Kobold King

There are those who seriously purport that very theory.

Brooms definitely respond to magical commands, as evidenced by the fact that you can order them to come to your hand with the word "Up." It is a little foggier whether the mere act of flying one requires magical ability, as Harry's POV describes physically maneuvering the Nimbus 2000 with his hands and body in flight. On the other hand, one of the things he noted about the Firebolt was how quickly it responded to any motion or inclination he gave it at all, which to me suggests that higher quality brooms may be entirely operated with magic but lower quality brooms can be flown just by physical steering.

You ARE the eldritch god of pugs.

So, just earlier today I was wondering about one of the odder tropes about Lovecraftian eldritch abominations; that of them having sinister cults that sacrifice virgins or goats or virgin goats under the full moon. Why would an eldritch abomination necessarily be malevolent? Why couldn't it have a cult that feels oddly compelled to draw manga comics in its name, or share internet memes about it, or sell cute little plushies of it and donate the proceeds to charity? If a being of Lovecraftian proportions is so inconceivable to humanity, why are its cult's practices always strictly rooted in the same old over-the-top villainy? My setting's still an abstract work in progress in many of its broader aspects, but I really want to include an eldritch god of plushies now.

On the subject of fantasy worlds, I think Equestria is objectively one of the very best places to live. About a third of the population has the capacity to wield astonishing magic, another third can fly and control the weather, and the remaining third has super strength. There is no war--not in this timeline, anyway--natural disasters are pretty well kept in check and rarely wreak much irreparable damage anyway, and dangerous creatures are for the most part confined to a single easily avoided ecoregion.

Theory time! Within Lovecraftian lore there are beings called shoggoths, horrible monsters created by the Great Old Ones as servants and that still live in the ruins of their cities. The shoggoths were beings of protoplasm; they have the appearance of great gelatinous amoebas that will periodically change their forms to include mouths or eyeballs, in imitation of their creators. A description of the shoggoth race as a whole: ...it's clear that H. P. Lovecraft had a rather negative attitude towards these blobs, though it's not quite clear why. As a species they're not guilty of any atrocities that cannot be ascribed to humanity; in fact, the one war they waged that is documented was a rebellion against the Old Ones that had created them as slaves. More to the point, the descriptions he gives of the shoggoths ultimately boil down to: Ooooh. Spoooooky. This reflects a persistent theme in Lovecraft, that of the unknown being something that is not only dangerous but also quite obscene. An alien being that is greater than us is not just a powerful alien. It is an eldritch abomination. A living pile of slime is not just weird. It is blasphemous. Many fans of Lovecraft create artwork of the shoggoths that look like this: These are superb works of art. They capture the description of the shoggoths and also stay true to the attitude Lovecraft regarded them with. But what would we get if we followed faithfully through with the description of the shoggoths but approached them not with xenophobia, but with a sense of whimsy? Conjecture: The shoggoths of the Cthulhu Mythos and the Smooze from My Little Pony are the same type of entity. Let's look at what we know about the shoggoths: They were created by a highly advanced alien race as servants. They rebelled and killed their former masters, but continued living in their cities out of fascination with their inventions. Their numbers have dwindled, but they continue living in various ruins across the earth and conceivably on other worlds the Great Old Ones colonized. They are gelatinous, with physiology resembling that of a giant amoeba, but they create eyes and mouths for themselves as a mimicry of the Old Ones and other beings they encounter. Specimens in At the Mountains of Madness are described as enormous, capable of filling entire caverns with their presence. They began their existence as non-sapient, but developed a form of intelligence over time that equaled humanity's but seemingly lacked the same creative spark, as evidenced by the fact that they failed to create their own society and simply continued for millions of years to copy that of the Old Ones. Now let's delve into Equestria and see what we know of the Smooze: The original Smooze was purple and covered an enormous section of the landscape. It produced eyes, mouths, and limbs for itself, usually giving animalistic roars but occasionally talking in crude communication. ("You're not gonna stop me.") It was released by a witch, but it is unclear whether she created the creature or if she merely utilized something that already existed. The latest Smooze is green and of a markedly less apocalyptic demeanor. It lacks eyes (chooses not to create them?) but communicates its emotional state with a mouth. It was obsessed with shiny objects and consumed all that he could find, swelling to an enormous size as a result. This Smooze was introduced by Discord, a spirit with known interdimensional capabilities, and sicked upon a formal event. The Smooze displayed some intelligence but little volition, but was ultimately tamed and befriended by the ponies. Princess Celestia, an archmage capable of manipulating the course of the Sun by sheer magical power, was neutralized by the Smooze's slime. Both forms of entity are clearly very similar in many aspects, and it is not hard to imagine that they could be one and the same species. Information about either species is incomplete in the original source material, but fleshing them out with details from the other franchise lends a more complete picture. What do shoggoths eat? Judging by the Smooze, they consume metal and other sparkling objects, which explains their fascination with Old One technology and also why no remaining Old One technology has been found in shoggoth-inhabited ruins. Where did the Smooze come from? The witch and Discord both retrieved Smoozes from former Old One colony worlds. Why can the Smooze neutralize alicorn magic? Because the Old Ones, and by extension the shoggoths, were made of a very different form of matter than we are familiar with, and it can be postulated that exotic forms of matter might interact with magic in unexpected ways. To me, the idea of the shoggoths and the Smoozes being the same species is one that brings two weakly developed creatures into a single cohesive whole. It also presents two opposite ways of looking at an alien being wrapped into a single entity. Lovecraft's shoggoths are beings to be hated for their bizarre appearance and behavior. MLP's Smooze is a being that can wreak a lot of chaos but can be befriended if you keep an open heart. It all depends on the lens through which you view the universe. Thanks for reading!

