I made a few minor changes to my redesigns for this piece (most notable on rainbow dash, she was far too purple in my last design for my liking), and had to come up with new designs for gilda, treehugger, and moondancer, so those may not stick at all into the future. I'm still debating on a hairstyle for rainbow :/ I really like this one but it has the same issue I have with all the others, it makes her look too young. it may or may not stick, if nothing else it is very cute
anyway, I'll give y'all some notes on what's up with these ships in the hollowverse
rarijack — they haven't changed much from canon and honestly I still have no concrete ideas on how they would transfer from just friends to girlfriends to wives.. and honestly I'm not sure they really need one! they probably just naturally got closer over time and got together and it was just a regular tuesday or something. they live on sweet apple acres together, and have two children; lady alice and royal gala (both carried by applejack). rarity, and her experiences in her relationship with applejack, were instrumental in getting twilight and pinkie pie together. also don't ask me where rarity's horn is I realized too late I hadn't drawn it in and I couldn't think how to fit it with the pose
twipie — alrighty, lets start this one out by saying; the whole twidash thing has been retconned. yup! just tossed it. I wasn't really interested in the melodrama of it all, and.. honestly it was mostly because I've always seen stormcloud and flash flood as being the same age which I couldn't really explain without having some kind of cheating plot/having rainbow immediately get with moondancer and have a kid/just getting rid of the twidash thing all together. so that's what I did! now, officially, stormcloud is the daughter of twilight and.. an unnamed pegasus stallion. what, I didn't say I didn't want any melodrama.
so basically; pinkie and twilight had always been very close.. but not dating. kind of. almost. they have a.. complex relationship. they are very close, and show a lot of borderline romantic affection to each other (kisses, cuddles, general over-closeness), but both seem completely oblivious to it. they are in a sort of limbo with their relationship where they’re both oblivious of not only their own feelings, but the other’s feelings as well. it’s pretty clear to everyone outside of the relationship that they have something going on, but ask them and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy. it's like friends-with-benefits, but if the benefits were idiocy and obliviousness.
at a certain point, twilight has to stay in cloudsdale for quite awhile (a few months, initially) to attend to some of her princessly duties (looking over an event similar to that shown in princess spike). during her time there she meets a charming pegasus stallion, who she is incredibly taken with, and the two feel an instant connection. there’s lots of flirting, skipping of princessly duties, and general moving way too fast. their whirlwind romance carries on for several months — twilight continues to push back her return to ponyville, writing letters to her friends telling them that she has more duties to attend to, or more of cloudsdale she wants to see, and she promises that she’ll write them a letter as soon as she has a return date set. in the meantime, twilight has introduced the idea of settling down with her in ponyville to her pegasus paramour (jeez, they love each other so much, after all — why bother waiting?). he dodges the conversations about it, and expresses that it’s not something to worry about right now- can’t they talk about it tomorrow, or in a few weeks instead? he starts to grow more and more distant, catching twilight’s attention, and she starts to lay off the settling down talk a bit.
(nothing NSFW here but I do discuss contraception/pregnancy so feel free to skip if that ain't something you wanna read) he didn’t leave because twilight got pregnant, he would’ve left awhile after it happened, but only a little before twilight realized. the two didn’t slack on contraceptive measures, but, well.. even magic contraceptive isn’t 100% effective — especially when it’s being used on one of the most magically powerful beings in equestria. twilight’s desire to settle down and start a family likely led to the magic interference that would result in her pregnancy. a week or two before she started showing symptoms was the last time she would have seen him. she woke up in her cloudsdale apartment (there’s no castle in cloudsdale for twilight to crash at, and she’s never been very extravagant) and he simply.. wasn’t there. at first she thought he must’ve just gone out to get something, and he would be back later — it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened. but then the day passed and he didn’t return. and then another, and another, and she started asking around to see if anyone had seen him. what if he was hurt, or lost, or what if any number of other horrible things happened to him? eventually she got her answer from asking around — she learned he skipped town, ran away from the commitment twilight was asking for.
