How did baby Ember get her cutie mark?

[brightberry]

I do remember the pamphlet that said "Ember" and it was a little confusing as I knew the TV special was purple but the option of getting another color was welcome.  I mean, if they offered all the ponies in other colors I wouldn't have complained.  I did want the lavender one though.  I ended up with both Blue and Lavender because the pony was late and my father called to follow up.  The blue came first and lavender 2nd.  I was thrilled with the blue one so I felt lucky to get the 2nd.  I named one Blueberry and the other Ember.

[Taffeta]

Thanks Ponyfan. It makes sense that that's the case, because of Ember's Dream and RaMC.

What I don't know is whether this is also true over here. It matters a bit because we didn't do the MO programme very well here, not for ponies - but we did have Ember and Baby Lucky. I can remember getting Lucky in his little box with his white comb and bowtie and letter - which I still have, randomly - but I was too young for Ember. I do have a UK insert for her which came with her. It doesn't name her but I don't know if there is another one naming her Ember. I know Chrissytree has a box for Ember which I have photos of but it just has tickboxes on the side for the colour that was being sent out. It's a plain brown box otherwise as far as I can see. She may be able to comment more on that. So right now I don't have any evidence for the name Ember in the UK.

And since star baby wasn't sold her either, to me she's the true Ember. Although by habit I call them all Ember now since it's easier than baby with no name o.o.

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The UK letter that came with Ember (dated 1984, so postdating the naming of Ember on the US leaflet). It's a bit funny that it's Megan because Megan didn't really exist here in 1984 O.o. Except of course with RaMC but then you'd expect to see the Ember name. It makes me wonder if the text is basically the same as a letter that might have come with Ember in the US, before she was formally named - but I can't be sure.

[Carrehz]

Oh my god that letter is adorable. I love it!!!

[Lilja]

The UK letter that came with Ember (dated 1984, so postdating the naming of Ember on the US leaflet). It's a bit funny that it's Megan because Megan didn't really exist here in 1984 O.o. Except of course with RaMC but then you'd expect to see the Ember name. It makes me wonder if the text is basically the same as a letter that might have come with Ember in the US, before she was formally named - but I can't be sure.

The text seems very British (I feel like every other piece of early UK material wanted you to "make a real fuss" of your pony  ), but it could've been edited of course. It's good to keep in mind that this type of stuff is often prepared far in advance, so the copyright year can be one year before actual release (because yeah, 1984 sounds a bit early for them to be mentioning Megan). For example, the US Ember offer is copyrighted 1983, but the Ember pose is stamped 1984 so she can't have been shipped out any earlier than that.

[Taffeta]

Yeah, I know what you mean. :/

But Megan didn't come out in the UK till 1986.
What I can't remember off-hand is if she's in the UK comics in 1985. She didn't play a major role in the comics but that seems like a bit of a long gap compared to if she was released in 1985.

It's a shade off topic but Lucky's is also Megan.
This one is very British; it even references the comic

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Megan here makes more sense though. His is dated 1986.

[Lilja]

But the Megan doll would likely at least have been released in the US by that point, so her UK release could've been planned. Or they just looked at US material and didn't pay too close attention. After all, Gusty appeared in the UK comic two years before she was actually released in the Movie Star set. 

I don't know if the US fan club or any other of their offers had letters from Megan. I know some Swedish fan club letters were also signed Megan.

This all makes me wonder if the MO babies were first unnamed, and received the name Ember later. Or if they were named Ember from the beginning, and Hasbro decided to remove the name for whatever reason. Since the name Ember doesn't seem to have carried over to the UK, which must've been released later than in the US.

[Taffeta]

Hasbro UK is a bit murky prior to 1985. The comic etc featured all the y2 and y3 unicorns and pegasus ponies, and the 2nd set rainbow ponies, which were not sold here. Gusty was a movie star but I feel like that was an afterthought.

But the first exclusives for the UK happened in 1984 as well and fed into 1985. You can tell by the packaging styles.

