Fanfic Fuel / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

The fanfiction community for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is huge, and they tend to latch onto any bit of ambiguity present in the show and movies as good starting points for fanfiction.

Main series

• Why are Celestia and Luna apparently the only winged unicorns in the series? This one has lost some prominence after the season 2 finale introduced Princess Cadence, and the season 3 finale made Twilight Sparkle into an "alicorn", which means Celestia and Luna are no longer as unique.
  • "The Crystaling" introduces the baby alicorn Flurry Heart. It was mentioned that she was the first pony in all of Equestria's history to be born an alicorn - that alicorn-hood is normally a cosmic reward for a pony "accomplishing some Princess-worthy deed". This raises a number of questions (such as whether Celestia and Luna were born as alicorns, or whether there is any special significance to Flurry Heart being born as such, or what qualifies as a "princess-worthy deed") ripe for fanfic writers to explore.
• Did anything interesting happen in the thousand years between Nightmare Moon's imprisonment and the pilot?
• Luna's 1-year Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.
• Now we have Daring Do, an Adventurer Archaeologist who is the protagonist of a Book Series Within A Show; the contents of one of the books have been shown on-screen, we know the title of another, and we know that there are many other books in the series. Cue lots of fan-made "Daring Do and the [x]" installments. And the Daring Do trope page, if it counts.
• In "Hearts and Hooves Day", the Cutie Mark Crusaders create a love potion, but they only use a very small amount and leave quite a bit in the pitcher. Cue Shipping Fics involving one pony (or more) accidentally drinking the potion and hilarity ensuing.
• The introduction of Tartarus and time travel spells in "It's About Time" has given rise to many fanfics.
• The questionable actions of Shining Armor, The Mane Six, and Celestia that were taken during first part of the second season finale had garnered a bit of fuel, having writers insert bitterness into Twilight when she alienated everyone she ever loved, even when she was right about her suspicions surrounding the fake Cadance and write out stories calling out the ponies involved.
• During the space between seasons 2 and 3, Hasbro released a series of Friendship is Magic posters... including an official map of Equestria which featured a number of new locales to tickle the imaginations of fanfic writers.
• Stories about multiple Pinkies already exist but the Mirror Pool now gives fans a canon method of creating clones.
• The mystery surrounding its existence and the accompanying book that was sealed away at the library.
• The idea of the remaining Pinkie being a clone or one of the clones getting missed in the roundup. A season six episode shows that at least one clone did escape.
• Babs Seed in general. Not only is she an Apple relative, she's also got a nice bit of background set up. She leaves at the end of One Bad Apple to start a Manehattan branch of the CMC, which on its own is prime Fanfic Fuel.
• The redeemed and nice Trixie will surely become more prominent than she already is now that it has become canon.
  • According to the IDW comics, an alternate universe version of Trixie became an Alicorn princess. This would imply that the main universe's Trixie has the same potential, even if she's never shown it yet.
• Wait. You mean there's an Amplifier Artifact that can make a relative weakling like Trixie so powerful she outstrips the pre-ascension Twilight, but slowly corrupts the user to evil? Where did it come from, how was it made, how did Trixie find out about it? And it's now sitting in Zecora's hut where potentially anypony could find it or one of the cast could retrieve it and use it in a dire situation? The Alicorn Amulet is a tanker truck of fanfic fuel all by itself.
• The existence of an age modification spell lends itself to so many stories, even if only ponies like Celestia are powerful enough to use them.
  • While there's no confirmed Rule 63 spell, the possibility one might exist is prime for fanfic (not that there aren't already numerous Rule 63 works out there).
• Saddle Arabia and its inhabitants.
• Trixie knows Pinkie Pie's dad now!
• Zecora unambiguously has magical powers of her own.
• Now that reformed Discord is officially canon, it should be useful to fanfic writers.
• Celestia said she found a use for Discord's magic, hence why she went about trying to get him reformed. Fanfic writers should have a field day working out whatever that use may be.
• Discord/Celestia shippers have their own ideas on why she wanted him reformed...
• Bulk Biceps', a.k.a. "Snowflake's" Gentle Giant personality and his interactions with the mane six, especially Fluttershy, is prime shipping fuel.
• Soarin getting characterization in Rainbow Falls.
• Trailers for "Inspiration Manifestation" showing a green-eyed Rarity with her horn glowing the same color had fans wondering if King Sombra or Queen Chrysalis would be involved (they aren't). Given that all of Rarity's designs involve heavy use of crystals and gemstones and Twilight explicitly refers to the book's powers as dark magic, the episode looks to be implying that the book came from Sombra but backs off before stating it, leaving it open to speculation.
  • Given that the jewels were only a result of Rarity's design style and not part of the spell she used, they were probably a red herring as far as Sombra was concerned, but the gradual loss of reason and increase in power was similar to the effects of the Alicorn Amulet.
• "Equestria Games": Who are the delegates from other lands, and what are their kingdoms like? Plus, all the characters on the other teams, and what events the other ponies from Ponyville were participating in, and how the parts of the games that we didn't see (which were most of them) went, and Equestria's relationship with the griffon kingdom that sent a team (assuming it wasn't a griffon-majority territory located in Equestrian boundaries), and how the actual anthems of Ponyville and Cloudsdale go...
