#The Tree of Harmony

[tanyaluca]

Spring Dreams...

Tanya Luca

[heilos]

Living Harmony AU relevant character sheets/info: Harmony aka the "Tree of Harmony" Stygian Somnambula Starswirl the Bearded Shadow Lock is actually an official canon character from the IDW comics No. 51-53 and I really enjoyed his mini arc introduction enough to include him as a more significant part of my "Living Harmony" MLP AU animation project. When I found out he's a direct descendant of Stygian, one of the Pillars of Equestria, I had to find a way to work him in and give him a bit of an updated design to fit more into my story setting I have planned. My good friend Ori helped vector my finalized concept redesign in the very top image. Listed below is some character and story context for these sketches provided by my myself and Ori who's been a huge help in fleshing out the world building with this cast of characters I'm using in this AU so far. Shadow Lock's main abilities and canon backstory are expanded upon and/or flavored a bit differently here as well.

Stygian’s distant descendant, the last living branch in his family tree

Lives alone in his family’s castle after they retired to the town of Somnambula

Temporary antagonist to the mane 6 that stems from a fear of the Pony of Shadows returning to plague Equestria

Believed he was descended from a monster and desperately tried to erase any mention of the Pony of Shadows from written history

Was talked down from his history erasing spree by Twilight and ends up traveling around Equestria to find more info on the Pony of Shadows, without trying to erase the knowledge this time, and prevent it from returning

The symbol on the front of Shadow Lock’s cloak is his family crest that dates back to Stygian's time period.

There’s a glamor woven into Shadow Lock’s cloak that enshrouds its wearer’s face.

Shadow Lock’s special talent is the concealment and binding of dark magic. He can effectively bind malevolent “spirits” into vessels where they’re unable to cause harm. This can also be reversed as an unbinding spell. ("spirits" in this context are more like a culmination of lingering, concentrated dark magic that takes on a will of its own)

His family castle used to be quite “haunted”. It’s quieter nowadays, but he does have a large collection of miscellaneous items that most ponies would consider “cursed…”

Always carries a healthy stack of books on his person to read and use as a weapon. His spells can pull fictional characters and monsters from stories to fight for him

Created a spell that can trap a creature into experiencing a historical event on loop by using a small amount of written text. The spell can be broken by doing something significant enough that did not occur during the looped event in history.

Shadow Lock and Stygian are extremely hesitant to meet each other at first in present time. The mane 6 and Harmony step in as mediator eventually to help them work out their issues so they can reconnect as family

Much later in the story, Shadow Lock invites Stygian to live in his castle once their family relationship is repaired, the two becoming inseparable

His original design from the comics:

[junos-cacophony]

rwed. Tfftt

fine fine sure whatever

w/o text:

[spittyfishy]

Someday I’ll have done of of these for every V3 character, and it will be glorious

[gracebethartacc]

MLP RW GOD REFS YAYYYYYYYYYYYY plus some extra doodles i did in between

Teehees

[nextgenfoals]

All the mane 6 together perhaps? Would love to see what you come up with

Originally born an earth pony, Harmony has looked after the Tree of Harmony since she was very small. One day, in return for her love and vigilance, the Tree granted her horns crafted from its branches and wings formed from its crystals. She is truly honored to be its caretaker, and her mothers are very proud of her :}

~ Mod Ace ♥️

[arodykeism]

time to make your choice only you can be the one

[emdashbitch]

Autistic Bucky Barnes stims & other headcanons part 1/?

