About

The Twilight Sparkle Scepter, also known as the Twilicane, is a gold-plated cane topped with the head of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic character Twilight Sparkle wearing a sheepish grin.

Origin

In Season 4 Episode 2 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, originally aired on November 23rd, 2013, the villain character Discord gives Twilight Sparkle a scepter and a royal cape while mocking her for being a princess after leaving her friends in the forest (shown below).

Spread

Shortly after the episode aired, threads on 4chan’s /mlp/ (pony) board started to appear about the scepter, resulting in large quantities of photoshops. On November 24th, the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic storyboard artist Sabrina Alberghetti posted a tweet linking to a face swapped image of Twilight Sparkle and the scepter.

So apparently this is a thing now? You guys are nuts. http://t.co/VIH3f4vNrU
— Sabrina Alberghetti (@TheRealSibsy) November 24, 2013

The same day, YouTuber Daimondo uploaded a video featuring a 3D-rendered model of the scepter in the sandbox game Garry’s Mod (shown below, left). Also on November 24th, the My Little Pony blog Equestria Daily^[1] published an article about the overnight popularity surrounding the scepter, providing links to Garry’s Mod and Team Fortress 2 3D models^[2] of the scepter and a newly-created “Ask Twilight Scepter” Tumblr blog.^[3] On November 25th, YouTuber MrMental4 uploaded a parody of the Leekspin animation featuring Twilight Sparkle and the scepter (shown below, right).

On the same day, MLP Forums^[4] member Bunny submitted a thread about the scepter, noting its prevalence on the My Little Pony-related image hosting site Derpibooru.^[5] Also on November 25th, Redditor Scottfra submitted an animated GIF of a dead horse being beaten with the scepter (shown below) to the /r/mylittlepony^[6] subreddit, which was initially uploaded to Know Your Meme by user Tyler Bowman^[7] a day earlier, gaining over 520 up votes and 35 comments in the first 16 hours.