Unpopular Pony Opinions

[TarkanDragon]

My four or five opinions in regards of pony-related stuff are:

1. G1 is a lot better than G4 (one of the reasons are: it comes to a term about messages.)
2. Weston should kept appearing in later episodes and also have his own toy.
3. I still care for G4 but there’s have been downs and ups in regards of character development. (Mostly for a dragon like spike.)
4. G1 dragons like Spike need more of an expansion. Like; A hometown, families, etc.
5. G1 should be re-popularized again. I know it’s the past but honestly I feel like G1 needs more presence of nostalgia.

Spoiler

Ex. Opinion. (viewer discretion advised of what I’m about to say in regards of G4’s Spike problem). G4 writers should’ve atleast fixed G4 Spike rather than completely making him into a broken traumatized dying dragon. (Yeah apperently G4 Spike doesn’t seem much to be a proper dragon as G1 Spike. G1 Spike had more personality and is actually one. G4 Spike isn’t literarily a dragon anymore he’s becoming anything that his image isn’t really representing to be (and I hate it))

Now, If anyone happen to have questions or wants to say anything about my opinions then either reply to this message or otherwise pm me about it.

[BlackCurtains]

I didn't know they weren't always called symbols. Rump mark/design for G1, eh? Well, those aren't bad. I must have picked up symbol from the collecting community then... which would have been right here

Offended isn't the right word, but I'm not sure what is. I still think it's a little weird to feel so strongly about it. But on the hand it drives absolutely bonkers when someone mixes up poisonous and venomous or think they are interchangeable so I guess we all have weird things we dislike

[MJNSEIFER]

I think it's a weird thing to be ...is offended the right word? by someone calling something they grew up with different from what you grew up with. I say symbol, because that's what they were called in my gen. I don't mind cutie mark, I just don't use it unless I'm talking about G4 (I still say symbol for G3).

As others have said, it's mostly because of how some bronies have imposed G4 stuff on things, and made their generation out to be right/superior  and I do get what they mean by this – I have no idea if bronies have literally insisted that people call G1 and G2 symbols cutie marks or anything, but I can get that being annoying if they do.  It is like when bronies actually complain when pre-G4 ponies say phrases like “everybody”, as if it's some undeniable fact that any version of MLP that doesn't say phrases like “everypony” is automatically inferior (which it's not), despite the fact that they likely don't care when G4 ponies themselves fail to obey this rule (this annoys me too, and I love the term “everypony”.)

Not all of us (myself and other bronies) do this, but enough of us have done it for it to be annoying, and for people like me who have a more innocent agender need to explain ourselves further.

My personal hatred - and it is hate - of cutie mark is not really the term itself. I mean, there are a lot of silly pony terms out there. But the association between the G4 version of cutie mark and the irrepressable urge of a section of G4 fans to impose their 'lore' on older generations without any respect or regard for how those older gens worked.

I didn't bother about cutie mark at all in G3, even though I thought it a silly name. I literally only started hating it because of the way that section of G4 fans tried to redefine everything pony through FIM lenses without bothering to understand what came before was different, or accepting it for what it was.

In short, all the words I hate about G4, I hate because of G4 fans behaving like numpties. There are plenty of stupid words in G1 as well, after all. And even if it makes me wince, I'm only likely to comment on someone calling a G1 symbol a CM if they're also trying to force G4 lore on G1 at the same time.

Going back to symbol, because it's not an official term for any generation, I find it a useful neutral term across all generations. It really refers to the marking on the pony toy, rather than the wider story behind them imo.

Yeah, that's pretty much it...  Like I say, I have no idea if other bronies have done this, but I understand the reaction if they have – this is probably why I caused controversy when I tried to explain what I was doing with my fanseries before, but I hope I can one day explain it correctly.

To make an attempt of it now; when I say I am using the term cutie mark for G1/G2 ponies (and obeying G4 cutie mark rules for them), it is not in anyway to impose G4 lore on pre-G4 stuff, I am only doing it because it fits the narrative of the fanseries itself; my fanseries is set in Equestria, so it mostly follows the rules of that place – it is not because G4 is superior, as it's not, it is as good or as bad or as any generation (if I wanted to make my favorite generation superior, I'd be having every generation following G3 rules.) 