It's not clear what role Megan played overall, but she was so ignored by the comic that it's a bit of an oddball. I can only imagine that it was something in the bigger pipeline but it didn't happen until 1986.

On the Ember front, I would ignore what the UK did as the UK did its own thing a lot. It makes more sense for the pony to have no name and then have a name, which may well have come about for RaMC so they could feature her in the animation with an identity. Ember with star was perhaps the evolution of that concept...in a time when all baby ponies were called Ember. And then by the time Catrina was released, there were other babies and Ember was no longer around.

I suspect it went from no name = name = replaced by other baby ponies. Y2 cards seem to have the ember offer but not y3 cards or later. (Speaking for the US). I have some packages from the UK as well but the only one I think might have the offer mentioned on the card is Blossom's which is also the most securely in 1984 of all of them. The ones that ran over into 1985...not sure it's on their packages, and that's probably because end 1984/into 1985 is when you see the first set of baby ponies here as well (PACs and Baby Bow Tie's Stroller).

[KarentheUnicorn]

It's weird that megan signed the UK stuff.

The only thing I can compare it to is this where it's signed by My Little Pony
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[MJNSEIFER]

@Taffeta

Thank you for responding to what I said, and I'm pleased I was able to clear things up.

The irony is that everyone having their own idea about pony is kind of the mantra behind G1 (and probably G2 and G3) as well.
And despite all the disagreements, nobody is saying it's wrong to have your own personal concept, preference, whatever. In your own creative work and project and space it's entirely your own ideas anyway. Nobody is saying that that is wrong in the slightest. Actually the opposite. But this multi-generational forum is an entirely separate space away from those projects, where fans with a wide range of opinions and backgrounds roam. People who read your work probably agree with your concepts. That isn't the same on a forum like this one, where some will agree and some will not.

Indeed.  That was in a sense what I was trying to say in places, and I personally would even G4 to that list, at least in my view (but like you say, all views are/can be different.)   I fully support the idea of everyone having their own opinions and the like, and am pleased that I was able to articulate that I was ultimately referring to personal headcanon and creative writing, as that may have been missed before (sorry if it wasn't.)

You also mentioned that you like the CM concept because it means something to you. In which case maybe you'll understand my position best when I say there are many things from G1 - the comics especially - that mean stuff to me too.  And they have nothing to do with FIM whatsoever.

I am sure there are others for whom moments in the G1 tv series matter in the same kind of way.

I understand completely, hence why I'm in no way trying to portray any of my headcanons as the only correct one.  I fully respect that every one in the My Little Pony fandom/community (whatever you want to call it) have their own special things that mean something to them in the franchise.

I am sure there are others who have precious self-developed canons from some childhood game or interpretation of a character because of a particular memory or childhood friend/game.

...Those things are just as valid as the thing that is important to you

Agreed and fully understood, hence I only ever state mine as "fact" for want of a better word, in creative projects that I am writing, because like you said, the creative work is the ideas of the creator(s) being used as the concept, but I would never state my headcanons as fact over other people and insist that they always have to follow mine, and/or the ones I like - especially knowing that everyone else likely has a reason (such as what we discussed) to want to portray/imagine things their way too.

And we shouldn't have to keep defending them in this groundhog-day thread topic that keeps coming up over and over again. It's like FIM fans are obsessed with this Ember symbol thing, because it somehow gives legitimacy to the concept in G4 back in the eighties. And maybe it does - but only because RaMC may have inspired Faust to develop it. Not because it has any meaning for G1 ponies overall

.  Again, understood.  I only really intended to answer why someone would like to imagine how pre-FiM symbols or cutie marks (for G3, of course) could be earned if they were earned (be it in imagination, or storytelling) and not to outright say that Cartoon-Ember is or should be proof that earning symbols was a canon thing before FiM - I know it's not.  I've thought about it as interesting, especially as wondering if the CMC were meant as a reference/shout out to it, but I don't see it as proof that earning ones symbol/cutie mark came before FiM or whatever the FiM you're talking about are doing.

