Unpopular Pony Opinions

[Taffeta]

I guess I have the opposite opinion. I think this is an unpopular opinion these days though...

But I feel like it matters when you take something out of the community, or permanently alter it in some way that could impact someone else down the line.

I've been here so long that I've seen so many people say, it's my personal item, I'll never sell it so it doesn't matter. ANd most all of those people did sell their ponies and did leave.

So for me I'll always be on the side of 'do no harm'.

Of course, a rusty or mouldy pony is not harmed by being decapitated and cleaned. I just don't believe in doing damage to ponies that don't need it.

Off with their heads!

Who let the Queen of Hearts loose?!

[Leave a Whisper]

I guess I have the opposite opinion. I think this is an unpopular opinion these days though...

But I feel like it matters when you take something out of the community, or permanently alter it in some way that could impact someone else down the line.

I've been here so long that I've seen so many people say, it's my personal item, I'll never sell it so it doesn't matter. ANd most all of those people did sell their ponies and did leave.

So for me I'll always be on the side of 'do no harm'.

Of course, a rusty or mouldy pony is not harmed by being decapitated and cleaned. I just don't believe in doing damage to ponies that don't need it.

Off with their heads!

Who let the Queen of Hearts loose?!

Tirek. He wanted those pony heads squeaky clean.

[Taffeta]

I guess I have the opposite opinion. I think this is an unpopular opinion these days though...

But I feel like it matters when you take something out of the community, or permanently alter it in some way that could impact someone else down the line.

I've been here so long that I've seen so many people say, it's my personal item, I'll never sell it so it doesn't matter. ANd most all of those people did sell their ponies and did leave.

So for me I'll always be on the side of 'do no harm'.

Of course, a rusty or mouldy pony is not harmed by being decapitated and cleaned. I just don't believe in doing damage to ponies that don't need it.

Off with their heads!

Who let the Queen of Hearts loose?!

Tirek. He wanted those pony heads squeaky clean.

AU headcanon accepted.

[Wardah]

I guess I have the opposite opinion. I think this is an unpopular opinion these days though...

But I feel like it matters when you take something out of the community, or permanently alter it in some way that could impact someone else down the line.

I've been here so long that I've seen so many people say, it's my personal item, I'll never sell it so it doesn't matter. ANd most all of those people did sell their ponies and did leave.

So for me I'll always be on the side of 'do no harm'.

Of course, a rusty or mouldy pony is not harmed by being decapitated and cleaned. I just don't believe in doing damage to ponies that don't need it.

Even if it does end up being sold the owner still deserves to enjoy it while it is in their possession. If someone doesn't want to constantly be looking at a pony with a gash across it's design and they can't afford to replace it with a mint one then they should be able to fix it. There will always be plenty of collectors for whom "looks original" is good enough and sometimes even preferable to "actually original". Just wish people would label their work, maybe even put a paper inside with what they did.

[BlackCurtains]

I guess I have the opposite opinion. I think this is an unpopular opinion these days though...

But I feel like it matters when you take something out of the community, or permanently alter it in some way that could impact someone else down the line.

But customizers and restorers are PART of the community. We aren't segregated to a corner. What we do is just as valuable as those who keep ponies MOC... sometimes, more. I know artists that can sell their customs for $200+ and they do sell. Why would someone keep a mangy G1 worth 3 bucks when they can turn it into a 200 dollar profit AND a piece of art that's appreciated by someone also in the community.

I have more Hasbro ponies than customs, but not by much. I can tell you for certain that I've spent more on the custom part of my collection than the rest of it. I'm still collecting MLP. I'm still in the community as a collector and customizer/restorer.

As far as impacting someone "down the line" - It's on the buyer to know what they are buying.

[Taffeta]

Reminding people that this is the Unpopular Opinion thread, where it is ok to post unpopular opinions without being jumped on for holding them.

Although I said very clearly, 'do no harm'.

At no point did I say that it wasn't okay to repair a pony that was badly damaged, or customise a pony that was beyond help.

I just feel conflicted about the customising or restoring of ponies who don't really need it, especially when those ponies are being reduced. Bearing in mind that this is an opinion of mine which has changed quite a lot with the passage of time, because back when ponies were widely available, I didn't really think about it at all. But seeing people paying silly prices or struggling to get hold of certain ponies made me think again.