The pre-G4 ponies who appear in the fanseries are not literal crossovers from that generation, but are simply adaptations of those ponies in a G4 world (purely because the show is set in G4's world), so they have to use terms like cutie marks, and have to have earned them via talent, because it makes no narrative sense for them to have done anything different – if I had been writing a fanseries set in G1's world, but still included G4 ponies in it, I would have changed the rules for them to fit them better in G1's world.

I hope people understand that I am not trying to impose G4, regardless of what those bronies do, it is just that the narrative takes place in Equestria, so Equestrian terminology and logic will be mostly used, though I am going to use pre-G4 stuff if it fits the narrative, or I can work it in as a shout out (I aim to create a nostalgic feel for all generations, or at least the generations up to G4, even with it being in a G4 world... hopefully I'll explain this better when I explain the fanseries itself.)

But yeah, that's probably what went wrong last time, maybe I didn't specify that it was for fanon only and that I'm not trying to actually impose G4 stuff onto pre-G4 worlds, it just fits in with the narrative here.  Whatever those types of bronies do, I am not trying to do that, just trying to create my own story as I (and my friend/co-writer) envision it.

It's not that I'm offended by it, I just think cutie mark sounds overbearingly stupid. In the same way that belly badge for care bears sounds overbearingly stupid.

What I am offended by is people using that stupid term for ponies that came before G3. Because of their awful, condescending attitudes towards everything before G4 in general.

"You people who grew up with those stupid girly generations, don't know your butt from a hole in the ground. So you have to defer to my expertise." Which to them means that G1 and G2 ponies have cutie marks, Tales is G2, and that MLP only became adventurous during FiM.

 It's ret-conning and ret-conners are usually both ignorant and arrogant. I find them aggravating no matter what the subject is, because they stick their fingers in their ears and won't listen.

If they had not taken such a belligerent attitude I wouldn't be as twitchy about it, and could happily ignore it, as I did during the G3 era.

I feel the same way about “belly badge” to be honest, at least to some extent (at the very least, it's not what I would have called it) so I see where you're coming from... yet for me, I can look at that and think “at least MLP used something like cutie mark, which doesn't sound stupid to me personally (and I heard the term “belly badge” first)... I dunno... I guess it's just an opinion thing and how one takes things... like some phrases can sound embarrassing to one person, but not to another (which I respect.)

But yeah, I understand the hate if there are bronies who do what you are describing, and I hate the attitude you talk about when they disrespect pre-G4  (when G4 is what motivated me to check out and respect pre-G4, which is one of the reasons I am writing the way I am...) but yeah, I hate the condescending view toward pre-G4 too, so my intentions are definitely not that, and I hope that will show.

Yeah, I get what you're saying about retcon, but it can go either way... I mean, my fanseries technically retcons G4 itself (and it's the only generation it does, as it is set on G4's world, everything else is an adaptation), and even then it's not a retcon, just a fanmade version – think of it as a flashy way of me playing with the toys, and creating a story.  The other versions, including the canon versions exist, and I'm not even trying to pretend that I affect them.

I hope I was able to explain it better this time, but I do agree that if people are actually trying to enforce it onto pre-G4 like that, they shouldn't do.  As I say, this is not my personal intention, but I can understand if it sounds like that, due to what some bronies have done before me... I am not like that, I love the previous generations too much to do that, and wouldn't have even included them in the fanseries if I had no respect for them at all.

I do intend to do a proper thread explaining this one day.

[Taffeta]

@MJSNEIFER
..Technically you are absolutely imposing G4 lore on G1 and G2.

But it's your fanfiction, and so you can do what you like.

In short, there's a difference between people writing for their own enjoyment based on their creative preferences and people going around pushing their ideas on other people in general discussion because they can't be bothered to find out about that past generation.

...So long as those ideas stay in the fanfiction, and not in general discussion, they're yours to do with as you like.

But at the same time, setting it in Equestria with G4 rules is not going to create nostalgia for anyone from G1-3. Just by the very nature of it. We don't have nostalgia for pony generations that came way after what we grew up with. You can absolutely put G1 ponies in Equestria if that's the story you want to write. Just you have to also understand that Equestria and G4 lore isn't relevant to every pony fan. It's not that G1 fans might not enjoy your writing. Probably some will and do. Just it's not nostalgic. It's putting G1 ponies in the world YOU want them to be in. Which is fine, you absolutely have that right as its your story. But it's not the world most G1 fans want them to be in. If that makes sense.


Side note - 'Pre-G4' also fits into this same category. It's not Pre-G4, G4 was not a watershed. It was just another generation. G1, G2 and G3 labels exist. It's fine to say G1-3. But please. Not Pre-G4, as though G4 was some kind of weird pony enlightenment from the 'dark ages' of the time before.

