>>42289986
I like the idea that ponies who get lost in the Everfree Forest become mushroom ponies. Like your idea, they can connect to marecelial network to commune with each other and share memories, thoughts, feelings, knowledge, snowpity, etc., but they can also be fine alone and free ranging. So, they are both collective and independently minded. When they become mushroom ponies they lose their original memories but maintain something of their character and personality. However, they acquire a mischivious nature that has them play tricks on travelers. They tend to have an absent but warm gaze, and sometimes they help ponies in trouble find their way through the forest if those ponies play along with their tricks. In general, they are good natured but they don't communicate with voice the way normal ponies do (they lose that ability) and they see normal ponies as strange and unusual creatures (they can't understand that they used to be normal ponies). Finally, they have a deep connection to the forest itself. They can feel it almost as an extension of themselves. They live a very long time, like the trees in the forest; several hundred years perhaps.