And really, the strongest opinion I have on this is about decarding, which is nothing to do with customisers or  restorers at all.

I will always feel we have a responsibility to other collectors, though. Whether it be in our record keeping, or whatever it is.

This is my conclusion after 24 years on and off, watching how we've basically destroyed the pricing market on certain items because of decisions made by earlier generations of collectors.

[serena-hime]

I don’t care about collectible integrity. I don’t care if you’ve broken a pony’s seal and replaced the washer and filled it up with googly eyes or whatever. I prefer a cleaned pony to an authentic, untampered one.

Of course I have a pretty small collection and am more of a customizer anyway, soooo

Okay but......I really want to fill a pony with googly eyes now  Imagine popping off her head for maintenance and they just pour out onto the floor, like some kind of adorable horror scene.

Re: the topic of altering ponies, I'm somewhere in the middle. I see great value in preservation, it informs a lot of my restoration and storage methods for both ponies and dolls and I am very careful with how I treat my toys (often to my detriment- my BJDs rarely come out for fear of sunlight and dust exposure despite my doll room having blackout curtains, and I wash my hands repeatedly while handling my collection of both new and old dolls).

However, I don't think preservation is (or should be) the ultimate priority in collecting vintage toys for everyone, nor do I think it's especially important to take market value into consideration when making the choice to alter a pony in any way, because I'm not buying these with the expectation of making what I paid back if I decide to sell them.

I behead, wash and replace the tail washer of every pony, despite the fact that I only buy mint or near-mint. Tail washers and glued heads are not essential parts of the pony for me; rather, they're a point of concern and discomfort for me and I would prefer to clean every pony and know they will never succumb to tail rust or mold- and I don't think of these alterations as 'damage', rather they are precautions I take for both my comfort and the safety of the pony. I think hundreds or thousands of ponies would have been saved from certain types of damage if Hasbro never glued their heads or secured their tails with metal, actually.

At the end of the day, my happiness regarding my collection is the most important thing, and it will take precedent over anything else, but I try to strike a balance between preservation, prevention and enjoyment, and I'm grateful for the collectors who do value preservation above all else because we wouldn't know as much about ponies without them.

I think both types of collectors are good, positive, and valuable to the hobby at large. Both can exist, and the community would be worse without one or the other.

[SunPony]

I've been trying to think of an unpopular pony opinion to put in this thread for weeks.  But the truth is I have way more important things in my life to spend my emotional energy on at this time.    Perhaps someday I will finally come up with something.  Maybe if I research Hasbro's business ethics I can come up with something...

[Taffeta]

I've been trying to think of an unpopular pony opinion to put in this thread for weeks.  But the truth is I have way more important things in my life to spend my emotional energy on at this time.    Perhaps someday I will finally come up with something.  Maybe if I research Hasbro's business ethics I can come up with something...

Maybe your unpopular opinion is that you don't have any unpopular opinions???

Wishing you luck with your real life stuff.

Also, Serena-hime is probably right, balance is important. This thread is not for changing people's opinions, just expressing them. I think that's also important.

[SunPony]

I've been trying to think of an unpopular pony opinion to put in this thread for weeks.  But the truth is I have way more important things in my life to spend my emotional energy on at this time.    Perhaps someday I will finally come up with something.  Maybe if I research Hasbro's business ethics I can come up with something...

Maybe your unpopular opinion is that you don't have any unpopular opinions???

*Gasp* I didn't think of this... Maybe so!

[Carrehz]

I guess my opinion on the whole altering thing is... just think things through, don't do it if you don't think it's 100% necessary/you might regret it, and please keep notes/mark it somewhere on the pony (or yeah put a note inside it, I like that idea too) that it's been altered! It's easy to say "it's on the buyer" but it's only possible for a buyer to know what they're buying, if the seller has informed them, which isn't always the case! If that makes sense. I don't have anything against rehairing, patching up rubbed-off symbols, etc, but I'd like to know so I can make an informed decision whether or not to buy.