[MJNSEIFER]

@Taffeta
If that's the case, then... fair enough I guess, but I'm pleased I was able to explain enough that it is fanfiction and that you are okay with me writing it that way.  I have no intention of pushing my ideas of anything onto others into general conversation, this is purely for fanon based material.

The "nostalgia" thing was kind of trimmed, but I ultimately meant a kind of "reboot nostalgia", like when the new version says or does something that reminds you of an old version -  like even if you don't have nostalgia for the reboot itself and you get more nostalgia from the old versions themselves, it is a nice moment that makes you think of a previous version while you watch this version.  Like the creators of this version are showing that they know and respect what came before them and maybe even having a little nostalgia moment of their own.  I realize that this will be a bonus at best, because, as you essentially point out, I can't control other people's nostalgia and it affects people differently, but that's ultimately what I mean, "nostalgic" shout outs to previous generations (which even includes G4 at times.)

It is also in part my own nostalgia as  I am nostalgic for all generations and didn't grow up with any of them, but for at least G1-G4 (yes, G4) I feel like I did as they all have that childhood feel to me.  That's also what aim for with the fanseries; something that feels like you grew up with even though you know you haven't, the same way G4 felt to me (so does G1-G3, but the thing is I actually could have grown up with them.) Again, I can't control how people feel, but that is what I aim for.  I am of course not trying to say my nostalgia is superior either and I respect that everyone has their own nostalgia.

I will try to remember about the pre-G4 thing - it was more out of laziness than anything and was not intended to make G4  sound superior, and I'd do the same if I was talking about "pre-G3" or even "post-G1" if I was trying to group them together or something, but if it's not liked I'll try to avoid saying it.

[Taffeta]

I wanna go back a bit to the comment about dragons - its true that the whole 'race' of dragons wasn't very well expanded upon in any of the generations of MLP we've had so far. BUT the G1 dragons, aside Spike, that went with the princess ponies, did at least have individual character exposition. Why dragons were working as attendants to royalty in the MLP world however...that is an interesting question. I do also remember some other stories about dragons in comics where the dragon was a bad guy, and I think Masquerade dressed up as one at one point as well. But the key point about all the dragons that hasbro made into toys is they are all 'baby' dragons. So it seems like baby dragons become royal pages at some point in their early life...the question is probably why.

@MJSNEIFER, we will just have to disagree on that, since there's literally nothing in G4, including its G1 references, that I personally would find nostalgic or even consider a proper shout out to G1. Frankly, I'd be happier if G4 had left G1 alone and not tried to piggyback its ideas from time to time. It came over to me more as laziness on the part of the writers not being able to come up with their own ideas than a nod to G1 - most especially and recently in that horrible comic whatever it was where the writers clearly had no clue about G1 and just threw it in there for whatever reason.

It's like the Jem movie. Unnecessary.

...There are a bunch of videos about wrecking 1980s nostalgia by insisting on forcing them into reboots and reinventing them for modern audiences. G4 is actually not the worst offender in this category compared to some of the others, but because that section of the G4 fandom tried so very hard to overwrite existing pony stuff with their own and were so hostile about it, it makes it hard to appreciate older gen references in the way that perhaps they were intended.

Again it probably comes down to the disgusting behaviour of that section of bronies. Although I think there's also a weariness from those of us who actually grew up with some of these 1980s classics that there are simply too many attempts to engage 'nostalgia' or 'retro' ideas by rewriting old stuff into a new and shiny format for the modern age.

But none of this means your story is invalid, or that you are wrong. It's simply that people have different perceptions on this based on their own preferences and opinions.

[TarkanDragon]

I wanna go back a bit to the comment about dragons - its true that the whole 'race' of dragons wasn't very well expanded upon in any of the generations of MLP we've had so far. BUT the G1 dragons, aside Spike, that went with the princess ponies, did at least have individual character exposition. Why dragons were working as attendants to royalty in the MLP world however...that is an interesting question. I do also remember some other stories about dragons in comics where the dragon was a bad guy, and I think Masquerade dressed up as one at one point as well. But the key point about all the dragons that hasbro made into toys is they are all 'baby' dragons. So it seems like baby dragons become royal pages at some point in their early life...the question is probably why.