• As of "Twilights Kingdom - Part 1", on top of fans tying the series back to G1 now more than ever, we have Scorpan, another G1 based character and Tirek's brother who befriended ponykind but left soon after Tirek was imprisoned. This is itself a reference to the original Scorpan, who also pulled a Heel–Face Turn against Tirek near the end of the G1 pilot. Oh yes, and Discord and Tirek know each other somehow.
  • And Scorpan and Star Swirl were friends?
• Most of the villains in the show never got much development or backstory, so fanfic writers often seek to fill in the gaps. Chrysalis and Discord tend to be popular for this.
• "Slice of Life" is set to blow up fanfic-writers everywhere with the sheer amount of story ideas it hinted at. What did "Bon Bon"/ Sweetie Drops do as a Special Agent under the service of Celestia? What, exactly, is the Bugbear and how did it escape from Tartarus (and, more importantly, what did it do to get sent there in the first place?) How did the Doctor get started on his life of science research in a setting obviously dominated by magic? What sort of adventures did Cranky Doodle and Steven Magnet have together? Why is there an undisguised Changeling at Cranky and Matilda's wedding?
• And then, there's Lyra. She's a popular background pony, but the wider fanon on her is pretty one-note compared to certain others. She sat like a human in a blink-and-miss moment, so she's treated as obsessed with humans, sometimes to the point of having no other personality traits or interests. However, her brief in-show appearances paint quite an interesting Hero of Another Story: She knew Twilight back in Canterlot. She knows Cadence well enough to be one of her bridesmaids. The lyre cutie mark indicates a great musical talent. But she's not what you'd expect from one of the Canterlot elite - she now lives in Ponyville, and she's often seen hopping around with a big grin, to the point that she could give Pinkie Pie hyperactivity lessons. However, she was very cool and collected during "Magic Duel," sipping her hay shake and looking barely interested while a magical deathmatch was going on. You can bet that in the longer fanfics about her, this is mined for all it's worth.
• Any once-seen family member. Also, family members we haven't seen are their own kind of fanfic fuel - plenty of tragic stories about just why Apple Bloom is being raised by her grandma and siblings, and all manner of stories about why we haven't seen Scootaloo's parents, ranging from "they're horribly abusive and someone (usually Rainbow Dash) must rescue her" to "they're dead and Scoots lives in the CMC clubhouse" (these tend to end with justice done and the filly adopted by another character) to "Scootaloo is far more than she seems and doesn't have parents in the traditional sense" to how normal her life turns out to be after all the suspense being the punchline of the story.
  • "The Perfect Pear" essentially confirms that Applejack's parents are in fact dead, giving fanfic writers the opportunity to explore how they died and how the rest of the Apple family coped with that.
• Maud's poetry. She states that she's written thousands of them. All about rocks. So naturally people decided to write their own.
• Magic is shown to be able to record video and sound during The Mane Attraction.
• Sapphire Shores, according to Pinkie, is the second greatest pop star in all of Equestria. Rivalry between Sapphire and Coloratura ensues.
• Coloratura's time in Manehattan and how exactly she and Svengallop met, not to mention their working relationship and her rise to fame, are also ample fuel for fanfic writers.
• Applejack and Coloratura reflecting on their time in Friendship Camp. Prime fuel for writers who want to explore other characters going to summer camp now that it's canon in Equestria.
• Svengallop finding somepony else to exploit.
• The results of Countess Coloratura's rather drastic change in image has had its share of stories.
• "Amending Fences" pretty much canonizes four more background ponies and adds them as supporting cast. Twilight's promise to return and visit them is an open book for stories.
• A spell that enables Twilight (or presumably any other pony) to appear in books is prime for fandom exploration.
• Apparently, not everyone in Canterlot lives the high life, and some live in rather dilapidated buildings, leaving open room for stories about class struggle in Canterlot.
• Meadowbrook apparently had eight famous magical relics attributed to her. Writers, get cracking!
• What Starlight Glimmer has been doing between the events of The Cutie Map and Amending Fences begs for exploration.
• The pony world has anime, or some sort of equivalent.
• The Season 5 finale, which featured multiple Bad Future Alternate Timelines created by Starlight Glimmer's attempts to alter history, has already started spawning numerous takes on those alternate realities, as well as What If? scenarios for Twilight ultimately failing to stop Starlight.
• "A Royal Problem" introduces an evil version of Celestia called Daybreaker. When Celestia dispels the nightmare containing Daybreaker, she says "No, you're not! You are not real, and you will never exist again!", which leads to three options: 1 - she's referring to Daybreaker being manifested in the dream, 2 - the last part of the statement is directed to Nightmare Moon, or 3 - Daybreaker somehow "existed" previously...
• Ever since Scootaloo first tried and failed to fly (with it being left ambiguous whether there was anything wrong with her or whether she was just having trouble learning), writers had been speculating on the details behind her situation.
• The Season 9 finale, which revealed that Grogar was actually Discord in disguise has resulted in the creation of numerous takes on the whereabouts of the real Grogar.
• The gap between Gen 4 and My Little Pony: Make Your Mark is a tanker *ship* of fuel with all the changes between generations like the races hating each other again and magic being sealed away, and Twilight’s message recording about encountering Opaline added to it.

