Artist’s discretion from the tumblr post:

Woooo, I’m on a roll, ya’ll! I was gonna do the teenagers of the AU next but a lot of folks were asking about the designs of some of the other animal characters, so I went ahead and did those instead. Here we have the lions of the pride Celestia and Luna rescued from the cruel circus: Sunset Shimmer and the brothers Scorpan and Tirek. So a bit about each of them:

-*Sunset Shimmer*, a lioness with an unusual characteristic: having a mane. Given the nickname “Phoenix” from her circus handlers for her fiery and defiant personality, Sunset is headstrong and just as much of a leader as always has been. Sun once harbored very little trust toward humans, but spending time at the Sanctuary and being cared for by Celestia and the other handlers has slowly coaxed her out of her shell, and she has long since decided that not all humans are bad and that she’d give everyone a fair chance at proving themselves to her. She’s in the middle of a pride feud: half of the lions distrust humans by principle, where the other half think that while their previous handlers were cruel, it doesn’t by any means prove that all humans are terrible. And after the incident with the human teenager Starlight, tensions are running high as the pride is further divided.

Sunset has developed quite the bond with Starlight, which has furthered her belief that there is solid good in humans. And she will fight for that belief.

-*Scorpan*, a wild lion that was captured by humans alongside his brother Tirek, and was brought to the circus for entertainment. While Scorpan harbors some resentment toward humans after being stolen from his home and abused, he doesn’t believe killing them will solve anything, and so he is somewhat a neutral party in the current pride feud. That said, he has become curious the bond Sunset and Starlight share, and the more he watches and interact with awestruck humans, the more he slowly begins to come around to Sunset’s beliefs. But it comes with a cost: he is conflicted between his changing feelings towards humans and the bond he shares with his brother, and soon he will have to make a choice between them.

-*Tirek*, a massive and wild lion that was captured alongside his brother and sent to the circus. Tirek’s impressive size and power has often led him being thrown into a ring with a variety of different animals, ranging from other captured lions to tigers and even rhinos, all as a way to forcibly show off his tremendous strength as entertainment in the circus. Many of his scars come from this segment in his time at the circus, and with every near-death experience, every feel of the crack of a whip snapping against his skin, his hatred toward humans grew. They stole him and his brother away from their home, their families, used them for their own twisted games, and he has never forgotten or forgiven them for it. Even after being rescued from the circus by the Sisters, Tirek does not care: as far as he’s concerned, they simply traded a small cage for a larger cage. And he wants out.

It doesn’t help that Tirek is beginning to feel betrayed by his own brother, whom he’s been having arguments with and at higher frequencies. He has a plan to escape, and he’ll do whatever it takes to achieve the goal (and kill as many humans as he goes). And as far as he’s concerned, you’re either with him… or against him. And he will force his brother to make his decision soon.

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There ya go! This will probably be a side story in the Fluffy!AU; originally it was just to focus on Starlight’s struggles in life and how her friendship with Sunset helps her through it, but I’m thinking about expanding it more to include this conflict and plan to break free from the Sanctuary and lay siege upon the humans for freedom. I dunno though… what do ya’ll think? O:

copied from the merged post —cheezedoodle