Honestly I do see a point of what you're saying... Although the other 6 dragons from the UK comics haven't described how they act or what are their relatives... I mean I wish that the dragons from the comics have more story to them like how they assembled the Paws and Claws club... I know there's a tumblr account where the comic scans happen. Although there's several comics that haven't been scanned like the majesty and spike comic one.

However I'd get the feeling that "baby" dragons wasn't quite enough for G1, even though there are different types of G1 dragons... Just like Danny once said in the Spike's Search episode: "Look at how many different types of ponies there are. Earth Ponies, pegasi, flutter ponies. So there are probably all different kinds of dragons, too.". Then again we don't even have a given name of a subspecies of the dragons in G1... Although despite of baby dragons being a royalty to MLP is quite a pitch... But can there be Adult dragons in the same subspecies like Spike. I mean don't get confused with the King Koopa-like Dragons than the Goofy-looking ones. I mean we kinda saw or imagine what an adult dragon that matches Spike's subspecies... Even though it was a short bit cause it's in part of the song but still... And oh I have another thing to mention is that we actually saw Spike with wings in one or two of the Promo posters... we haven't getten a clear image of the portrait itself... Although maybe it's another way of seeing what an adult dragon looks like... There's so much to talk about and so much to discover... But if there's by any chance in the writers guide mention something about Spike and have some information like how Megan has been described as a 13-year old and her last name was williams... I'm highly sure Spike has the same thing as well but it hasn't been posted online or actually exposed yet... Although there's some people like "Wildshadow" or "Omnishadow" happen to have one of those Writers guide books... But they can't show any more stuff from the book anymore... I mean honestly I wish that we could get more with the information from the guide itself.

So yeah... I mean sorry if I'd happen to change the subject at one point... I mean if you happen to have any more answers or questions then ask away or explain either why...

[Taffeta]

I have most of the comics, certainly 98% of the ones that would involve spike and the baby dragons, and all the annuals and stuff from the UK release, but I would need to go through all of them meticulously to see how they handled dragons in general, and whether there's any information on other species of dragon beyond the baby dragons in the paws and claws club (I thought of this too, but the story I remember most is the multiparter where they team up to rescue the kidnapped princess ponies).

I don't remember much about the animation version of the dragons since I wasn't that keen on Spike's Search and though I had the wouldbe dragonslayer as a kid, I wasn't interested in it as much as the other episodes. To go out on a limb, there's the story of Squire and the Dragon from MLP Tales (I think that's right?) that Patch tells at the sleepover (?). 

...But I think it's interesting all the same, thank you for raising it as a point of consideration I never really thought about WHY the baby dragons were with the princesses except I remember Smokey was the youngest and so was with Sapphire, the wisest princess, so she could look after him as much as he looked after her. So there must be some deeper reciprocal of of some kind between royal ponies and dragons (not that Majesty is ever exactly called Queen, I don't think, but still).

[Moonbreeze]

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and the retro art

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  *cue tubular bells*

Yikes, WHAT happened to that poor Applejack?  (No-neck Applejack)

[MJNSEIFER]

@MJSNEIFER, we will just have to disagree on that, since there's literally nothing in G4, including its G1 references, that I personally would find nostalgic or even consider a proper shout out to G1. Frankly, I'd be happier if G4 had left G1 alone and not tried to piggyback its ideas from time to time. It came over to me more as laziness on the part of the writers not being able to come up with their own ideas than a nod to G1 - most especially and recently in that horrible comic whatever it was where the writers clearly had no clue about G1 and just threw it in there for whatever reason.

It's like the Jem movie. Unnecessary.

...There are a bunch of videos about wrecking 1980s nostalgia by insisting on forcing them into reboots and reinventing them for modern audiences. G4 is actually not the worst offender in this category compared to some of the others, but because that section of the G4 fandom tried so very hard to overwrite existing pony stuff with their own and were so hostile about it, it makes it hard to appreciate older gen references in the way that perhaps they were intended.

Again it probably comes down to the disgusting behaviour of that section of bronies. Although I think there's also a weariness from those of us who actually grew up with some of these 1980s classics that there are simply too many attempts to engage 'nostalgia' or 'retro' ideas by rewriting old stuff into a new and shiny format for the modern age.

But none of this means your story is invalid, or that you are wrong. It's simply that people have different perceptions on this based on their own preferences and opinions.

That's it exactly; we all have different ideas of what is nostalgic, so I respect your view, and I can see you respect mine, despite it not matching yours.  For me, G4 is nostalgic, for you it's not... I respect that.

