Unpopular Pony Opinions

[Snapdragon]

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.

Gosh, you folks both make really good points! I wonder if some of this is the trend we see of "playing with toys" as a key part of childhood that's going away, which is being replaced with more technological toys/playtime. I'm sure some kids (especially those who can't afford the latest electronic gizmos!) are still playing as kids a few decades ago did, but it may be harder with the onset of the cartoon+toy monopolies. G1 had a cartoon, sure, but not all of the toys featured in the cartoon; they were closer to blank slates. Whereas with G4, we were lucky to get the small handful of backgrounder toy ponies that we did! So there's less leeway for kids to engage in play, only recreating what they see on TV. Or - that's all media execs think they do, and so they plan toylines accordingly. Chicken vs egg conundrum!

I also think it would have been really cool if (like Zapper says!) the vocal folks online could have been a lot more chill about people inventing their own stories for the background ponies. Half the fun is coming up with the ideas of who these random characters might be! Not navigating 5 different websites to see what the "accepted fanon" is.

[TarkanDragon]

@Taffeta

I understand sometimes it just accepts the fact how fantasy can be sometimes cruel and sometimes enjoyable...

And I honestly choose where my heart depends on. Healthy or not but it also shows passion how things can be possible.


@Snapdragon

Yeah unfortunately it didn't have it's third season (wish there is.)
Also there's some characters that lacked to have their toy counterpart as well. Like for example: Weston the baby eagle
Honestly got his cartoon counterpart he hadn't had many lines. But he definitely deserve to get a toy version of himself... Although there's a few things that Toys didn't get it's cartoon counterpart like the Princess Dragons... Honestly the Princess Dragons only happened in the comics but not the show itself... (Wish they did) but if there are some curtain characters that haven't been made into toys that's where custom toy makers came about... And yes granted maybe they're probably underrated compare the rest. I mean I could've at least get a commission from a toy maker and it's hard to find one... And sometimes it gets the feel it's official but not by the same company.

So yeah... honestly some characters like Weston, The G1 princess dragons, etc. can be deserved to get it's own toy, show counterparts...

[Pokeyonekenobie]

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.

Gosh, you folks both make really good points! I wonder if some of this is the trend we see of "playing with toys" as a key part of childhood that's going away, which is being replaced with more technological toys/playtime. I'm sure some kids (especially those who can't afford the latest electronic gizmos!) are still playing as kids a few decades ago did, but it may be harder with the onset of the cartoon+toy monopolies. G1 had a cartoon, sure, but not all of the toys featured in the cartoon; they were closer to blank slates. Whereas with G4, we were lucky to get the small handful of backgrounder toy ponies that we did! So there's less leeway for kids to engage in play, only recreating what they see on TV. Or - that's all media execs think they do, and so they plan toylines accordingly. Chicken vs egg conundrum!

I also think it would have been really cool if (like Zapper says!) the vocal folks online could have been a lot more chill about people inventing their own stories for the background ponies. Half the fun is coming up with the ideas of who these random characters might be! Not navigating 5 different websites to see what the "accepted fanon" is.

To be fair, the arguments over "canon vs fanon" happen in other fandoms, too.  (spoiler because it's a little rambly)

Spoiler

I write fanfic for an anime series that, in the series, all of the characters seem to be straight.  However, in the Spanish language dub, apparently they used the word "novio" (boyfriend) instead of "amigo" (masculine form of friend) between two male characters so part of the fandom decided that those characters MUST be a couple, even though it was probably just a translation mistake because that isn't the way it's translated in the mangas, either.  (But then again, I don't speak or read Japanese so maybe that was the correct translation and they changed it for the English dub because it was translated in the 90s.  )  And because those two might be a couple, every other character in the series is now LGBTQ, regardless of the relationships set down by the creator.  And while some of the stories are fun/cute that way, some of them are just not, so I've learned to take each story as it's own creation and realize they are not meant to be canon.  But that's the whole point of fanfiction.  The frustration comes from people commenting that you don't understand the characters because they're not gay when the only evidence that they are is a language translation that you don't watch because you don't speak that language and it's not from the original language translation.

But I agree that taking the "make my own story" aspect out of toys nowadays is pretty sad.  Kids losing their imaginations because the media tells them how to play is going to make for a boring future. 

[MJNSEIFER]

I don't think kids will ever lose their imagination no matter what the media does - it's just not something you're ever going to lose, you just have it.  Even imagination inspired from TV shows is still imagination, because it all comes from somewhere - even a story someone randomly tells you could lead to what you imagine at some point.  If anything, I think imagination is getting more powerful (says the guy who mostly wants to create "reboots"...)

Either way, even if it starts from somewhere else, it is still your imagination because you're deciding where it goes, so even if a child is taking inspiration on how to play with characters based on a TV show, they're still ultimately using their imagination, as they decide what happens to them, and may only be using the TV show as a guideline anyway, and may even do their own thing at times, like use a toy of an established character as one of their own characters, possibly even in their own "storyline".