Spring is in the air! By which I mean bugs. Bugs are in the air. This is Texas.

I enjoy Cheetos and chocolate milk to the point that it's become a household meme. "Get Jared to do X," they tell visitors. "He'll work for just a bag of chips and a chocolate milk." Sad thing is, they're not wrong.

Technology can totally be engineered to work with magic. Just look at Mr. Weasley's flying car, or the Hogwarts Express. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Definitely the latter. I couldn't kill you if I wanted to. We'll be like Batman and the Joker, except completely useless.

I'd tell you... buuuuuuut I'd then have to kill you. I feel you'll make a good lieutenant when I take over rural Texas. So you live on in ignorance, for now.

--Sincerely, Humanity

She knew a pug person when she saw one.

Not sure if this is well-known or not, but it's very similar to the Yowie of Australia. In other news, my mother specially requested that I make this, so I might as well post it.

Team Cap. I trust in individuals as a group to ultimately make the right decisions for society, as opposed to a government, which I suspect will inevitably use its powers for tyranny somewhere down the line. Especially the MCU government, which is probably still infested with HYDRA agents top to bottom.

I DON'T KNOW WHY WE'RE TALKING IN CAPS LOCK, BUT YES. HEED THE WORDS OF THE ONE WITHOUT SPARKLES.

Sleepover! Yay! More seriously, it'll all be fine. You've had all these fears drilled into your head by someone who desperately doesn't want you to go into the world unafraid. Go rewatch "Mother Knows Best" from Tangled to get the idea of what's going on here, and imagine your mom trying to convince you that the Black Death is a plausible threat in Louisiana. That's all this is.

Just noticed this. Well played, Joe. Well played.

I view this as the most plausible first contact scenario.

No, but would he be able to resist messing with them? Preservation in particular is just begging for a storm of chaos.

You have no idea how many hours my brother and I have spent debating how Discord would interact with Ruin and Preservation.

I just spent three hours staring across the room at my Epic weakness. Three solid hours. You're kind people, Mr. and Mrs. Fellow Churchgoer, but make no mistake: when Calamity rises, flee.

Yes please.

There is backing in Sasquatch lore for human kidnappings and attacks, and I wouldn't mind a magical explanation for these incidents, but these are rare and I find it unlikely that any kind of organized warfare could emerge in the creatures cryptozoology and Native American lore discuss.

It's always been my headcanon that The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer exist in the same universe, just from the different perspectives of characters on either side of the masquerade.