But yeah, I do agree that G4 itself didn't do G1/G3 shout outs well.  I personally would have much rather they'd done what I was talking about, and given some actual nostalgic shout outs to the previous generations in a kind of "made by fans, for the fans" kind of thing... I actually thought that's what they were doing in Season 1 and Season 2, but I think I was just seeing what I wanted to see.  Around Season 4 when they actually included G1 and G3 stuff, it was basically new things with the same name... which I guess is fine, as it's a new generation, but it would have been nice for them to be close to the originals... for me anyway (if you'd rather they'd not even done that, I respect that.)

But yeah, maybe they weren't trying to be nostalgic for G1-G3, but it would have been nice (IMO) if they did, and that's what I'd have done.  Pretty much every time they have done a G1-G3 thing they haven't really tried to remind us of the original version... this was obvious to me when the Breezies and Tirek were included, and I was disappointed that they weren't at least vaguely similar to the originals in at a "shout out" kind of way - they didn't have to be, but I'd have liked them to have been.

It is a shame that those kind of bronies tainted the idea of it... if I could have done more to stop them, I would have done.  I myself have no interest with any of my "reboots" of "updating things for the modern age" - that is not the purpose of reboots for me, so that is not my intention.

But you are indeed right to say that it all depends on our own perceptions and opinions, so like I say, I do respect yours, and I'm thankful your were respectful towards mine.  So yeah, agreeing to disagree is fine. 

[Ragamuffin]

Not sure if My Little Pony is "My Little Pony" anymore. It's more like "Lauren Faust's Little Ponies" or whoever's writing whatever nowadays. Drop MLP from the title. "Friendship is Magic". "A New Generation". "Tell Your Tale", "Make Your Mark".

MLP G1-3 is YOUR Little Pony. Everyone had a unique experience with their childhood ponies. If you had friends or peers who were into MLP, you probably didn't have the same exact collections, even then, how did you obtain said ponies? How you got the ponies is part the experience. Even if you met someone else with the same pony as you, you probably had a different personality for her, a completely different character. Everyone had their own stories. Not everyone had access to the VHSes or were able to catch MLP on TV, and a lot of people probably didn't even know there was animated media out, or comics. MLP, believe it or not, is a toy, these ponies are dolls. They are no different from Barbie, really, where you make up your own characters and your own stories. Especially when talking about G1 when rereleases of a character were rare and most of the ponies were unique designs and characters, there was no way to fit them all into a piece of media, and a lot of them don't have deep pre-set personalities. You had to make everything up yourself. My experience with MLP is being like "yeah that's a neat idea", seeing it from a story or something, and reenacting something similar. Not 1:1, and that would only be a single story, not everything I did with my ponies was like that.

I see kids online now who grew up with G3, which cool, I was a G3 kid too basically, but it's obvious they grew up with only the DVDs, because they focus on only MLP from around 2007. The era where the main characters were Minty, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, and later, the Core 7. We're starting to move away from the "personalized" approach MLP had and going into the "prebuilt" era where everything has to be a certain way. G4 made this worse and worse, and G5 is continuing this "prebuilt"-ness.

Spoiler

Slightly off topic but related to the above, as an example: Most kids nowadays would think of G3 Pinkie as a leader-type, but not me. From the earliest stories and back cards, Pinkie was made out to be the "little sister" type, and I liked that, so I kept it with my own stories, and it's shaped my entire view of the character. I can not for the life of me ship Pinkie/Minty when I perceive Minty as an adult and Pinkie is... kid-ish. Star Catcher doesn't have much of a personality in the media, but I guess she's usually portrayed as a regal goddess in fanworks. Which she is, obviously, but MY Star Catcher was also very vain, snobby, and stories involving her would end up with her learning to have some humility. Those are the most stand-out examples I can think of, but all of MY ponies were different from the """canon""" ones.

Not saying it's bad or wrong, I mean, Care Bears and others have this approach with a single set of characters, but it's not MY Little Pony and it's not YOUR Little Pony. I guess you could say people making fanfics of random background ponies in FiM is more MLP-y than anything else, but I do think being on the internet sours things a bit? Like the closed-ness of having your own ponies in your own room making up your own stories, alone or with a friend, it's different than having a thousands-of-views YouTube video of OCs. MLP is such a nostalgia thing, fueled by whimsy and childhood innocence, adults RPing with their OCs isn't the same.

