Original Description:
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.)
Meet Carapace Casanova, age 19, also known as Cara, the son of Spike & King Thorax. He lives in the School of Friendship established by Princess Twilight Sparkle not long after the Storm King’s defeat, acting as the main proctor in Twilight’s absence. After all, since his father Spike is technically Twilight’s son, that would make him the grandson of the Princess of Friendship.
Obviously, as a changeling-dragon hybrid, Cara doesn’t have a special talent in the same way that ponies do. But he does act as a liaison between dragons and changelings, something that is much needed since changelings have been a dreadful threat to most other races for centuries under Queen Chrysalis’s reign. His easygoing and open demeanor goes a long way towards de-escalating most tense situations.
Cara is much like Frisk from Undertale in a particular fashion: he LOVES flirting. (Hence why he appended Casanova onto his name in his early teens.) It’s his way of breaking the ice, and a carryover from his aspect of being half-changeling. People won’t hurt you if they think that you’re cute enough. And even if they don’t think you’re cute, flirting will throw them off-balance enough to bring down any tense situation. And Cara flirts with just about anybody. His changeling brethren, his dads and mom, his aunt Shamrock, EVERYBODY. Although, there is one particular pony whom he will not flirt with. Somepony who he is terrified with the prospect of flirting with. Totally not out of fear of rejection. Nope. Not at all. Somepony who may or may not be capable of transformation in a masquerade as strong as any changeling.
Carapace Casanova’s abilities as a dragon-changeling hybrid are obviously a mixed bag. He can breathe magical fire, the same color as changeling transformation magic. It carries the same properties as Spike’s, transporting messages to his father Thorax the King of the changeling hive. He is incapable of shapeshifting, but he is capable of blending into any surface, provided that he has time to get into position as he still projects the same transformative flash of magic when he changes colors to match a surface. His colors can also fluctuate if his mood becomes unstable, generally matching to whatever his mood is like at a given time, not unlike Ilia from RWBY. Blue when he’s sad, red when he’s furious, yellow when he’s joyous, green when he’s disgusted, purple when he’s frightened, etc.
Cara refers to Spike as Dad (Daddy-o in a flirt), Thorax as Pops, and Ember as Mom. (more on that later) As for his grandmothers, Twilight is his Grammy and Chrysalis is Nana.
Cara here was sketched out initially by my friend “StarryOak”:www.deviantart.com/starryoak, after I described the prospect of Spike & Thorax having a son together. The concept of his design was centered around the idea of a blend of changeling and the lizardlike dragon: chameleons. Hence his pointed nose and the tiny horn on the bridge of his muzzle. The Frisk connection comes up again in how thick his eyelashes are, much like how Starr herself draws Frisk in her art style. His color scheme was based on the prospect that he could change colors to anything based on his mood as opposed to shapeshifting. So, his primary color is white, the presence of all colors. Specifically, his coat takes its color from an inversion of the old Changeling coat color; from almost-black to almost-white. His horns take their color from the two inner colors of King Thorax’s eyes. His eye colors come from various colors of King Thorax’s coat. His fins take their color from the old Changeling wing color (but opaque instead of translucent). His magic comes from the old Changeling transformation effect (his tiny nose-horn glows as well as the two atop his head). His underbelly takes its color from King Thorax’s tail spine. His shell takes its colors from Spike’s eyes. The spines on his back come from the two outer colors of King Thorax’s eyes. His tail spine color comes from Spike’s underbelly color, and the gossamer takes its color from Spike’s scales.
We know how his dads first met, but their courtship obviously didn’t happen for years after. Spike was a baby dragon, but he still grew up among ponies. As such, his growth into a teenage and then an adult dragon was dictated more by his unconscious perception of how ponies grew, meaning that he became an adult dragon far more rapidly than if he grew up among dragons, at the age of 18. As an adult, Spike is much larger than any pony, but still far dwarfed by ex-Dragon Lord Torch. As Spike entered his teenage years, he felt his crush on Rarity waning, and he was alarmed at first. Was he losing his ability to love as he grew? Was he becoming more like the dragons who would give no thought to a smoky century-long nap in the middle of Equestria? Would he become like dragons like Garble? Obviously, not all dragons were like that (just look at Ember), but there were clear exceptions. He took these concerns to his close friend Thorax, since the changelings were already developing a reputation for being love experts. As the teen Spike spilled these concerns, Thorax felt his fondness for the dragon grow. Spike had seen good in him when there was no reason to assume changelings had any good in them, and he was so worried that he was losing his love? Taking up his assertiveness that he’d learned from Dragon Lord Ember, Thorax declared that Spike’s concerns only meant that he loved more than ever, since he was so worried about how he’d become and how it may hurt his loved ones. Spike was floored by how strong Thorax seemed, and long-dim lights sparked inside him from his childhood. A few years later in his late teens, Spike came to Thorax again, this time with news of the opposite sort: he’d fallen in love with Thorax. The purity of the love spilled all over the Changeling King, and he swept Spike up in his hooves. They became an item a short time after. There was some concern from others that Spike was under some sort of changeling spell, especially since he & Thorax first met when Spike was barely twelve years old and there was over a decade’s age difference between them. The concerns about spellwork were largely from stubborn anti-changeling sentiments, and questions about the age gap faded the longer that they spent together as it became clear that they were not rushing into things.
Thorax & Ember carried a mutual affection for each other after the events of Triple Threat and eventually entered an on-again-off-again relationship. This continued even after Spike & Thorax became a pair and Spike became Prince Consort to the Changeling King. Changelings have a more open sense of romantic relationships, even for ponies. Keeping a pair of dragons as his husband and his wife helped to ease tensions in changeling-dragon relations. Thorax & Ember have no children and Ember has no blood relation to Carapace, but he still treats her as his mother.
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Since my Duchess Skystar was uploaded here, I decided to get on with uploading the rest of the Friendship Is Magic: The Next Generation cast.