And in terms of things that are important to me personally - please don't use cutie mark to refer to G1 ponies, whatever the context. Maybe it doesn't bother you - but if we're talking about everyone's freedom, I think I have the right to ask that you use the proper terminology, even despite the thread title.

I respect that, and as I said when I first came into this thread, I always at least try to use the term "symbols" when referring to G1 and G2 ponies, and the only real danger of me referring to them as "cutie marks" is if I slip up out of habit and/or not concentrating (and I'd hopefully correct that as soon as I notice my mistake, or even have it pointed out to me.)  The only other time, is during my fanseries which is set in Equestria, but I've thought about it, and it probably won't even come up that much - it's not like every time a pony is introduced (or re-introduced for canon ones) there's going to be a full discussion over what their cutie mark or symbol is or what it's called, so it is likely that any occurrences of a G1 or G2 pony's symbol being called a cutie mark will mainly happen behind the scenes during summaries, scripts, and discussions with my friend/co-writer anyway.  Ultimately though, I do at least try to use symbols when talking about the pre-G3 ponies.

On another note, I don't know what your other thread idea is, but we really don't need any more threads about how G4 is relevant to G1, because, quite honestly, it isn't.

It is ultimately an early promotion for the fanseries, and an explanation as to what is, how much of G4 it follows, and how G1-G3.5 fits in with it, and will be used.  It is not anything to do with whether or not G4 is relevant to G1.

Again thanks for responding, and I'm pleased that we have a neutral understanding it seems, and this should ultimately be all I need to discuss about it on this thread, unless you have anything else to add and/or ask, and again I'm sorry for any wrong impressions I caused.

[brightberry]

There are MO pamphlets that  call the 3 Embers  "My Beautiful Baby Pony" and also "Ember."

http://www.mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Ember

Both have a copyright date of 1983.

Also the original VHS tape of Rescue at Midnight Castle has a copyright date of 1984 for the program and I think 1985 for the boxart and description.


Ponyfan

It also doesn’t seem to say all of the babies are Ember.  It only says Ember at the top.  Everywhere else on the pamphlet it’s “baby pony”.  I never realized that before.

[Shaz]

Okay, I totally misinterpreted the picture.  I thought it was being suggested that maybe Ember got her mark as the result of a burn-perhaps from a family member who had fire magic. (You know, since her name is Ember.) 

Haha, same here, I thought 'so Ember got her symbol by setting Rapunzel on fire? Cool'

It's interesting to hear about the different Embers and how they were marketed (the Megan letters are so cute!). I only have blue Ember but if I had them all in my collection I think I would make them into different characters.

[Leave a Whisper]

Thanks Ponyfan. It makes sense that that's the case, because of Ember's Dream and RaMC.

What I don't know is whether this is also true over here. It matters a bit because we didn't do the MO programme very well here, not for ponies - but we did have Ember and Baby Lucky. I can remember getting Lucky in his little box with his white comb and bowtie and letter - which I still have, randomly - but I was too young for Ember. I do have a UK insert for her which came with her. It doesn't name her but I don't know if there is another one naming her Ember. I know Chrissytree has a box for Ember which I have photos of but it just has tickboxes on the side for the colour that was being sent out. It's a plain brown box otherwise as far as I can see. She may be able to comment more on that. So right now I don't have any evidence for the name Ember in the UK.

And since star baby wasn't sold her either, to me she's the true Ember. Although by habit I call them all Ember now since it's easier than baby with no name o.o.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


The UK letter that came with Ember (dated 1984, so postdating the naming of Ember on the US leaflet). It's a bit funny that it's Megan because Megan didn't really exist here in 1984 O.o. Except of course with RaMC but then you'd expect to see the Ember name. It makes me wonder if the text is basically the same as a letter that might have come with Ember in the US, before she was formally named - but I can't be sure.

That is such a cute letter!