unpredictable.
• Discussed Trope: Twilight and Pinkie get into a discussion about whether a reference to "Old Ponyville" and the "Confederated States of Equestria" is Mr. Exposition, Foreshadowing, Continuity Nod, Call-Forward, or a Framing Device of a Flash Forward in a Flashback by an Unreliable Narrator Unstuck in Time.
• The Dragon: Chrysalis to Erobos, Aurelia to Chrysalis.
• Drunken Master: Berry Punch, believe it or not.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Ran Biao "accidentally" knocks Spike out during weight training (by making him carry Tom), and tries to "use CPR" on him. Rarity shows up just in time to stop her and kick her ass.
• Elemental Punch: Applejack and Rainbow can do this with their auras, and the Jupiter Lance is the electric version of this mixed with Laser Blade.
• Enemy Mine: Wavedancer and Scales put aside their differences to fight the dragons and the Mane Six corrupted by the Rainbow of Darkness. By the time the fight's over, both sides agree to put aside their differences.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Chrysalis seems to honestly love her daughter Aurelia.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: Not only do we have the Elements of Harmony and Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainbow, we also get an Energy Wave in the form of the Sonic Wavebow.
• Evil Laugh: Literally the first thing we see Chrysalis doing in this series is teaching Aurelia how to do one of these properly.
• Evil Gloating: When the changelings reveal themselves during the final match of the tournament, Aurelia goes on into detail how they've been manipulating everyone in order to feed off of their skills and power, and will use it to conquer Equestria. Chrysalis sheds tears of pride on her artful delivery.
• Expospeak Gag: Shining says he didn't forget to tell Twilight he was participating in the tournament, he just "failed to mention due to cognitive flatulence" (read: he had a brain fart). Twilight says that she's too smart for using big words to confuse the issue (though she admits she used to do the same thing to Cadence).
• False Flag Operation: Since the final match of the tournament, between Rarity and Scootaloo, is in a multi-leveled arena, when they're separated it gives Aurelia and another changeling a chance to lure them both into thinking the other is outright trying to kill them leading to Scootaloo nearly killing Rarity with her finishing move.
• Fallen Hero: Erebos' apparent goal for Spike.
  • Chrysalis used to be the Element of Magic, before Discord turned her against her friends, and Erebos corrupted her.
• Fantastic Racism: The Crystal Ponies are not that fond of Spike, as they have apparently had unpleasant experiences with dragons before (and even if it was a millennium ago for the rest of the world, it's more recent for them due to their banishment).
• Foreshadowing: Rarity first mentions her training in Spina in Ditzy Don't.
• From Bad to Worse: The climax of Rolling in Beaches — the Rainbow of Darkness corrupting a bunch of dragons? Bad. It corrupting all of the Mane Six ?! Definitely worse.
• Gambit Pileup: Luna and Aurelia's moves and countermoves against each other in Atlas Strongest Tournament.
• Genius Bruiser: Snowflake apparently has a doctorate, and is head of the athletics board at Canterlot U.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Ran Biao attempts to take advantage of this trope.
  • When Wavedancer transfers restorative magic into Scales via a kiss, the changelings all enjoy watching it.
• Glass Cannon: Argent Javelin is identified as this by name by Shining Armor.
• God of Evil: Erebos appears to be the god of darkness, and is determined to bring about eternal night.
• Good Versus Good: The hippocampi/Scaly Back River Clan conflict is one of these, as neither side is evil; however, a major misunderstanding on the dragons' side, and a bit of Fantastic Racism on the sea ponies' part, has them at each other's throats.
• Got Volunteered: Rarity only enters the tournament because of Lao Wu's pride and Rainbow Dash's insistence.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: Rarity has one in Atlas Strongest Tournament thanks to Sweetie Belle.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The whole reason Ran Biao hates Rarity is because she's just so much better than her.
  • Except, as it turns out, she never cared about that — she was, however, jealous of Rarity's relationship with Razorwing, and tried to get them to break up so she could have Rarity for herself.
