Unpopular Pony Opinions

[Leave a Whisper]

It kind of makes me wonder, if Tales had gone on for roughly 3-8 years and they'd started the Core 7 model off with that instead of G3, who would have been the toys people got tired of seeing on shelves? 

[Taffeta]

perhaps i mis-phrased that - i meant less that 'mlparena folks dislike bronies because they like a show for girls while i think that is cool', more-so i meant 'a lot of mlparena folks seem to find the bad side of bronies overshadows the good, while for me it is the inverse.' thank you all for your responses, though. i enjoyed reading them 

I'm sure the G4 community had some great stuff, but it was built on the back of hate and derision aimed at existing pony collectors. That's obviously going to inform our feelings going forward.

I feel like if more non-toxic fans had done more to call out the behaviour and try and stop it, we'd probably have a better overall impression of the G4 fandom.

Pinkie Pie sucks. :/ But I'm sure that opinion isn't unpopular. I didn't like her in G3 either. :/

I genuinely think that's what hasbro were going for with Tales. I suspect Melody or Starlight, because a: pink and b: we already saw mutations of both of those in the same year's line (Rollerskate and Hairdo). I know there was nurse Sweetheart, but she didn't come till the year after, so yeah, I think Melody and Starlight would have been it.

[Ragamuffin]

I think Starlight and Melody, too, are easy to mix up. They're the same shade of pink and they're also quite similar in themeing... at least I think so. Melody wants to be a musician, a... star, perhaps?

I didn't like Pinkie Pie as a child when I was the target demographic for G3. I liked her at the start because she was the "little sister" but as time went on and she became the "leader" I didn't like it. It didn't help that she has the same voice as Sarah from Ed, Edd n Eddy, making her even more obnoxious and bratty to me.

I don't like the more pastel look they ended up giving her down the line too. I like the dark pink body, light pink hair. Eventually they made her entirely the same colour. Not dissimilar to how they lightened up/brightened Rainbow Dash... she went from a cloudy, grey-ish blue colour to teal, to a sky blue. The pearly bodies really make them special too compared to the lighter/brighter matte bodies... I love the (relative) jewel-y, dusky look of early G3. I wish MLP did more jewel tones. Kimono is gorgeous and the prototype Star Catcher they have in the pamphlet is to die for. It's an elegant look for MLP and it's too bad people want baby pink all the time. I had my pastel phase and it burned out too quickly. I've gone back to my childhood roots of loving warm colours and jewel tones. My very first favourite colour was red!

[Queen Sophie]

Unpopular opinion on g3 (and technically g4) Pinkie Pie, I’m personally indifferent on her
Unpopular opinion bronies would disagree with, I find the art and art style gorgeous and I think girly things is good!

[Shadowperla]

Brony issue was that is the Anime crowd. g4 just looked close to their favourite slop, so same problems arose. Can not clean anime fan spaces.

[Leave a Whisper]

I think Starlight and Melody, too, are easy to mix up. They're the same shade of pink and they're also quite similar in themeing... at least I think so. Melody wants to be a musician, a... star, perhaps?

I didn't like Pinkie Pie as a child when I was the target demographic for G3. I liked her at the start because she was the "little sister" but as time went on and she became the "leader" I didn't like it. It didn't help that she has the same voice as Sarah from Ed, Edd n Eddy, making her even more obnoxious and bratty to me.

I don't like the more pastel look they ended up giving her down the line too. I like the dark pink body, light pink hair. Eventually they made her entirely the same colour. Not dissimilar to how they lightened up/brightened Rainbow Dash... she went from a cloudy, grey-ish blue colour to teal, to a sky blue. The pearly bodies really make them special too compared to the lighter/brighter matte bodies... I love the (relative) jewel-y, dusky look of early G3. I wish MLP did more jewel tones. Kimono is gorgeous and the prototype Star Catcher they have in the pamphlet is to die for. It's an elegant look for MLP and it's too bad people want baby pink all the time. I had my pastel phase and it burned out too quickly. I've gone back to my childhood roots of loving warm colours and jewel tones. My very first favourite colour was red!

I'm in love with that Star Catcher.


I think Sweetheart would be constantly on the shelves. Hasbro sure loves white ponies with pink hair. *Cough* Sundance, Truly, Strawberry Swirl, Baby Sea Poppy, G1 birth flowers. *Cough* As well as Melody and Starlight.

Out of curiosity to UK and Europe pony peeps, which of the Tales/7 Character toys were harder to find in your areas?

[Taffeta]

I think Starlight and Melody, too, are easy to mix up. They're the same shade of pink and they're also quite similar in themeing... at least I think so. Melody wants to be a musician, a... star, perhaps?

They're completely different shades of pink, though. Melody is dark pink, like the flower fantasy pony in the same pose. In a lot of ways her colour scheme is very similar to that - with the blue hair as well. Starlight is a *much* lighter pink, with yellow hair. They're nothing alike, even in the animation. Melody wanted to be a rock star, but Starlight was the one who often held stuff together, even though she had a crush on the guy who liked Melody. Iirc that's how it played out. They're totally different in every respect except they used the same pose. Firefly and Sprinkles are more similar than Melody and Starlight.