Likes the feeling of having a stubble, but can't stand being clean shaven or having facial hair that's too long. He particularly likes how the stubble feels when he scrunches his face up

Face scrunching and otherwise exaggerated expressions, this one's newer since he broke the Winter Soldier conditioning, he likes being expressive with his face now he doesn't have to be a stone mask

The sound of his hair over his metal hand, he'll sit just listening to his metal fingers swishing through his hair over and over. It's almost imperceivable to average hearing, but it's just the right volume to his enhanced hearing

Can't have things covering his lower face the way his old Winter Soldier mask used to, it makes him feel like he can't feel his face anymore/can't move it (related to the facial scrunching stim). He outright refused to wear something similar in Madripoor and it took some arguing with Zemo that he could convincingly be the Soldier without it

Hand flexing and palpating, includes shifting the plates around on his metal arm even when he doesn't need to calibrate it

He's the Too Much Eye-Contact type of autistic and knows it. He gets frustrated and overwhelmed when he's pestered about it too much because he really doesn't know what to do or what people expect him to do about it. Sometimes he feels like he's not even allowed to look at people since they seem to think he can't do that right, but he can't not look either because that's rude

Similar to the face scrunching, Bucky likes to fidget on purpose, not because he's restless. He likes to just move his body or posture as if to remember he can move and move whenever he likes, he's not frozen and he's not under commands to be still

Can't stand the feel of polystyrene or PVC and will reflexively smack his hand on something nearby whenever he feels them. He's broken a lot of things so he's trained himself to at least smack his vibranium arm and not breakable furniture or walls

Also hates fabric over his metal arm, if he can he prefers to have it exposed because the sound of different fabrics over the metal grates wrong

His strongest sense his is sense of smell, particular smells that calm him are gunpowder, pancake batter and woody, deep smells. His tolerance for people is slightly dependant on how agreeable he finds their natural scent and has a strong preference for rich earthy, grounded smells. Shuri, T'Challa and Peter in particular have the Best Scents but he can't really place why. People who smell more like space/not-of-Earth (like Wanda, Thor, Doctor Strange, the Guardians, Bruce, Carol etc) have unsettling Nope Scents, again he can't put into words what it is. The only Guardians he doesn't mind the scents of are Rocket and Groot.

[flame-shadow]

Huddle of Curiosity

[ Harmony belongs to @sappedart ]

[my-little-pony-theories]

MLP:FIM Theory: Green Element of Harmony

A theory created by DRWolf001, suggesting that there is a hidden 7th Element of Harmony that is Scorpan/Spike's.