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

• The thought of there being other mirrors that lead to different worlds other than a human world. Even as is, there's now an excuse for "Human in Equestria"/vice versa fanfics.
• Pretty much everything about Sunset Shimmer. The potential for any story about her is staggering, with her early childhood (Did she have a family or was she an orphan? If she had a family, what were they like?), time under Celestia (Was their relationship teacher/student or mother/daughter? Did they even perceive it the same way?), and her experiences in the human world prior to the beginning of Equestria Girls (How did she adjust and survive? How long has she even been there?) being gigantic blank slates, even after the sequels fleshed out her character a bit more.
• Both Pinkie and her Alternate Self know of the existence of other worlds, and it's implied they share some kind of mind link. The potential there is just staggering...
• Those not turned off by Flash Sentry becoming Twilight's crush or his lack of character can now explore any potential backstory regarding him like what his relationship with Sunset was like before they broke up or explore his Equestrian counterpart's backstory or potential relationship with Twilight.
• The existence of a Twilight Sparkle native to the human world was this prior to her introduction in the post-credits scene of Rainbow Rocks. After that, focus shifted to the never-mentioned or alluded to native Sunset Shimmer, with stories ranging from those that have the cast finally meeting them to ones where we learned how she died.
• The existence of other villains (such as Nightmare Moon, Discord, and King Sombra) native to the human world.
• The identity of the mystery writer who sent Derpy the letter that made her blush has fueled endless speculation.
• Who were Trixie's and Derpy's bandmates?
• We don't see all the bands competing in a tournament that has 16 spots, so who might have been entered? What songs might they have played?
• Now that we know that magic can exist in the other world, and Star Swirl used it at least once to banish the Sirens there, who knows what other magical beings from Equestria have crossed over through the centuries? How many of them are still around?
• Twilight finding a way to easily return to the Equestria Girls world without relying on the "thirty-moons" time limit literally opens the door to more crossovers between the two worlds, as does Sunset being able to write back to Twilight.
• The Dazzlings were reduced to normal girls at the end of their movie, but their fate was left hanging until the final Equestria Girls special five years later. And even then, how they got to that point is still open to a lot of wiggle room in fan writing.
• The Dazzlings' backstories in Equestria, and whether they're friends, sisters, or what. Especially given that they're the closest thing we've gotten to a G4 version of the Sea Ponies.
• Since the Shadowbolts didn't get much screen time, but have given characteristics to them they are completely open to write about.
• Human Twilight and the rest of the Humane Seven's adventures.
• The many possible hilarious situations that would ensue with two Twilights.
• Unlike the statue/mirror portal, the magic portals opening up do not change people, leading to more canon possibilities for human-pony interactions.
• We get little characterization for Human Shining Armor beyond his pride in his performance in the past Games, leading to questions about just how he'd take Twilight transferring to their school's arch-rival.
  • Or even how miserable her sister was at Crystal Prep.
• Rollercoaster of Friendship introduces a child who looks identical to Megan Williams. This opens up a lot of possibilities- is it really Megan? Possibly a daughter? And does this mean G1 was canon?