[serena-hime]

please keep notes/mark it somewhere on the pony (or yeah put a note inside it, I like that idea too) that it's been altered! It's easy to say "it's on the buyer" but it's only possible for a buyer to know what they're buying, if the seller has informed them, which isn't always the case! If that makes sense. I don't have anything against rehairing, patching up rubbed-off symbols, etc, but I'd like to know so I can make an informed decision whether or not to buy.

100% agree with this! I don't mind ponies that have been beheaded/tail washer replaced or cleaned, but I do not like to buy ponies that have had chemical treatments or significant hair alteration or restoration- I would be very upset to unknowingly buy a pony that has had an oxy treatment or hair that has been heavily restored; not just because I prefer minty or near-mint ponies, but because 1) those treatments could potentially damage that pony, or other ones it might come into contact with and 2) my restoration methods might react poorly with whatever's already been done to it and 3) some hair restoration methods affect the texture of the hair in a way that I don't like, which isn't always fixable.

I also like the idea of putting the note inside the pony, I really don't like ponies with writing on them lol. A cute little pouch with a note inside the pony would be both effective, safe and adorable, imo.

[brightberry]

I loved the early coloring books with humans in them and still like them.  It didn’t make any sense that humans and ponies lived together.  But I thought the baby ponies running around a barn was adorable.  I assumed that the ponies struck out on their own at some point or there was some sort of meet up? I kind love that random things happen in pony world with 0 explanation just like when we were children.


I did really want ponies to just show up one day to play.

[Taffeta]

I guess my opinion on the whole altering thing is... just think things through, don't do it if you don't think it's 100% necessary/you might regret it, and please keep notes/mark it somewhere on the pony (or yeah put a note inside it, I like that idea too) that it's been altered! It's easy to say "it's on the buyer" but it's only possible for a buyer to know what they're buying, if the seller has informed them, which isn't always the case! If that makes sense. I don't have anything against rehairing, patching up rubbed-off symbols, etc, but I'd like to know so I can make an informed decision whether or not to buy.

I also second this. This is really well outlined and a note inside the pony prevents the need to actually deface it, so seems like a great solution (so long as the ink can't run).

Until I was about 5 I believed ponyland was a real place and ponies really did come over the rainbow. So yeah.

[Snapdragon]

This may be an unpopular opinion, but as a collector and a customizer, I side-eye when I see fellow artists baiting ponies indiscriminately, especially for sale. (If it's for yourself, who cares? You can light Ice Crystal on fire if you want to, because he's your property! ... just don't post about it on pony groups if you don't want to get flamed. )

I've probably baited some ponies that folks would have preferred to be restored. I think there's some people in the world who would want every single bait pony returned to their previous character, even if it means essentially customizing the pony anyway. (New paint, hair, sculpting, etc.) I also think there's some artists who think 'I can make $200 so who cares?' and bait anything that lands in their hands. I think we need to aim somewhere for the middle ground, and I disagree with both ends of the spectrum. (And to our credit, I do generally think that most of the community falls somewhere in the middle ground!)

I've only seen it happen a couple of times, but I think if you want to bait whatever you want, you need to show the before photos in artist-only spaces... because showing off mint-condition G1s and bragging about how you're going to 'make $200 per custom out of them' in front of primarily collectors is going to ruffle some feathers, and it's rude behavior in a collector-centered space. (You also don't have to show 'before' photos! You can just post the lovely result and no one needs to know it's an Ice Crystal under the paint.)

I also feel like we may start seeing a shortage of certain poses, because (for example) I've seen a lot of Rapunzel customs churned out in the past few years, and no one seems to want to vary the pose. There are SO MANY Bowtie-pose baits I've seen (that color seems to get age dots like crazy!), but hardly ever any Love Melody, Cranberry Muffins, etc. The HQG1C project will help with this I'm sure, but the 'I'm gonna make $200 profit!' sector doesn't wanna spend $15-20 per bait.

EDIT because I forgot to mention, obviously once you buy the pony, it's your property to do with whatever you want. Light it on fire! Bait a mint pony! Go crazy! However: you open ourself up to criticism and/or negative feedback if you then brag about it on collector spaces, even if they are also customizer spaces. You can buy an original Van Gogh, but if you paint over it to suit your personal tastes, the Van Gogh fans are going to voice their disagreement if you post about it on Van Gogh groups.