Again, nothing wrong... just Old Man Yells at Cloud

[TarkanDragon]

I have most of the comics, certainly 98% of the ones that would involve spike and the baby dragons, and all the annuals and stuff from the UK release, but I would need to go through all of them meticulously to see how they handled dragons in general, and whether there's any information on other species of dragon beyond the baby dragons in the paws and claws club (I thought of this too, but the story I remember most is the multiparter where they team up to rescue the kidnapped princess ponies).

I don't remember much about the animation version of the dragons since I wasn't that keen on Spike's Search and though I had the wouldbe dragonslayer as a kid, I wasn't interested in it as much as the other episodes. To go out on a limb, there's the story of Squire and the Dragon from MLP Tales (I think that's right?) that Patch tells at the sleepover (?). 

...But I think it's interesting all the same, thank you for raising it as a point of consideration I never really thought about WHY the baby dragons were with the princesses except I remember Smokey was the youngest and so was with Sapphire, the wisest princess, so she could look after him as much as he looked after her. So there must be some deeper reciprocal of of some kind between royal ponies and dragons (not that Majesty is ever exactly called Queen, I don't think, but still).

Great, I mean not sure if you would scan them so you could show them and then I could see for myself or anyone, I mean honestly that's there's more stuff that I haven't seen in the "Heckyeahponyscans" site... And there's some comics that haven't been scanned to be posted on the site... I mean if you could try to scan your comics that you've got and then at least PM me or make a new thread for those scans that you took. I mean honestly I'm kinda dying to know more about the Paws and Claws Club since it's a really great spin-off of the My Little Pony Franchise...

I understand that you weren't interested in Spike's Search episode and went with Wanna be a Dragonslayer episode. Although MLP Tales had no dragons except one episode... I mean MLP Tales left out dragonless. Not to mention there's an Unnamed G2 Dragon toy that is a mysterious to the community... Overall I think it's safe to say that sometimes when trying to apply dragons to the show is kind of the odds either happening big or small... There's not much to explain about it, but it kinda gives out of how Hasbro picks them up at one point. So yeah...

And you're welcome, even though I thought at first it wasn't a point but then it turned out to be a point of something. But anyways, you're welcome and take care.

[Zapper]

Not sure if My Little Pony is "My Little Pony" anymore. It's more like "Lauren Faust's Little Ponies" or whoever's writing whatever nowadays. Drop MLP from the title. "Friendship is Magic". "A New Generation". "Tell Your Tale", "Make Your Mark".

Spoiler

MLP G1-3 is YOUR Little Pony. Everyone had a unique experience with their childhood ponies. If you had friends or peers who were into MLP, you probably didn't have the same exact collections, even then, how did you obtain said ponies? How you got the ponies is part the experience. Even if you met someone else with the same pony as you, you probably had a different personality for her, a completely different character. Everyone had their own stories. Not everyone had access to the VHSes or were able to catch MLP on TV, and a lot of people probably didn't even know there was animated media out, or comics. MLP, believe it or not, is a toy, these ponies are dolls. They are no different from Barbie, really, where you make up your own characters and your own stories. Especially when talking about G1 when rereleases of a character were rare and most of the ponies were unique designs and characters, there was no way to fit them all into a piece of media, and a lot of them don't have deep pre-set personalities. You had to make everything up yourself. My experience with MLP is being like "yeah that's a neat idea", seeing it from a story or something, and reenacting something similar. Not 1:1, and that would only be a single story, not everything I did with my ponies was like that.

I see kids online now who grew up with G3, which cool, I was a G3 kid too basically, but it's obvious they grew up with only the DVDs, because they focus on only MLP from around 2007. The era where the main characters were Minty, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, and later, the Core 7. We're starting to move away from the "personalized" approach MLP had and going into the "prebuilt" era where everything has to be a certain way. G4 made this worse and worse, and G5 is continuing this "prebuilt"-ness.

Spoiler

Slightly off topic but related to the above, as an example: Most kids nowadays would think of G3 Pinkie as a leader-type, but not me. From the earliest stories and back cards, Pinkie was made out to be the "little sister" type, and I liked that, so I kept it with my own stories, and it's shaped my entire view of the character. I can not for the life of me ship Pinkie/Minty when I perceive Minty as an adult and Pinkie is... kid-ish. Star Catcher doesn't have much of a personality in the media, but I guess she's usually portrayed as a regal goddess in fanworks. Which she is, obviously, but MY Star Catcher was also very vain, snobby, and stories involving her would end up with her learning to have some humility. Those are the most stand-out examples I can think of, but all of MY ponies were different from the """canon""" ones.

