These are my ideas for the Next Generation of MLP taking place after the events of the show. Please note there are a lot of my head-canons and some of my personal ships/preferred ships. Please be respectful of my opinions :) (Smile) Additionally, I am not at all caught up with the current seasons at this time so there won’t be references to them until I watch the episodes!
 

 
The CM design is a placeholder/wip.
 
I had a brain blast the other day regarding my first NG character, Athena, and came up with two new characters directly involved in her story. I originally wrote Athena as being pretty much friendless as a child, but that’s ridiculous considering she is the daughter of Twilight. While she still won’t be a social, friendly character with a lot of pals, she does have some friends from foalhood. Though she wasn’t able to make friends at the Academy (though this may change, especially when I finally catch up with the rest of the show, I’m still thinking she convinced her mothers to let her attend the Canterlot Academy for unicorns) she had some friends at the castle.
 
She will have closer relationships to some of the other children of the mane six, while still being awful at putting work and effort into her friendships, but she also has at least two foalhood ‘friends’ that have been by her side since she was a lil’ filly.
 
This guy right here, is one of them. Silver Marks is NOT related to any canon pony, background or otherwise. He’s a complete OC, which I have always liked the inclusion of in Next Gens because the world is more than just the kids of the show ponies and it helps create a richer background and deeper characters to show them having interactions/relationships with characters not completely bound to canon.
 
I think so, at least.
 
Silver Marks isn’t the first of my ‘Next Gen’ ponies to not be related to any canon characters (I also have a character I’ve wanted to include in my next gen stories for years who I haven’t drawn yet.) One thing I need more of is adopted ponies, since I have a ton of gay ships in my next gen but I keep using ‘unicorn magic’ and stuff to explain their offspring. I just love playing with genetics so it’s been difficult to decide to have the ponies adopt a foal rip.
 
ANYWAY
 
Silver Marks is the son of two servants of Twilight’s castle. His parents are unicorns- yet Marks was born an earth pony. It’s no doubt due to the earth pony heritage in both his parent’s families, but it was still quite a shock when he was born with no horn! Not only that, but he was born small. A runt. As he’s grown, he’s retained that short stature. He’s also got a bit of fluff to him, making him one heckin’ cute lil’ pony.
 
Growing up in Twilight’s castle he may have been given the option to pursue a different kind of life, but he followed the path of his parents nonetheless. He got along alright with the other live-in servant’s foals, but he always had his eyes set somewhere higher, even as a small colt. He was one of Athena’s playmates in foalhood, and proved to be a really important one to her. He knows all the secret passages around the castle, so he can show up out of nowhere to visit Athena and shake her out of whatever funk she’s sunken into.
 
He’s a chatterbox and persistent, but overall endearing to Athena. He worked as an apprentice librarian for awhile when he was a teen but then he went on to becoming a budding butler to the royal family. He’s one of the best, and certainly a rising star among ponies in royal services.
 
I have more but I’m blanking on what words to use unfortunately rip. I’ll explain more later \o/