I agree it's nice to have toys that don't specifically "do" anything as well, but even they're probably going to be played with how the child wants at times too.  As long as the toy can be held in the child's hand and moved around, then it can still be whatever that child wants it to be, so to speak.

Hope I'm coming across okay with this.

[Leave a Whisper]

I disagree that kids no longer have an imagination because they're being told how to play with their toys by some imaginary boogeyman.

After all, many of us grew up with toys that had a story attached. Many of us grew up with plenty of TV and games and yet we still played with toys and read books and stuff.

The most ironic thing about that statement, is that its coming from a bunch of people who grew up in the generation where toon and comic based toys reigned supreme.

If some kid's Michaelangelo teaming up with Spider Man to investigate the killer animatronics at FNAF, still have their default personalities, so what?

If some kid pretends that  spazzed out Pinkie Pie and prissy Rarity  have to save Equestria from a monster
that ate Twilight Sparkle that's every bit a valid play style.

[Taffeta]

Yeah, the canon v fanon thing is a big deal in the anime and manga fandom and I am not sure if that has spilled out into other things or if other things influences all of them.

I have two rambles, first, Pokeyonekenobie, on the terminology...

Spoiler

So friend would be tomodachi, 'dachi, yuujin (possibly too formal for what you're talking about), and lover/boyfriend would be kareshi, koibito, etc.
But I wonder if the word might've been aite or aibou, which can mean partner in either a platonic friend sense (for example, a companion, or a teammate, or something like that) but also can mean a romantic partner. The problem is Japanese is quite a nuanced language which makes for variations in translation sometimes. I've seen some horrible translations as well though so that might be an issue too. It's hard to know how much the time frame impacted it. If you have a clip of a japanese dub version of a relevant scene I can tell you for sure, but since it's so old I'm guessing maybe not.

The slight translation nuance can have massive shockwaves, though. Like something I mentioned in one of the other threads in the Daiya fandom where a line "we can compete with each other" was translated as "you can still compete with me". There was also a verrry notorious mistranslate in the Bleach fandom which basically caused a civil war over the resolution of one of the arcs. Yeah. It's a messy business.

Secondly, going back to fanon vs canon.

Spoiler

In the Daiya no Ace fandom there is literally a pairing for pretty much every character. I'm not really bothered by any of them, some make a lot more sense than others given what happens in the series, and honestly, the pairing aspect of the fandom is not especially hostile. What's a bigger issue for me is when fans take an actual storyline and then reinvent parts of it (like, denying bits of it happened or adding things they would have liked to see happen) and then talk about it like it's fact. This is a bit like the bronies too, in that they have THEIR IDEA and that trumps over the actual manga and the real story. Those things are fine in fanfic, but it's not in fanfic. It's really disturbing.

On a slightly different note, I wouldn't want the princess attendant dragons to be in the cartoon. I've said it before, but the cartoon princesses are not the comic princesses, and so there's no relation between them and the dragon toys we had. They didn't appear in the show because they were part of a UK and European line,  and nothing to do with the US release that powered the cartoon. I mention it because it demonstrates yet another canon divide across countries and regions as well as in different languages that also influences how kids saw g1.

I do think kids still have imagination, but I don't think that it is being trained in the same way. There will always be kids who employ that imagination and play and dream and do all those things. But across the bigger picture...my experience of people in fandoms now vs fandoms 10 years ago is that there is a considerable lack of imagination employed in discussing them, sharing ideas, accepting other ideas and putting those ideas into creative mediums such as writing, art etc. There will always be people who can do this. But it's just not how it was in the past, because the means of being a fan has changed so much.

In saying this I'm not judging the quality of people's work, just repeating the comments of those people themselves who want to write/draw something but struggle to even begin, and if they do begin, they end up copying an existing concept or getting stuck at a couple of hundred words.

Bronies are probably a part of that fact, but in their case Hasbro helped feed their idea of fanon being canon by adopting some of the things they said. So that inflexibility of imagination vs some level of validation made the situation worse.

Growing up in a generation where toon and comic based toys reigned supreme has not a lot to do with this conversation, either. I mean, it's true that that's the case. But what was lacking was the internet linking it all together, thus creating a kind of cohesive idea of that canon between fans of the franchise. You could watch a cartoon, read a book, get two different versions and then go off and play with a third without knowing what x in y country was doing with the same material. I don't dislike the internet but it makes ideas of 'canon' not only possible but dominant in a way the past didn't. Cartoons then had 'bibles', but it was still different. Remembering the various conversations with Christy on the Jem list, even she didn't try and imply that her concepts of the Jem series were necessarily the only canon. She'd say that all the Jem episodes contributed, even those which didn't match her bible. And sometimes she'd take our comments on board and acknowledge the possibility of them, even if it wasn't the original intention. That was 'canon' in the eighties - a guide stringing the story together loosely. This is kind of different from the concept of 'canon' now.

