It was Spike all along! He made the comics and created continuity errors! It all makes sense now! Maybe he’s the Watcher, or the Observer, or still alive in G5 to write the new guy’s tale, or he imagined season 10 and other non-canon/retconned events, or WE are Spike…
The librarian mare named “Babs” and has a cutie mark of a book with a bat has got to be a reference to Barbara Gordon, Batgirl. Don’t know why she isn’t red-maned if she is.