I honestly love my MLP AU, and it’s gone way beyond anything the original canon ever aimed for. In my version of the world, I completely ditched cutie marks and the whole idea of matriarch rulers, replacing them with actual Deities. That shift makes the universe way more flexible, broader, and just more fun to rethink on a deeper level.
I really like the idea of characters who aren’t locked into one universe or stuck inside social structures. They exist above ordinary "people" - whether that’s ponies or their human versions. That kind of freedom just opens up a way more interesting set of interactions and world rules.
Cutie marks in the original always felt kinda inconsistent anyway. Sometimes they really do show a calling or profession, but not always. Some characters have marks that fit their actual job (like Applejack working on an apple farm), but others basically have marks that are just hobbies. And you can’t exactly build a career on sudoku, y’know?
That’s why I dropped the whole idea of “destiny written on the body”. In my universe, hierarchy and religious themes play a big role, and cutie marks just don’t fit into that. What kind of mark would a being who created everything even have? Is creation its job or just a hobby? And should a creator even have a symbol like that? In my concept, it feels way too limiting and totally out of place.
So yeah, that’s why I removed cutie marks altogether and let the world grow without pinning characters to some visually predetermined “fate”