grief overtook twilight, and soon enough, so did the pregnancy symptoms. it was so much all at once, twilight could hardly deal with it. she left cloudsdale in a hurry, forgetting to write back home, though word spread fast of her hurried exit; reaching all the way back to ponyville, where pinkie pie (who had come to her own realization during twilight’s absence, with the help of a certain unicorn) started to quickly tack together a welcoming party for the princess. when twilight finally arrived back in ponyville, pinkie was there at the golden oak, holding two handfuls of balloons ready to celebrate her arrival. the warm welcome from pinkie inspired a tearful reunion, tinged with twilight’s grief over the events of her cloudsdale visit. once twilight calmed down a bit, she explained everything to pinkie, who immediately offered her full support in assisting twilight with the pregnancy.
the two wouldn’t officially get together for awhile, but now they were both very much aware of their feelings for each other, and both nervous to try and pursue it further. it would’ve been deep into the pregnancy that they finally admit their feelings, and the two wouldn’t get married until after having both of their children (though cyclone would have been just a baby, too young to remember the event). they live in twilight's castle in ponyville (which is a giant treehouse in my au because I make the rules goddamn it), and have their two children, stormcloud showers (carried by twilight) and cyclone surprise (carried by pinkie). stormcloud isn't aware of who her father is, or even that she's not pinkie pie's biological daughter — though eventually she will come to suspect it..
gildatreeshy — the flutterhugger family has gotten an addition, in the form of a grumpy griffin lady by the name of gilda! fluttershy and treehugger have been together longer than most of the other couples in my au (they would've started dating in season 5, when treehugger is first introduced to the series), but their girlfriend gilda is much newer to the relationship. gilda only comes around after both of the flutterhugger kids have already been born (echo was probably like 12-15 at the time she would've joined the little herd).
fluttershy and treehugger are also one of the first couples to have a kid, their little baby astranova.. unfortunately, neither echo nor gilda get to meet the little guy. he wandered into the everfree forest one day when he was about 2-3 years old, fluttershy being briefly distracted from watching over him. flutters promptly freaked the fuck out when she couldn't find her kid, and it turned into a months long affair sending out search parties constantly to try and find the lost child with no luck. eventually the search parties stopped, and fluttershy had to accept that her child was gone.. or worse. treehugger and fluttershy still haven't recovered from their loss, but gilda tries her best to help comfort them.
echo flower was unplanned and made fluttershy and treehugger incredibly nervous.. they had already lost one child. they couldn't lose another. luckily echo was a fairly responsible kid, though she did once give her mothers a pretty big scare when she didn't go home for a few days as a pre-teen.. she didn't understand what the big deal was, but it never happened again. fluttershy, treehugger, and gilda live in fluttershy's cottage on the outskirts of ponyville, and have two children; astranova and echo flower (both carried by fluttershy). they remain unmarried by their own choice, feeling it's an unnecessary.
rainbowdancer — (since the twidash situation has been retconned) rainbow dash and moondancer have been together almost as long as rarity and applejack. they met while rainbow was visiting canterlot (likely for wonderbolts stuff), where they both happened to be at donut joe’s donut shop at the same time. rainbow was pretty into moondancer as soon as she laid eyes on her, and attempted to strike up a conversation with the pretty mare. it didn't go fantastically, but she eventually managed to get a conversation going when she hits on the topic of moondancer's job, and she started going on about her work for the royal magic archives. (notably, she also tried to get her interest by claiming she had met princess celestia, to which moondancer responded that she had too and celestia is practically her boss. rainbow stammered and tries to recover by saying she’s also best friends with princess twilight, not knowing that moondancer also used to be friends with twilight.. it goes about as well as you can imagine)
despite a somewhat rough first meeting, the two actually get on pretty well. it takes awhile for them to get close enough to even consider dating, let alone married, but they do get there eventually. rainbow and moondancer live in canterlot (close to the royal magic archives, moondancer's place of work), and have three children; flash flood (carried by moondancer), and the twins, lunar eclipse and solar flare (carried by rainbow dash).