I was thinking about how the seapony magical girl levitates as default because I couldn't think of another good way for her to get around, which moved my mind over to the topic of wheelchairs and if she were a wheelchair user. I like the idea of a magical girl whose wheelchair transforms as part of her outfit (if it's an extension of her body it should change too after all)
I felt like this idea probably isn't a /good/ one, at least in this context, so I did a little bit of reading trying to find wheelchair users' opinions about this topic. It's one of those things where I felt vaguely uncomfortable with it but couldn't pinpoint why persay.
I found this post discussing positive disability rep and I think the sticking point is that it seems very plot-convenient that the seapony main character also happens to already have a useful wheelchair for her transformation. I also generally feel like having her transform into a legless magical seapony might have some negative implications or be trope-y. After all, I reverse-engineered wheelchair idea from her not being able to walk in seapony form.
Most of the other advice discusses the exact disability, doing research on it to properly represent it, etc. My idea for the wheelchair route would be that she's an ambulatory wheelchair user/has some use of her legs, but I don't have anything more specific than that. Maybe her disability could sort of tie in with her magical water abilities; my understanding is that people with chronic pain, joint issues and some other conditions can sometimes swim as a safe form of physical exercise. So she could particularly enjoy being in water regularly for that reason. But I'm not actually sure if that is actually good representation, or it ties in too well?
Anyways, I'm not planning on actually making the takara ponies into a story, but I was exploring these concepts and I wanted to post the concept art and ask other people their thoughts.
If anyone feels like offering their opinion on the ideas in this post, please feel free to comment.