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On anime fans - as this site will testify, there are a lot of anime fans around who aren't compelled to turn everything into porn. The problem is in the person, not the interest.

With the 7 characters, are we talking which showed up more second hand? Bon Bon and Starlight, iirc. Melody too to a degree. Patch was the hardest to find, then Clover and Bright Eyes. My sister and I had all of them from new though. I bought Bright Eyes on holiday in Wales in 1992, I still remember it vividly because there was a Starlight there in Spanish language packing which fascinated me, and for a moment I hesitated. But I bought my favourite in the end. The others came from a clearance store at the end of the line. We pretty much split the set between us.

The 1994 ponies, including the nurses, never showed up in this area, but it wasn't hard to find Hairdo Starlight or Rollerskates Melody. I know my Melody came from a shop in Aberystwyth when Mum, Dad and Elena were on a trip there (she got Great Hair Ringlets at the same time), but that was also after the line ended and before we were online. Hairdo Starlight I picked up at a carboot sale I think. Nurse Sweetheart I had to get online.

[MJNSEIFER]

I'm sure the G4 community had some great stuff, but it was built on the back of hate and derision aimed at existing pony collectors. That's obviously going to inform our feelings going forward.

I feel like if more non-toxic fans had done more to call out the behaviour and try and stop it, we'd probably have a better overall impression of the G4 fandom.

It definitely did, and still does - if there's one positive thing to say about bronies, they are definitely creative to this day.  I'd love to provide some of my own creative projects once I'm able to, and do some similar stuff for the previous generations too - I always felt they deserved the same (positive) treatment.

Also, this is likely in part at least my ego talking, but I wish I had been a "famous" brony earlier in the fandom, because I would have been more vocal about the negative side of the fandom, or at least done more to draw attention to the positive side - I would have at the very least been more open on the fact that "This is a show for girls, but we like it because girl's shows are awesome" (as opposed to "It's awesome, so it can't be made for girls") and promoted more positivity to the previous generations (I often responded to hateful comments on YouTube and the like, but that's all I could really do.)

I am not a famous brony even now, but I am still going to go in the above direction (e.g. I do reviews on YouTube now, so all episodes, of all generations will be judged purely on my opinion, rather than the typical "It's not G4 so it sucks" mentality), but I would have liked to have done this sooner, when the fandom was blooming.  The past-gen hate does seem to be dying down (or I'm just looking in more positive places), but it should have been sorted out sooner.

Unpopular opinion bronies would disagree with, I find the  art and art style gorgeous and I think girly things is good!

If this is about G3, I can honestly say as a brony that I 100% agree with you.  I actually call G3 "The Beautiful Generation" because pretty much everything (if not everything) about it looks and sounds so artistically pleasing.  The femininity of it all really adds to the beauty, and I just love it - I love girly things too.  ^_^

Brony issue was that is the Anime crowd. g4 just looked close to their favourite slop, so same problems arose. Can not clean anime fan spaces.

This seems to be an unpopular opinion in itself, but I never saw any similarity between G4/FiM style and anime style - they are completely different styles, that look nothing alike, in my eyes.  I'm sure I even saw Lauren say she wasn't going for an anime look, and I agree with her.


For my own unpopular opinion... have I mentioned that I don't mind the technology in G5 yet?  It's hard to keep up with what I have and haven't said in this thread (if I haven't I'll elaborate further.)

[Carrehz]

Yeah I wouldn't compare bronies to anime fans. There's creeps in every fandom, and it's true that anime fandom probably has more than its fair share of "those" types, but I don't think the bad eggs in anime fandom, have ever become the "face" of the fandom like what happened with bronies. If that makes sense.

Honestly, if anything, I blame social media for all the negative stuff. There's always been craziness in larger fandoms, you've always had fandom drama, but it used to be easier to avoid it. Nowadays everything's kind of lumped in together and it seems to cause more troubles than not. IIRC the social media boom more-or-less coincided with the brony boom...

I wouldn't call disliking either version of Pinkie an unpopular decision, especially 'round these parts Is it unpopular to say I LIKE her.... but still get sick of her? She's a bit of an army pony for me, but I'd still prefer more character variety...

[BlackCurtains]

Pinkie was my favorite in the G4 show. But then I only watched seasons one and two. I thought she was funny but can see how she’d be annoying too.

[Leave a Whisper]

Thanks for the perspective on the Tales/Characters ponies when they were being sold Taf.

[starscout]

I swear, if I see many more Sunny Starscouts, I'm going to rename this generation the mane 1.

I'm getting really sick of Sunny, too.

I'm already tired of Sunny as well.

