Been busy offline as mentioned in a message. I haven't had time to work on pony stuff as much as I'd liked. Now that I'm getting a tablet I can start putting a lot more of my ideas on paper. ExOtto, in reply to your comments in the story thread, I'd love to pick things up in that thread, but I thought I'd post here until I figure out if the thread is active:

ExOttoyuhr, I like a lot of your story choices... but I am kind of a little too far along in the casting and story-boarding process to make a few of the changes you suggest. Although The6thMaster has Celestia and Luna as (actual) Maiar in an unpublished fic, the main conceit of the Ponymarillion would be that the Noldor are Alicorns, with some of them (Dash's group) played by Pegasi. (Hence, the hidden kingdom of Cloudfountain.) Most of the Seven daughters of Starfall (Feanor as an OC, in this version) would also be OC's in this sense, but I have Rarity's character (Glamorous) playing Maedhros, and the "ancestor" of Sweetie Belle as Maglor (Glow-Belle) accordingly.

I also already adopted your suggestion from last year of casting Sunset Shimmer as Saruman, although she comes into the story late, and separately, as she can be played off against Starswirl in a separate prequel story set in the Second or Third Age of Pony, so to speak; them both being unicorns and wizards, of a sort. I do think you're right that Sunset in the original could be similar to Feanor, I also think there are some similarities between Feanor and Luna's rebellion, so I'm kind of going for an OC Feanor (Starfall) that has elements of personality found in several ponies that is generally in line with Feanor's character traits. Interestingly, the name Starfall was chosen before Sunset Shimmer existed! :)

The original idea I had in this context for making the Ponymarillion was to cast then-almost-nonexistent Alicorns as the mythical High Elves. The idea being to somewhat-seriously explain a) what happened to the Alicorns; b) what happened to the sea ponies (we'll probably find out on the show, but still...) c) backstory for Luna and Celestia. I was very into the camp of people comparing Luna and Celestia to Galadriel, especially her portrayal in the films. I considered Luna as Feanor himself, but rejected that due to Feanor's fate, a key plot point that doesn't line up with Luna's backstory. But I also found a lot of comparison between Galadriel and both Luna and Celestia.

I can see where you're coming from with Manwe and Varda, but I didn't want to make the canon ponies that powerful and distant a role; I felt it'd diminish the power levels of everyone else, so to speak. And the idea of the princesses as Noldor was too strong a central conceit of the fic. I wanted rather to explore a more active Luna and Celestia in their youth, in a world filled with even more powerful beings, e.g. the Valar, who are mostly slightly ponified giant humanoid versions of themselves; and have them (Luna and Celestia) create the Sun and Moon in-story, accordingly, with the help of the power of the Valar, as (Noldor) princesses.

So what I did is made Luna and (Galadriel) Celestia half-sisters, with Luna the daughter of Starfall (Feanor) and (Galadriel) Celestia the daughter of Starfall's sister the High Queen (no name yet); with their parents being canon OC's modeled on Feanor and Fingolfin, since Luna and Celestia are canon. Still, I did decide to separately ponify the Valar, so to distinguish them (and line up with Tolkien) as giant humanoids, but with some resemblance to canon ponies, who they mostly don't meet. So I came up with Twile, Shyavanna, etc. this isn't completely finalized... but it's a lot closer than it was.

I agree with you that important names should be anglicized into "race-pony" names when possible, ideally names that sound like they could have been translated completely into English (from the Elvish), so elemental names when it comes to the alicorns are cool. Compare Starfall, Glamoros, Glow-Belle, Luna (Moon), Tiaraform, Supturene (Soup Tureen / Saturn -- a bit of a linguistic joke), etc.

I do like the idea of an "ancient pony" language that sounds like Elvish (see: Miamore Cadenza) but I realize you don't; it's a nerdy preoccupation of mine due to Tolkien's love for languages. I've confined references to it mostly to place-names, some of which are lighthearted, and other ancient characters. Lightheartedness in place-names and so forth is mostly meant to be in line with similar attitude towards place names and other elements in FiM.

So the degree to which "satire" might be applied would be more academic satire in the sense of determining what a Silmarillion worldview and history, when foisted on a "lighter and fluffier" pony world, might look like. I want to take it as seriously as possible when in-character, but from an out-of-character viewpoint it would be nice to be able to step outside and laugh at the juxtaposition a little, or at least the degree to which the two different stories actually line up.

I do like the Watership Down comparison mentioned earlier in terms of tone, which is one reason I was inspired to work on that incomplete Watership Down fic which isn't published yet only because it's a one-chapter one-off with a very definite (sad) ending, and I haven't finished it.

But note that that sort of approach allows for vast discrepancies in tone depending on the narrator, e.g. Bluebell's (I think?) telling of one of the rabbit tales from that book, versus much more serious third-person recollections.