At least, that's my pov.

[Leave a Whisper]

I never liked Baby Mochanut's face. It looks off for some reason compared to the other babies.

[Midnight Dream]

I don't like when ponies get overly humanized/modernized. That why I never liked Tales and it's one of the reasons why I haven't checked out g5 yet (ponies with smartphones ugh) With this I don't mean that they should be just regular animals either, but I always saw ponies more like fantasy beings with their own way of life not quadrupedal humans.

[TarkanDragon]

I don't like when ponies get overly humanized/modernized. That why I never liked Tales and it's one of the reasons why I haven't checked out g5 yet (ponies with smartphones ugh) With this I don't mean that they should be just regular animals either, but I always saw ponies more like fantasy beings with their own way of life not quadrupedal humans.

I agree with you about the humanized one... It doesn't fit well with the old aspect of MLP.

[BlackCurtains]

Not to argue or anything, just curious what you guys think.

What's the difference between a pony using a brush and a pony using a smartphone?

[Leave a Whisper]

Not to argue or anything, just curious what you guys think.

What's the difference between a pony using a brush and a pony using a smartphone?

One brushes and styles hair, the other let's you do a hairstyle tutorial on the internet. 



Post Merge: May 06, 2022, 04:21:01 PM

I don't like when ponies get overly humanized/modernized. That why I never liked Tales and it's one of the reasons why I haven't checked out g5 yet (ponies with smartphones ugh) With this I don't mean that they should be just regular animals either, but I always saw ponies more like fantasy beings with their own way of life not quadrupedal humans.

Tales isn't the first to have technology or to give them human stuff. There was the TV and telephone accessories in PE, the cars in an MLPnF episode, and several ponies had object and vehicle symbols. Ship, train, truck, ufo,kite, radio, microphone, headphones, vw bug, gloves, bathtub, bicycle.

And what is so fantasy like about a pony with a balloon or an ice cream cone?

[Taffeta]

I remember all the flap about Hip Holly having a cell phone as her accessory, back in what, 2000?

As a kid I loved MLP Tales - I was 10 at the time, and although I never saw the cartoon version, I read all the comic stories about them. Ironically not knowing they were also meant to be 10, but anyway. It never occurred to me to be bothered that their lives were kind of modern real life humanish. I saw the episodes as a teen and I like them. I always felt like MLP and Friends was like the history of MLP Tales world in a weird way.

Maybe this is unpopular but I think I'm also happier having ponies who go to parties and stuff than I am ponies who are wearing saddles and bridles.

I know the G1 stories from the US were a lot less magical than the ones in the UK (I mean books etc, not tv show), like the whole businessmen from new york wanting to steal rainbow hair, and Glory ending up in some other world that was more magical than her own. Even the tv series limited magic basically to unicorns, which I never understood and still don't. My point being that the US storyline for G1 MLP was a lot more real life connected than people sometimes realise, even early on.

There are also a bunch of other accessory sets like the slumber party which I think is 1987? The big brothers, also 1987? Both those also came out of the US creative cauldron originally, so I don't think Hasbro really intended MLP to be entirely fantasy even in the early days.

[Mami Tomoe]

Not to argue or anything, just curious what you guys think.

What's the difference between a pony using a brush and a pony using a smartphone?

one is cutesy kinda funny and more natural in comparison to technology I'm not mad if a pony uses a smart phone it's just not my preference

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

I don't really mind the smartphone thing. It doesn't really seem too weird to me considering G4 featured ponies using some technology as well, and with G5 taking place in the same world but far in the future, it just sort of makes sense to me that they would have higher tech than G4 did such as smartphones.

[Midnight Dream]

Not to argue or anything, just curious what you guys think.

What's the difference between a pony using a brush and a pony using a smartphone?

One is an item that has been used for centuries and not only for humans, but also for horses and other animals, it makes sense that a sapient pony would use a brush for personal care even in a fantasy or historical setting. Other is a modern technology item that puts story's technological level somewhere around 2010's + and leads to bunch of questions and implications about the world.

I'm not completely against any "human" elements in stories. I don't think MLP should be only about bridles and saddles. I don't mind ponies going to parties, eating ice cream, using bath etc. What I don't like is when it involves modern technology or modern, urban concepts like ponies working in corporations, factories, ponies living in modern looking cities - I think it just takes away the whole magic of the story.
I think that G4 really pushed the humanization of ponies and G5 is going even further with it.
I'm aware that some elements like this existed even in the early days of MLP,  but I never liked it, I always prefered the idea of ponies being fantasy beings living in a fantasy world.