Not saying it's bad or wrong, I mean, Care Bears and others have this approach with a single set of characters, but it's not MY Little Pony and it's not YOUR Little Pony. I guess you could say people making fanfics of random background ponies in FiM is more MLP-y than anything else, but I do think being on the internet sours things a bit? Like the closed-ness of having your own ponies in your own room making up your own stories, alone or with a friend, it's different than having a thousands-of-views YouTube video of OCs. MLP is such a nostalgia thing, fueled by whimsy and childhood innocence, adults RPing with their OCs isn't the same.

Again, nothing wrong... just Old Man Yells at Cloud

What's funny to me is how a certain fandom did all the character building of blank slate backgrounders in G4 FiM and then had fights about it if anybody else disagreed with the common fanon. And then they disagreed and fought some more when Hasbro approved certain fanons and discarded other interpretations. Muffin pony, Lyra Heartstrings, DJ pony and the entire finale of the show where ships came true were the worst offenders. The B-fandom almost killed eachother over fan characters forced into a show with pre-built characters.

To me it showed that there is a need to have "MY little pony" but it can't really happen in a cartoon show or comic or whatever because that's official material as opposed to a single child's imagination.

[MJNSEIFER]

Not sure if My Little Pony is "My Little Pony" anymore. It's more like "Lauren Faust's Little Ponies" or whoever's writing whatever nowadays. Drop MLP from the title. "Friendship is Magic". "A New Generation". "Tell Your Tale", "Make Your Mark".

MLP G1-3 is YOUR Little Pony. Everyone had a unique experience with their childhood ponies. If you had friends or peers who were into MLP, you probably didn't have the same exact collections, even then, how did you obtain said ponies? How you got the ponies is part the experience. Even if you met someone else with the same pony as you, you probably had a different personality for her, a completely different character.

I think that ultimately, the whole idea of this is still a thing, including with G4 onwards.  I can't speak for everyone, but the whole idea of creating your own stories for the Little Ponies is still something that people do, even with the “pre-built” characters, as while you can go by canon personalities of the ponies (and don't forget that most, if not all, generations have at least two “canons” anyway, so you can choose which one to follow... or just make your own.)  Having “pre-built” characters/lore does not stop this, in my opinion, it just gives you something to start off with, but even talking purely about fanfiction, you can go as far away from canon as you want (I am including canon personalities for ponies in general, but that's because we're basically paying homage to those versions, if not just taking the personality traits that we like of some of them... but with some ponies, we are ultimately creating stuff for.)

The same likely applies with children playing with the toys; I obviously don't know what every child is like, but I remember back around 2013 or so, I saw someone (I think she was the granddaughter of a friend of the family) playing with her Little Ponies, and at least some of them were G4s, and she was basically creating her own “storylines” for them, as you would when you play with toys.  I don't know if she watched the show (she knew Rainbow Dash's name, but she could have just read the packaging), but she didn't seem like she was specifically trying to keep the ponies “in character”, she was just playing with her toys and telling her own “story”.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is this the case for other kids, even if any of them do at least start off with the “pre-built” stuff.  The same applies to fanfiction as well, as you can take as much of the canon stuff as you want, or just not use it.  I do feel that fanfiction is the “adult” version (yes, I know kids write fanfictions too) of playing with our toys in this fandom and creating our own stories... at least, that's how I ultimately approach it.

What's funny to me is how a certain fandom did all the character building of blank slate backgrounders in G4 FiM and then had fights about it if anybody else disagreed with the common fanon. And then they disagreed and fought some more when Hasbro approved certain fanons and discarded other interpretations. Muffin pony, Lyra Heartstrings, DJ pony and the entire finale of the show where ships came true were the worst offenders. The B-fandom almost killed eachother over fan characters forced into a show with pre-built characters.

To me it showed that there is a need to have "MY little pony" but it can't really happen in a cartoon show or comic or whatever because that's official material as opposed to a single child's imagination.

Speaking as a brony, I know exactly what you mean... it was a weird thing where one of the best things about the fandom, in my opinion (the creativity) led to one of the worst things about it, in my opinion (what you yourself described.)  I remember speaking out about this as best as I could, saying that it's perfectly okay to have your own idea about these characters or even the show, and that nothing is "ruined" if the show does things differently.

