Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle is a studious Alicorn, and the former protege of Princess Celestia. She is very practical and grounded, often serving as the voice of reason, though she has a tendency to freak out whenever disappointing the Princess becomes a possibility, at least, in her mind. She represents the element of magic. In Magical Mystery Cure, Princess Celestia changes Twilight Sparkle from a unicorn to an Alicorn.

Magical ability
Twilight is smart, bookish, and skilled in every type of magic there is. She is also the poster-filly for the myth that complex unicorn spells are unstable and that the slightest bump or a poorly timed sneeze can end up transferring body parts, swapping genders, or teleporting ponies to lands unknown. She's sometimes shown as very dependent on her books to work her spells, being unable to do more than levitate objects or teleport short distances without a written spell formula in front of her.

In the show, her power is notable enough to have drawn Princess Celestia's attention, and both there and in fan works she is most often proud of her status as the Princess's personal protegee. Even before Lesson Zero, fans were sure that Twilight still shared a deep respect (at minimum) for the princess.

One semi-popular trope is to have Twilight's research or spellcasting somehow go wrong or out of control to set the events of a story in motion. Another is to show that her power and/or ability will enable her to 'evolve' into an Alicorn like the Princesses. In a somewhat related vein, some fan fics have explained Twilight's bursting into flame during the finale of Feeling Pinkie Keen as being a "rage shift", caused by her anger feeding into her magic, and causing a physical change.[FF 1] Additionally, this form is often used for an angry Twilight with or without explanation.

Science
Another fan depiction is for her to also be the main scientist (or even mad scientist) type, typically based on her reaction to Pinkie Pie in Feeling Pinkie Keen, where she subjects Pinkie to various measurements, including hooking her to some sort of analysis machine in her basement. Continuing this theme involves either magic-assisted technology, such as reprogramming magic-based computers, making potions (includes talent-enhancer from Double Rainboom, or even eschewing magic altogether in rare cases. In My Little Portal, Twilight is seen as Chell from the Portal Series, she is a test subject working in Celestria Laboratories.

Non-romantic relationships
Aside from alternate universe or other extreme variations, generally in awe of Princess Celestia, as a mentor and teacher. Some stories will even try to work the traditional letter to the Princess in if Twilight is the main character. And even before the events of Lesson Zero, she is normally shown as concerned with her.

Early fan works (prior to The Cutie Mark Chronicles) would hypothesize about Twilight's ancestry. One theory was that she was actually Princess Celestia's daughter, whether by birth, adoption, or both. Generally, most fans after that episode depict that Twilight had a normal family upbringing, though many fan fictions still depict her as the daughter of Celestia by birth. This theory was proven wrong when Twilight's parents, fan named Night Light and Twilight Velvet, were the ones who signed her up for Celestia's school for gifted unicorns.

During the aforementioned episode, she is shown hatching Spike from a dragon egg. Many thus have Spike feel as if he is an actual family member of Twilight, with her responding in kind. This usually takes the form of either mother-son or elder sister-younger brother.

In the fan fiction Past Sins, Twilight adopts a filly named Nyx, who is actually a recreation of Nightmare Moon. They share a very close bond, especially in Chapters such as 6 and 18. Even when Nyx is transformed to Nightmare Moon, she still loves Twilight deep down; in fact, her love for Twilight is what caused her to prevent becoming Nightmare Moon forever. At the end of the story, Twilight gets permission from Celestia and Luna to take care of Nyx.

Shipping
She is most often shipped with ponies of similar or greater magical power, such as Trixie, Princess Luna[FA 2], or Princess Celestia. Many of these cases feature her as being less worldly than her would-be partner, even Luna. Of the other 'mane 6', shippers seem to have no outright favorite. Rarity appears as a fellow unicorn and adorer of Canterlot culture; Pinkie Pie is a mystery with abilities beyond pony knowledge; Fluttershy and Applejack are down-to-earth ponies; and Rainbow Dash is shipped with everypony. She is not as often shipped with Spike, given how close they normally are, as well as Spike's own feelings towards Rarity in the show itself.

She is also shipped with Big Macintosh on occasion, such as in an alternate ending to Ships That Pass in the Night, Communication.