Hehe, oops 

As for the brony thing, I have a weird love-hate relationship with it. I was extremely active on Tumblr and deviantArt at the time, which, besides that other site I am not allowed to name here, was where probably bronies were most active. Although I had "outgrown" ponies at the time (temporarily, anyways), MLP was such a massive part of my life when I was younger, and I am glad that the brony community not only got me back into ponies, but also made me feel less ashamed and embarrassed for enjoying them. I just wish that sentiment extended towards the previous gens. Many of them were a bit more lenient with G1, but man, they sure tore into G3. That really sucked for me because G3 was the generation I loved the most as a kid (I did grow up with G1's shows and specials, but I was always much more into G3's characters). That also ties into another issue I had with bronies - the rampant misogyny. Plenty of them were fine, but there were also plenty who felt so insecure with their masculinity that they felt the need to bring up sexist talking points or rant about female pony fans any chance they got. And yeah, as Taffeta mentioned, the porn was a massive issue. Personally, I don't have a problem with that sort of thing as long as it is properly filtered and tagged so that the only people who see it are people who consented to viewing it. And sure, other fandoms have this issue, but honestly, in my experience, bronies were the worst about it. I have a sorta funny story about this, actually. Back in like 2012, I followed a bunch of brony artists on Tumblr. Tumblr already had a really bad filtering system for 18+ content, and that combined with the fact that some of the bronies I followed not only posted their NSFW art on the same blog as their SFW content, but also apparently didn't know how to properly tag it. Anyways, my mom was using my laptop, and I guess I happened to have had Tumblr opened. My poor mother was exposed to extremely graphic porn of pink cartoon horses. Worst part is, for whatever reason, she assumed I made it!! It's hilarious in hindsight, but at the time, it was awful. There were also other cases of bronies just objectively taking their weird fantasies way too far and projecting them onto the actual voice actors (yes, including the child ones). 
 I would also like to say, while all this is terrible, bronies were not all bad. I think I have more good memories with the fandom than bad. There were a lot of undeniably talented bronies who mad gorgeous art, catchy music, and funny videos. I still enjoy going back to look at, listen to, and watch these. The incredible work made by these people really helped motivate me to become a better artist myself. In fact, some friends and I were recently looking through my old sketchbooks from around that time and almost every single page contained ponies. Many of the pics were even inspired by other fanworks. And while, as a collector, I no longer care too much for G4, I still have fond memories of being, err, brony-adjacent I guess?

Anyways, my unpopular pony opinion is that I wish more ponies came with actual horse accessories like bridles and saddles... maybe even a crop?

[Carrehz]

Oh yes, I did like the huge burst of creativity the bronies brought to the table! Even if it wasn't necessarily my thing, it was fantastic to see all the fanworks being created. I love the "Eurobeat Brony" remixes - an old friend of mine got me hooked on them.

And yeah, as Taffeta mentioned, the porn was a massive issue. Personally, I don't have a problem with that sort of thing as long as it is properly filtered and tagged so that the only people who see it are people who consented to viewing it. And sure, other fandoms have this issue, but honestly, in my experience, bronies were the worst about it.

My thoughts exactly. To be fair, Tumblr had a BIG hand in the untagged porn problem - I've gotten an eyeful on that site more times than I'd care to admit, and this is just by casually browsing like I would on any other site! Was never a problem on sites like deviantART which had mature filters in place all along. But yeah, bronies were really bad about this - I was honestly afraid to google anything MLP-related at one point, it got so bad. I seem to recall some salacious items turning up on eBay and clogging up search results at one point, too? Things definitely seem to have improved on that front, and I think I recall some of the fandom going out of their way to try and clean up search results even, so A+ to them for that. But for a while there, it was WAY too easy to accidentally stumble across something you didn't want to see

I'm neutral to "horsey" accessories for MLPs. The only things I'm against are the ones that can stain the ponies. :B

[Taffeta]

The sad thing about the G4 effect is that at the start of the gen, the older gen community were very excited about it. There was a lot of hype among existing collectors, and I remember them screening the first eps at that ponycon or some such. I had a lot of long term fans telling me how amazing it was and how it reached back to the original MLP, with AJ and everything else.

None of us even imagined what it would become. Even when guys started getting on board and it started getting really popular, it wasn't really an issue then.

The bashing of G3 is also anathema to me. Those of us with long memories remember that the community was very divided over G2. When G3 came out, it properly reunited and healed the rifts in the community that still remained. There's a reason G1, G2 and G3 fans can coexist peacefully. G3 is basically it.

We were genuinely just living our lives peacefully as ponypeople when G4 came out. All we really want is to go back to that peace, with G4 integrated into the wider generational map of pony. Maybe we'll one day be there - but I think it's too soon. I also think G4 fans would do better to ditch the 'brony' tag. It's become the epicentre of the toxic, and will always be associated with the bad stuff.

As for the porn, it was the deliberate attempt to push it into inappropriate spaces, like in kids videos on YT, or on forums where there were young members, or whatever, that bugged me. It wasn't just a fandom doing fandom stuff. It was actively targeted out into the wider world. I had to mop a bunch of it off a forum once, when I was a mod. It wasn't great.

I also don't think G4 is like anime. But I'm also over people stereotyping anime fans. Having been involved with anime for a long time now, I've met very few 'anime fans' who fit that stereotype (they mostly live on Reddit :/). I have met a few in their seventies, though. Older women who sit down with a cup of tea to watch their favourite series on CR...

[Leave a Whisper]

I hope they make Misty, but I hope they don't give her pre -crimped hair. It'll get tangled in the toy box really fast. Let kids and collectors crimp it if they like.