Sometimes, when I'm bored, I like to read the G1's backcard stories. I was looking at Twist's, and I found mention of a pony named Skates, who doesn't exist.
Spoiler
"Can you teach me to ice skate?" Twist eagerly asked Skates. They donned their warmest mittens and headed for the pond. Skates helped Twist lace up her ice skates properly, then showed her the correct way to jump, spin and do a figure eight. "Now you try it," Skates urged. Twist slowly glided to the middle of the pond and carefully jumped once, twice, then spun around. "Perfect!" Skates clapped. Twist took her position to perform a figure eight. She took one step forward, then another and another so that by the time she was finished, the skate marks left on the ice looked like a PRETZEL! The two friends laughed and laughed at the funny design until Skates said, "Tomorrow we'll show the other ponies how to put a little "twist" in their skating."
I'm thinking this was an early name for Speedy, or perhaps an unreleased ice-skating themed pony? I thought this was a little weird and wondered if anyone else noticed this!
I'm really just playing devil's advocate - I'm not really a fan of sweeping generalisations. I don't have anything against it being Speedy, I just haven't seen anything that suggests it is (yet). If such information were to emerge to shift the narrative, then I'd shift my opinion, but yeah. I like something more concrete.
You can call it overthinking; I prefer to think of it as not jumping to convenient conclusions just because they're there.
So leaving that alone, the Romance Pony cards.
I think this is different, because this is a UK card and the UK pony lore is full of non-pony characters from various fantastical or animal or fairytale backgrounds. Several ponies have special friendships with such characters, and a lot of these feature on UK backcard stories. For me that one's a lot easier to theorise on, because there are so many other examples:
Spoiler
All these are from the same rough few years around the Romance Pony release in the UK, just some examples from my folder. Note at least one references an unreleased pony character.
Merry Treat - Father Christmas
Snowdrop - the sad white cloud
Baby Rainfeather - the sad little duckling
Baby Countalot - Lady Lessons* (this one is a pony, she did appear in the comics - and seems to have been an unreleased concept that never made it to toy stage)
Sugar Sweet - Lemon Treats* (Pony released in the US set and sold here via import - story probably same as US)
Tippy Toes - Mr Sun
Baby Sweet Steps - a happy clover leaf
Baby Bright Bow - Rainbow Curl Ponies (released pony set)
Baby Starbow - the stars
Baby SunRibbon - a sunbeam
Happyglow - dull stars
Starglow - other stars
Wriggle Pocket - Wriggle the Fish (pocket friend)
Love Letter - Prince Shy-One
Love Story - Pixie princess
Spangling Secret - Star Fairies
But even though early US cards did influence the UK, Twist wasn't sold here, so her story would never have been consulted. This is also probably why I find it hard to visualise Speedy as an ice skater, because her personality in the UK comic was influenced by her US backcard story, and she rollerskates around ponyland, racing other ponies like Trucker and so on and so forth.