I get that the whole "headcanon ruined" thing could be a joke, but if it is... it's hard to tell if every brony is joking, because I've seen how... entitled(?) to their fandoms (or the "official fandoms") they are, but the idea of it seriously was always silly to me, and it's a shame that some bronies reacted this way.  I don't mind there being established or famous headcanons for background ponies, but I also support the idea of doing what you want to do with them if your writing them and being allowed to do your own thing.

My friend and I are ultimately creating our own ideas of who these ponies are when we use them – there are some brony established traits/headcanons that I plan to use for some but that is due to the fact that I liked those traits myself/headcanons myself and having nostalgia for them, rather than feeling any obligation to obey any brony rules about headcanon and with other background ponies we are doing our own things completely.  This also applies to “foreground” ponies, such as the Mane Six, though not as much as we are at least starting with their canon personalities, but we are still adding things, and taking them in directions that we like.

The fact that certain things were essentially made canon in the cartoon shouldn't matter either, because the cartoon is still one version of the story and people can still do their own thing, but your point was probably that the cartoon shouldn't have had to make fanon ideas canon, so I get what you mean, at least.  Either way, it doesn't have to affect our own storytelling and/or playtime.  Even the ships being made canon doesn't matter as those of us who do ship are free to ship whoever we like... again, regarding my friend and I, we just write about the ships that we want to write about, including with our fanseries, which is set at least a decade after FiM - the canon ships are not relevant, unless we specifically like them, and we'll only include them if we do (or at least feel it fits in with or storyline, for ships we don't care about, but don't “mind” as it where.)

So yeah, there's definitely flaws with it all, and the journey towards doing so is different, but the idea of us all having our own idea of what My Little Pony is, is still a thing ultimately, I would say.  At least that's how I view it...

[Taffeta]

@TarkenDragon, it would be lovely if I had the time and equipment to do that, but I don't. Plus my comics are all in folders underneath pony hooves, and there are a lot of them. So it will have to remain a pipe dream.
It's also not that I chose Wouldbe Dragonslayer over Spike's Search, I don't like either. I just only had 4 eps of the TV show as a kid, and WBDS was one of those. I watched it very little; I didn't care for the story. I was always more of a comic kid anyway.

Which kind of brings me to Ragamuffin's post, which I basically agree with. I think it's a general trend though, toys now have to be associated with a theme or they have to 'do something' or be interactive. It means that the same kind of imagination that was being employed in kids in earlier generations, where the 'doing' had to be thought up by the kid, is not being used in the same way now. It's certainly true that we all have individual memories of our own ponies and games, plus whether we watched the tv show, read comics, etc. But even though I avidly read the G1 comics as a kid, I never played any single game which relied on those interpretations. Naynie and I played our own pony games, just as Ragamuffin said.

Honestly, while I think portraying healthy and diverse relationships in a kid's show is important, shipping is something that doesn't need to really happen. It's a blurred line really between friendship and romance, and kids need to be able to distinguish those things before they start blurring those lines. I hated, as a kid, when people asked me if my male friend was my boyfriend. Kids get forced into thinking about that way too early, because older people around them ask questions like that, or tease them about it. I just don't like it. So make a clear narrative about a relationship and stick to it but...don't make it vague. Not in a kid's show, anyway.

As for the bronies, I wasn't surprised about it at all. FIM isn't really a series that encourages diversity of thought in any case. It priveleges the ponies over other species, and it priveleges the pony sense of friendship over any other possible scenarios, as the most important thing. It pushes friendship at all costs but it also doesn't stop and take into consideration opposing views or possible different situations. Like if ponies dislike each other but can still respect each other and work together regardless, and so on.

All gens have their own 'world' in which these stories pan out, but I think it would probably be fair to say more G4 related stories would be written (fanfic) or played out in Equestria in some way. I would love to know whether that's also true of G1, G2 and G3, since 'Dream Valley' wasn't a thing for me as a kid, it's a very cartoon based concept and the comics used 'Ponyland' anyway.

In terms of fanon, fanon is fine, except when those fans start trying to make their fanon, canon. It happened with that Jem comic, it happens all the time in anime and manga fandoms, where people get so drunk on their own fanon they then aggressively try to force it on others. Bronies are obv guilty of that, but its harder to imagine that the kids, who the bronies basically ignored, would be subject to the same failing.

Probably kids do have their own pony worlds. But we're not going to see those on the internet as much as we see the entitled ones of the adult and almost-adult fans.