Watch his videos before reading this.

~~~

Scorpan's Past

Canon: Tirek and his younger brother Scorpan first traveled to Equestria in the hopes of conquering it. Scorpan fell in love with the ponies and they're way of life, and became friends with Star Swirl swirl the Bearded.

Speculation: Scorpan finds Spike's dragon egg by itself just on the outskirts of the pony nation, and he decides to keep it.

Reasoning: Scorpan finding Spike and bringing him to the ponies is a reference to their G1 counterparts, where a similar thing took place.

Canon: In Princess Celestia's narration, she says Scorpan went back to his homeland after Tirek's imprisonment.

Speculation: Instead of him immediately leaving after Tirek's imprisonment, in actuality he stayed in Equestria for some years.

After Stygian brought the Pillars together to defeat the Sirens, Scorpan became friends with them too.

Canon: When Stygian turned into the Pony of Shadows, the Pillars create the seed that would grow into the Tree of Harmony by fusing their magic into it.

Speculation: Scorpan was the one who inspired Star Swirl the Bearded to create the Seed. During the spell, Scorpan was in the room with the Pillars, so his magic unintentionally was added to the spell.

After the Pillars sacrifice themselves to defeat the Pony of Shadows, Scorpan decides to go back home.

Where did his element go?

Speculation: Before Celestia and Luna used the Elements to defeat Discord, Scorpan had returned to Equestria to see if the Tree had grown. He finds the Elements and removes the branch containing his Element. The branch he took is turned into the Staff of Sacanas after he removed the gem within it.

Reasoning: This is based on an unused concept for the movie, which would've shown that Scorpan was the original owner of the Staff of Sacanas before the Storm King stole it from him, and that the Staff was made from a branch of the Tree of Harmony.

Because his Element wasn't originally a part of the spell, the other 6 Elements work completely fine without it. However, with the combined power of all 7 Elements, they can do much more.

Scorpan and Spike

The Mane Six each share elements with the Pillars of Equestria. Spike and Scorpan are not only connected by the past, but share similarities with each other as well:

Scorpan was Star Swirl's first and closest friend, and Spike is Twilight's first and closest (non-blood related) friend.

Scorpan is the only non-pony member of his group of friends, and Spike is the same.

Scorpan is friendly to ponies, appreciates their way of life, and enjoys living with them, just like Spike.

Castle of Friendship

The Castle of Friendship was formed from the Chest of Harmony, which served as the seed that planted it. The Chest itself was a sprout from the Tree of Harmony.

When the Castle formed, it created a 7th chair for Spike, which it technically didn't need to do if he wasn't connected to the Tree of Harmony in the same way the Mane 6 ponies were. Spike's chair is closer to Twilight's.

Although, it's possible that since the Tree is somewhat self aware, it knew Spike was Twilight's assistant/best friend, and lived in the Castle as well, so that's why it created a 7th chair for him, closer to Twilight's.

Unknown Green Element of Harmony

Throughout the franchise, when images of the Elements of Harmony are shown both within the show or other material, sometimes a green element is shown, usually in the place of a different Element:

It could simply be an error.

However, there are some cases where the green element is shown with the other 6 Elements:

Each Element's color represents a part of the character's design that shares the same color:

Magenta: Twilight's cutie mark color

Orange: Applejack's coat color

Red: Part of Rainbow's mane and cutie mark color

Purple: Rarity's mane color

Pink: Fluttershy's mane and cutie mark color

Blue: Pinkie's eye and cutie mark color

Green: Spike's eye and spine color

Element Chart

Star Swirl the Bearded = Sorcery | Twilight Sparkle = Magic

Rockhoof = Strength | Applejack = Honesty

Flash Magnus = Bravery | Rainbow Dash = Loyalty

Mistmane = Beauty | Rarity = Generosity

Mage Meadowbrooke = Healing | Fluttershy = Kindness

Somnambula = Hope | Pinkie Pie = Laughter

Scorpan = Respect | Spike = Acceptance

BTW, Sunset Shimmer's Element is Empathy!

? = ? | Sunset Shimmer = Empathy

Stygian is meant to be Starlight Glimmer's parallel, so those two aren't Elements.

~~~

There is a lot of glaring evidence here to suggest that this theory could be true. So much so, it makes me wonder if it's actually what they were foreshadowing and building up to... until Hasbro had them do the School of Friendship storyline instead.

The storyline for Season 8 would've been completely different, it instead being a continuation of setting up the Pillars in Season 7.

[tanyaluca]

Spring Poetry…

Tanya Luca

[heilos]

Living Harmony AU relevant character sheets/info: Harmony aka the "Tree of Harmony" Shadow Lock Stygian Back to dabbling in my horse AU again with more of these two. Shadow Lock on the left is a comic canon only character, who is Stygian's descendant in modern Equestria. Stygian on the right is from Season 7 of MLP:FIM. More context below!

There's a huge emphasis on their relationship to one another as eventual family in this AU, but their first real meeting doesn't go well at all. Shadow Lock has an ingrained fear of the Pony of Shadows in his comic arc, while Stygian is "dark magic scarred" from his time as the Pony of Shadows, which manifests itself as temporary spooky eyes, a discolored mouth, and his magic color turning dark grey to black. It immediately puts Shadow Lock on the defensive thinking the Pony of Shadows is still residing within Stygian.

[gezin-yazar]

[rudy-redd]

presented without context

[drrobobitch]

“Everyone adores you…at least I do”

HELP ITS SUPPOSED TO SAY ULTIMATE LUCKY STUDENT SORRY I CANNOT SPELL BRO

[casually-salad]

idk if im going to do anymore work in this AU but heres the rest of the mane 6 from Steak Diane's world that ive kinda dubbed the haunted au!