Sometimes she is also shipped with Discord,[citation needed] "Discolight" being the most common Ship name and "Twicord" being the other. Reasons for this ship is based around Discord's teasing and playfulness at Twilight's serious and logical nature. Another way to go is Discord is fascinated by Twilight's ingenuity and ability to Overcome him when he was a villain, and when she forgive him after his betrayal with Tirek.

Another common shipping is with her brother Shining Armor, whether before or after he married Princess Cadance.[FF 2]The shipping is commonly referred to as Twicest. This is expressed in a slightly less darker manner in the eighth episode of Friendship is Witchcraft, Foaly Matripony, in where Shining Armor is her adoptive brother.

Some bronies who prefer straight pairings tend to ship her with stallions with constellation or star cutie marks; such as Comet Tail or Orion. A handful of bronies ship Twilight with Braeburn or Cappuccino.[citation needed]

Following the 2013 film My Little Pony Equestria Girls, Twilight is now shipped with Flash Sentry, a new member of the Crystal Empire royal guard that the film implies she may have a crush on.

There is a crossover ship which ships Twilight Sparkle with Dipper Pines from the Disney Channel original series Gravity Falls.[specify] Another crossover ship was born through Maximus Reborn's story Spiders and Magic, which pairs Twilight Sparkle and Peter Parker together. This pairing has spawned a still-growing amount of fan art in many areas.

Twilight in fan art
In non-narrative fan art, Twilight is commonly associated with books and reading. A crudely drawn piece of art by seniorpony titled "the pen is lonelier than the" has become quite popular and garners occasional derivative works that copy both its drawing style and its structure, with a character exclaiming "God I love X" in the second panel.[FA 3][FA 4]"Books, God I love books" has also become a bit of a catchphrase associated with Twilight.

On February 12, 2012, Tara Strong, Twilight's voice actress, approvingly replied to a tweeted picture that inserted quotes from previous tweets by Strong into the "God I love books/I'm so alone" template. Starting in early March, Strong tweeted and then recorded several brief messages centered around a "hip-hoppy" catchphrase, spoken in the voices of some of her most well-known characters, including Twilight "Twilightlicious" Sparkle. A number of pieces of fan art featuring a blinged-up Twilight have been created, one of which is Tara Strong's Twitter background since at least April 14, 2012, as of January 28, 2013.

Confronting Twilight Sparkle with the book and film series Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, or crossing the two franchises in some other way, is also a fairly common subject in fan art.[FA 5][FA 1][FA 6]

In some fan art, mainly when drawn humanized, she is drawn wearing glasses to show her 'nerdiness'.

In the fan fiction series My Little Pony: Guardian Mares, Twilight is the guardian Mare form of Jessica Stewart

Headlight Sparkle
A fan given term for artworks of humanized/anthropomorphized Twilight that depict her as exceptionally voluptuous or have an otherwise sexual theme to them

Immortal Twilight
Perhaps one of the most saddest fan art depictions, Twilight is shown to have outlived all of her friends due to her being an alicorn (alicorns are immortal). Almost all art shows Twilight in the cemetary, crying for her deceased friends, with their cutie marks or element symbol on the tombstones to show which one of the mane 6 it is.

Twilicorn And Magical Mystery Cure Reaction
On January 31, 2013, Hasbro and The Hub announced that Twilight was becoming an alicorn princess. Most fans complained much due to this, primarily because they feared Twilight would either become a Mary Sue, leave Ponyville, or both. They also thought that, due to being a Princess, she would not be Princess Celestia's student any longer. However, Tara Strong, Twilight's voice actor, confirmed that she was staying in Ponyville and keeping her original personality. When Magical Mystery Cure aired, a fair portion of the fandom were either positive or alright about it,[dubious – discuss] although some felt it was rushed.[citation needed] Also, in the episode, when Twilight asked Celestia if she was still her student, Celestia replied that she was, but in a different way. Also, some bronies in the fandom, such as Pen Stroke, implied that they enjoyed Magical Mystery Cure. Many fans adopted the nickname "Twilicorn" to describe alicorn Twilight. Some sites such as FIMFiction consider Twilight Sparkle and Twilicorn as two different tags/categories. However, there are still some bronies who still can't accept this change.