• Harem Comedy: Atlas Strongest Tournament has shades of this, at least in regards to Spike's relationships with the various females with feelings for him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Pinkie quotes this trope during Rarity's match with Lao Wu, when he hits her with her own acupuncture needles, cutting off her magic flow.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When Rarity saves Scootaloo from being captured by the changelings.
• Honor Before Reason: The whole reason Rarity is initially dragged into the tournament is because Lao Wu wants her to fight Scootaloo in order to prove that his training techniques are superior to Rainbow Dash's. Then Dash agrees for the same reason and talks Rarity into it.
• Humiliation Conga:
  • Rainbow Dash ends up going through this in Ditzy Don't after Ditzy becomes Mademoiselle Doo: she's so badly outclassed that she and Ditzy basically switch roles, leading to her public humiliation and being fired from her weather management job, followed by Mademoiselle Doo deciding to start babying her. And that's before she goes obsessive and starts hunting Dash all over town until she's snapped back to normal. All of this helps lead to Dash's Jerkass Realization.
  • Rarity puts Blueblood through one of these during their match in the preliminary round of the Atlas Strongest Tournament, as payback for the Gala — first, she hits him in the eye, then in the pole, then immobilizes him with acupuncture needles (which also cause him to loose control of his bladder) before finishing him off.
• Hypocritical Humor: When the changelings realize that the "Spike" they've captured is a fake, one of them shouts "An imposter?! How horrible!"
• I Let You Win: Iron Will gives Spike advice at how to beat him in their preliminary match, so that when he does, he can try and offer to sell Spike his new book on fighting techniques.
• Imagine Spot: When Spike and Wavedancer wander off together, Rarity has one of these where Wavedancer turns into a cartoon-like, over-the-top villain who tries to harm Spike, only for Rarity to show up and save him.
• Incredibly Lame Pun:
  • Apparently, the Scaly Back River Clan's idea of "toasting" someone (at least, another dragon) is to literally toast them with fire.
  • Pinkie's comments during Shining Armor and Big Macintosh's fight is full of these. Shining comments that he wishes she'd stop.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: Scootaloo's is interrupted by Pinkie. It might have been successful if Spike had understood what she trying to say in the first place.
• Ironic Name: In Ditzy Don't, Ditzy feeds Fluttershy's ferret Nutty nuts, only for Fluttershy to reveal he's allergic to nuts. Spike even lampshades it.
• Jaw Drop: Spike's reaction to seeing Wavedancer in her true form for the first time.
• Jerkass Realization: Rainbow Dash has one at the end of Ditzy Don't when, upon calling out Mademoiselle Doo for treating her like a dumb foal just because she's not as good as her, realizes that that's the exact same way she's always treated Ditzy.
• Just Eat Him: Pinkie hangs a lampshade on this, naturally, when Rarity turns into a crystal pony in a fight against an opponent who eats gems.

• Lightning Bruiser: Big Macintosh, once he takes off his yoke, moves so fast he's almost impossible to see.
• Love Dodecahedron: Spike ends up in the middle of one in Atlas Strongest Tournament — he still has feelings for Rarity, but is also attracted to Ran Biao, who is using him to hurt Rarity, who she has twisted feelings for, feelings Rarity is reluctantly starting to return, and on top of that, Scootaloo likes Spike too, and it's hinted he might feel the same way. And then Scales and Wavedancer get involved...
• The Man Behind the Man: Erebos to Chrysalis. He was the one who created her, gave her the idea to masquerade as Cadence, and ordered her to send her changelings to infiltrate the tournament. And on top of that, he was apparently involved in Luna becoming Nightmare Moon. Luna also suspects that he was somehow influencing the conflict between the hippocampi and the Scaly Back River Clan, though that hasn't been confirmed yet.
• Meaningful Rename: Celestia was originally named Aurora, but changed it at some point.
  • By the time Ditzy reappears in Atlas Strongest Tournament, she's now going by Derpy Hooves. While the meta reason for this is obviously the name controversy over the character, in-universe the reason is because she's married Time Turner (aka, the Doctor). Though this just confuses Twilight further.
• The Mentor: Princess Rodi and Wavedancer share a similar relationship to that of Celestia and Twilight.
