#magicalmysteryyearau

[elytra404]

okay okay so yk magical mystery cure? heres my idea of a rewrite.

i think there are better cutie mark swaps for them, so here we go. Also new story.

Rainbow Dash - Apple Jacks Cutie Mark

Cutie Mark Redesign - 3 Zap Apples

Fastest harvester around. But has to slow down so the basket holders can keep up. Loves Zap apple season for the adrenaline, but the traditions and tasks make it boring to her with us endlessly frustrating. adores harvesting and watching them tho. She isn't allowed around cider season after stealing some of it and being distracted by her love for it. She's good at it. But having to slow down for the farm work makes her feel useless.

Rainbow tends to put her hair into high ponytails for harvesting season. She wears a yoke around the farm most of the time.

Fluttershy - Raritys Cutie Mark

Cutie Mark Redesign - 3 pink rounded gems

She is a wonderful designer but running it as a business takes away from her freedom and time to do it as more than a job. She has to be social and model to support her business, which is terrifying for her.

Fluttershy tends to keep her mane and tail up in a braided bun to keep it out her way. She's considered cutting it shorter but doesn't want to limit her modeling options. She wears pastel green horseshoes after one to many times stepping on needles. They cover her hoofs, the bottoms being gold and the rest being designed like leaves wrapped around her hooves. Her wings are very thin as she rarely uses them for actual flight.

Pinkie Pie - Fluttershys Cutie Mark

Cutie Mark Redesign - Balloon animal butterflys

Pinkie does enjoy taking care of the animals. Shes very good at organizing them, and finding the perfect owners for those who want to be pets! However she struggles with volume control quite often, and that tends to scare the smaller animals away. She's not the best at being gentle, preferring to rough house with bears. She's doing her best but every time she scares a creature she feels horrible about it.

Pinkie's hair never got its curls. She wears it in box braids, letting it grow quite long. She tends to wear a reinforced jean jacket Flutters made her to protect herself from the larger animals claws.

Apple Jack - Pinkie Pies Cutie Mark

Cutie Mark Redesign - Lasso and Apple themed Balloons

She's a rodeo gal! Lasso a bull and stay on it for record times, tricks and jumps. She loves it. Mostly. She has to move around a lot for rodeos, and rarely gets to stay in one place for long. She hasn't been able to help her family in a harvest in years because it tends to line up with rodeo season.

AJ keeps her hair at around a bob so it stays out the way for rodeo work. She wears her dad's hat in her free time but doesn't during actual rodeo work to keep it safe. She started dying streaks of red and green into her hair as a kid to be more recognizable to judges and continues to too this day.

Rarity - Rainbow Dashs Cutie Mark

Cutie Mark Redesign - Rainbow waterfall

Rarity designs the weather for events! Making sure the sun shines brightest on the stage, and beautiful rainbows for filly's birthdays. She knows how to make it practical as well as beautiful. One of her favorite things is designing snowflakes. However, weather designing isn't a hobby. It affects everyone in the vicinity not just her. So in her free time, Rarity feels a bit lost. She mostly goes to the spa, but that doesn't really change her feelings of uselessness.

With her free time Rarity has let her hair grow out, curling it into ringlets. She also tends to wear a shawl that Flutters made her, a lavender knitted one that is pretty light weight and clasps in the front with an opal.

Twilight

Twilight looks and acts the same, with one different. She has gained silvery marks on each side of her back, where wings would be if she had them. When she first comes too, her hair is tied back like Moondancers. She undoes that almost immediately tho.

What happened/What happens

The spell Twi accidentally cast not only swapped her friend's destinies, but in the process undid the rainboom.

Because of this, Rainbow ended up crashing when she attempted it into sweet apple acres. In her attempts to fly away she runs into a few trees, harvesting them and earning her cutie mark. Granny smith ends up taking her in in return for her work.

Due to this, AJ never seens the rainbow leading her home. She stays with her aunt, joining in a junior rodeo contest for fun a few weeks later and gaining her cutie mark. She visits ponyville every chance she gets.

Pinkie never sees the rainbow on her farm. She continues to farm until one day birds form a nest on Holders Boulder, and she ends up bringing the birds down and relocating them, gaining her cutie mark. Eventually she finds her cutie mark has no real place on her farm, so she moves to ponyville.

Fluttershy stays up in cloudsdale until she is tasked with helping to sew weather factory uniforms as her first job since she cant fly very well. This gains her cutie mark. She eventually moves to Ponyville to continue her special talent without the need for flight.

Rarity grows up in ponyville and is a late bloomer until she is given the chance to work on making extra snow flakes when not enough are made one winter. This is how she gains her cutie mark. She stays in Ponyville, leading winter wrap up every year in Ponyville after.

All of them end up being friends, but not very close. AJ see's Rainbow as a distanced sister or cousin, Flutter's makes AJ rodeo clothes and anything Pinkie needs for her animals, and Rarity met both AJ and Flutters separately for events. Once they were all in town and ended up running into each other. Since then they meet up when they can, which is rare.

Twilight never hatches Spike, but still gets into Celestia's school. (Going on the idea that the dragon egg was a test of handling failure.) She gets her cutie mark just the same. Without Spike she is even less social in school, and doesn't end up as Celestia's prize pupil. She stays in Canterlot, eventually moving out of her parent's place to stay closer to the castle, where Shining Armor works.

The day after she casts the spell, Twilight wakes up in this work with all her memories of the past one. I imagine this would be an entire season of the show. When it gets tough, she thinks of Spike and keeps going for him. She spends about an episode with each person getting close to them again. Including some filler to get to know this new world and dynamic. Including a probably 2 part finale type thing, she gathers them all, shows them they can be happy, and reverses the spell. the issue isn't that their bad at their talents, its that they aren't happy.

However not in a show like format, my perfect au (aka my focus), its slightly different. Same beats over a longer span of time. It takes Twi longer to figure out that there is a big issue with her friends. She's caught up in grief over Spike for most of it. She is basically Spike's mum, a teen mum at that. She has to learn to function without him, both emotionally and literally. And she has to learn to change her motivation for fixing everything. Her original motivation is just for spike. But as she gets to know her friends again she learns she has to do it for their happiness as well.

All of this would happen over about a year.

By the end, she has

- Pinkie who fully believes her and has become her confidante and right hoof mare,

- AppleJack who has suspicions that Twi's hiding something but assumes its grief over a lost child (not entirely untrue) and nothing else,

- Flutters who considers Twi the first person to truly believe in her,

- Rainbow who has gained a change of pace with Twi and is loving it,

-Rarity who also fully believes Twi and is the only other than Pinkie who knows everything and has found a purpose in this.

It takes all of them to preform the spell, friendship is magic after all, to return the world to its right place. Twilight has to make herself an Alicorn during this spell to have the power to complete it.

Also to clear up some other plot holes-

Luna does come back, but Celestia isnt relying on Twi this time and so is able to send her back to the moon again. Luna is still in the moon and Celestia is still alone.

Discord isn't set free because the Cutie Mark Crusaders never form, since Rarity doesn't settle in ponyville as her main residence, Sweetie Belle doesn't go to schools with Scoot and Apple Bloom. They end up meeting only after Twi realizes how unhappy they are apart and sets them up to meet.

Chrysalis never attacks because Cadence and Shining Armor never fall in-love. Twi never moves to Ponyville so Shining Armor is focused on making sure Twi's okay, not love. Twi sets them up too.

I'm gonna post stuff about this au at #magicalmysteryyearau sooo follow that if you wanna see more