  • Lao Wu to Rarity.
  • Amber Spark to Rainbow Dash to Scootaloo.
• Metaphorgotten: When Twilight notes that her status as a Princess demands she negotiate with the Diamond Dogs for Spike and their other captives' release instead of attacking them, Fluttershy chimes in with the "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" adage before timidly admitting that it's really the other way around. Applejack adds that Sweet Apple Acres cider is really the best for the job before Twilight exasperatedly lampshades the whole thing.
• Minor Insult Meltdown: Applejack only meant to egg Spike on a little, but ended up hitting a Berserk Button, instead.
• The Mole: Luna has several among the changelings, including Wavedancer, Scales, Babs Seed, and Trixie, who replaced the changeling who was impersonating her.
• Mole in Charge: Shortly before the end of the tournament, Chrysalis replaces Luna.
• Mood Whiplash: All the time during Atlas Strongest Tournament, most often involving the changelings, especially in the fights against them during the Rescue Arc after the tournament. For all of the epic mythology and the threats it introduces, it's got a Comedy tag for a reason.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Mentioned by name by Discord when he's talking to Celestia and mentions various realities with different origins for himself and the Princesses.
• Mundane Utility: Rarity is probably Lao Wu's greatest student ever. She uses the fighting skills he gave her to help in her dressmaking (and occasionally, acupuncture).
• Mythology Gag:
  • The whole thing with the Master Rainbow and the Rainbow Of Darkness is taken from G1, with a few liberties taken.
  • The king of the Scaly Back River Clan is named Kenbroath Gillspotten Heathspike, which was the full name of G3 Spike.
    • Hell, the flashback sequence at the beginning of Atlas Strongest Tournament implies that he is G3 Spike.
  • Chrysalis and the changelings used to be insect-like ponies implied to be Flutterponies.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Rarity and Scootaloo's reactions when they realize the changelings have been pitting them against each other. Especially Scoots, when she realizes she almost killed Rarity.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Twilight's attempt to help Ditzy by implanting magical copies of the Mane Six's personalities in her head first causes her to outclass Rainbow Dash to the point of her public humiliation, then all the group's negative aspects (Fluttershy's sudden rage, Pinkie's personalities, Twilight's obsessiveness, etc) take over, making her go crazy and chase after Rainbow Dash to force her to let her take care of her.
  • Wavedancer taking the Rainbow Pearl out of curiosity (and then keeping it to get close to Spike), leads to it being stolen by the Scaly Back River dragons, who in turn break it and accidentally release the Rainbow of Darkness.
  • The flashback at the beginning of Atlas Strongest Tournament incorporates the story of Tithonus, with Celestia as the guilty party.
  • When Rarity saw Ran Biao and Razorwing together, she ran away at the perceived betrayal, which led to Razorwing raping Ran. This led to the breakup of their friendship.
• Non Sequitur, *Thud*: Pinkie, upon being food poisoned by Ditzy:
  "If I don't make it... Tell Gummy... he always goes flat when he tries to hit that high B. He really needs to work on that..."
• Noodle Incident: Ditzy Don't is full of these, most of them having to do with how Ditzy somehow screws up every attempt to help the Mane Six (usually setting something on fire in the process).
  • When Spike and the Mane Six first meet Wavedancer, mute at the time, the following exchange occurs:
  Rainbow Dash: What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?
  Rarity: You leave Opalescence out of this! She only did that once, and she was sorry!
  • Several other adventures the Mane Six have had during the Time Skip are mentioned during Atlas Strongest Tournament, the most prominent being an apparent time travel incident.
• No Indoor Voice: Seems Luna still slips into this when excited.
• Oh, Crap!: Blueblood has a subtle one when he recognizes Rarity at the preliminaries.
  • Fido's is much less subdued — as soon as he realizes he's facing Rarity, he throws the match and runs away... right into a wall.
• Old Master: Lao Wu.
  • Amber Spark's age isn't given, but she's been teaching for 40 years, so she's at least 50, which in pony terms means she's (as Scootaloo puts it) "ancient".
• Operation: Jealousy: Ran Biao tries to seduce Spike just to hurt Rarity.
• Original Flavor: Maintains it pretty well, even with the darker subtext in the later stories.
• Paranoia Gambit: One of the changelings, posing as Argent, tells Scootaloo that there's an enemy spy among the contestants, and the hints mixed with Scoot's jealousy convinces her it's Rarity.
• Photographic Memory: Scootaloo's special talent seems to mix this with muscle memory — once she sees someone's fight style, she can emulate it, as long as it's physically possible for her to do so.
• Princesses Rule: In addition to the canonical ones, there's Princess Rodi of the sea ponies (who happens to be Celestia and Luna's sister-in-law).
  • Subverted with the Scaly Back River Clan; Scales is a princess, but her grandfather King Kenbroath is in charge.
• Psychic Link: Celestia and Luna have an empathic link, at least during dawn and dusk when their portfolios overlap.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Chapter fifteen of Atlas Strongest Tournament is named this for a reason.
• Rape as Drama: Turns out, Ran Biao didn't seduce Razorwing — she tried to get him to break up with Rarity, and he raped her. Rarity saw them together and misunderstood, running off and letting it happen; Ran never forgave her for it.
• "Rashomon"-Style: Subverted. Ran Biao and Rarity both tell very different versions of what happened between Rarity and her first Love Interest Razorwing, but it's strongly implied that Ran Biao completely made her version up in order to paint Rarity in a negative light and drive a wedge between her and Spike.
  • Double subverted. As it turns out, Rarity's version wasn't entirely accurate (to be fair, she didn't lie, only drew the wrong conclusion from incomplete information), and there was some truth to Ran's version.
• Real Name as an Alias: Trixie enters the tournament under her last name Lulamoon.
• Really 700 Years Old: Played with. Due to the ponies having the lifespan of normal equines (teens are viewed as full adults), Amber Spark's age (unsaid, but she's been teaching for 40 years) is shocking, and the fact that Rarity's great great great great grandame is still alive at almost 100 is mind-boggling.
• Retcon: Due to the events of the season 3 finale, Atlas Strongest Tournament's first twelve chapters have been changed to reflect canon, though the changes are purely cosmetic so far. According to the author, this change actually makes his plans for later plot developments easier.
• Revenge: The only reason Chrysalis agrees to Erebos' plan to infiltrate the tournament is a chance at revenge on Twilight Sparkle for her defeat at the wedding.
  • And it turns out that Ran Biao's grudge against Rarity is payback for letting Razorwing rape her, something that Rarity wasn't aware that she had done.
• Ride the Lightning: The Jupiter Lance technique allows a pony to do this.
• The Rival: Ran Biao to Rarity.
  • Tom to Argent. No, seriously.
  • In Somebody to Love, Scootaloo invokes this for her training with Rainbow Dash, drafting Spike into the role.
• Running Gag: Ditzy somehow setting things on fire in Ditzy Don't, even when it's not physically possible.
  • This ends up happening again in Atlas Strongest Tournament, except this time it's caused by changeling impersonating her.
  • Tom in Atlas Strongest Tournament.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Lao Wu is rather blunt when talking to people.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: At the end of Rolling in Beaches, the remnants of the Rainbow of Darkness are sealed inside Spike. The Princesses keep this to themselves, though Rodi is reluctant, as she sees this as a potential risk.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: Aurelia seems to prefer Scootaloo's form as a disguise, something Scootaloo herself lampshades.
• Shipper on Deck: Sweetie Belle ships her sister and Spike, while Apple Bloom ships him with Scootaloo.
• The Spock: A side effect of Rarity's Crystal Pony spell is that it temporarily shuts off her emotions. Twilight is worried that it might become permanent.
• Spot the Imposter: Subverted. At first, it looks like when Aurelia impersonates Scootaloo to get close to Spike, he can tell she's an imposter because her eyes are the wrong shade of purple. But then it turns out "Spike" was just another changeling helping Aurelia rehearse to avoid this very trope.
  • Then it turns out that the first scene was Spike spotting Wavedancer as the imposter, who was helping Luna's other spies get him to safety.
  • Inverted later on, when the changelings realize that the "Spike" they've captured is actually Scales disguised as him, and the reader realizes that the second abduction scene was Scales playing Spike in order to be abducted by Aurelia, who spectacularly failed to Spot the Imposter at first despite Scales having wings..
• Spy Speak: The trope is lampshaded during a conversation between Princess Luna and her spy among the changelings who may or may not have been replaced by an actual changeling.
  Spy: The princess will save the dragon, the apples are being sorted, and... do we really have to talk like this?
  Luna: These are standard espionage codes. One must do things properly.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Pinkie has a literal one, with a katana, flail, scythe, nunchucks, crossbow, and a chainsaw all coming out of what appears to be an actual pocket knife hilt.
• Thicker Than Water: The primary reason Rarity puts up with Lao Wu and Ran Biao is because they're distant cousins.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Quoted word for word by Scootaloo before she's catapulted from a waterfall during her match with Rarity. Funnily enough, she ends up screaming suck as Pinkie is commentating about her and ends up thinking she's calling herself Scootasuck.
• Time Skip: There's one of several years between Rolling in Beaches and Atlas Strongest Tournament.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Comes up when Derpy is describing her relationship with the Doctor — they got married a hundred years from now last week, and Dinky and Sparkler are their kids, but had to be raised in the past by other ponies for some reason to ensure their birth. And Dinky is actually the older child. It's about this point that Twilight's brain starts to crash and Luna has to drag her away.
  • For bonus points, there are actually at least two versions of the Doctor acting as referees in the tournament, and one of them actually uses this as his name.
• Took a Level in Badass: Spike takes several at the end of Rolling in Beaches, and several more once he starts training in Atlas Strongest Tournament.
  • Thanks to Rainbow Dash's training, Scootaloo's taken quite a few as well.
• Tournament Arc: Atlas Strongest Tournament is this for the series as a whole — the author has even stated in a journal entry that inspiration for this story came from this trope's use in various anime and manga.
• Training from Hell: Amber Spark's method borders on this. Literally, when she and Luna take Scootaloo to Tartaros in order to prepare her to chase after the changelings.
  • One thing Ran Biao and Rarity agree on is that Lao Wu's training qualifies.
• Trash Talk: All over the place in the tournament.
• Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: Shining Armor's talent is defensive magic while Argent Javelin's talent is attack magic. The chapter in which they fight is actually named after a Chinese phrase "自相矛盾" (interacting shield spear), which is the Chinese name for this trope, referencing a story in which a man tries to sell a spear that can pierce any shield and a shield that can block any spear. Turns out the unstoppable force knocks himself out.
• The Vamp: Aurelia is assigned to seduce Spike to the dark side.
• Was Once A Pony: Chrysalis and her subjects used to be normal ponies (implied to have been flutterponies, in fact), before Erebos transformed them.
  • And Discord used to be a pony named Endymion and was Luna's lover.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: King Kenbroath and his clan honestly believe that ponies are descended from cursed dragons (it's actually the other way around) and that they must use the Rainbow Pearl to revert it. He doesn't care to ask anypony's permission first because he figures granting them all substantially longer lives would be a blessing.
• We Used to Be Friends: Rarity and Ran Biao, until Ran Biao, in an act of jealousy over Rarity's talent, stole her Love Interest Razorwing in order to hurt her. Rarity never forgave her for that, and refuses to let her do the same with Spike.
  • As it turns out, Ran Biao didn't steal Razorwing — she was in love with Rarity, and when she tried to get Razorwing to break up with her, he raped her. Rarity misunderstood the situation and left them to it, which led to her friendship with Ran falling apart.
• Wicked Cultured: During the Girl on Girl Is Hot moment between Wavedancer and Scales (listed above), one changeling is described as inexplicably wearing a top hat and monocle while commenting on the taste.
• Wretched Hive: The Storm Alley neighborhood in Cloudsdale is actually referred to as such.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The flashback at the beginning of Atlas Strongest Tournament has everyone talking like this.
• "You!" Exclamation: Twilight, upon realizing that Chrysalis has replaced Luna.

---