link=topic=385476.msg1886920#msg1886920
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.

This is going back in the thread a bit, but I never noticed that change with G3 Pinkie Pie - aside from that one moment when she did math in "A Charmin Birthday" in a childish way ("If we add up one charm bracelet to the seven... to me, that adds up to eight." or something like that) - she never felt like the "little sister" character to me, she always seemed on the same level as the other "in general" ponies, and even took the lead in "A Charming Birthday" to some extent, so she always had leadership qualities to me, I guess...

No offense, just putting my two cents in there.

For the record I love G3 Pinkie Pie, but respect those who don't (she's super-adorable for me.  ^_^)

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.)

Thinking about it recently, I would say that my favorite pony color would be purple, which may or may not connect to it being my favorite color itself.  What I really seem to love, is the idea of ponies with a blue and purple color scheme (Side Note: In my project, I'm actually having to prevent myself from creating too many ponies with that design and remind myself there are other colors...)

Cliche as it may sound, I also love pink ponies - it's just such a fun color, in my opinion, especially on ponies.

As long as it looks like a good design (in my opinion) I'll probably like the colors - I also like the idea of (again, in creating ponies) using something about the pony the choose the colors, like maybe the pony's name can steer you in the right direction, or something about the pony's character or storyline?  It won't always work, but it's fun when it does...

Hope it was okay to reply here.

While G4 may be my favorite show (in general) and I have always been nostalgic and sentimental for it, my favorite will always be G3 - it's just so beautiful and heart-warming.  ^_^

I love all generations in their own way (including G4.5, which IMO should be on the poll.)

EDIT: Didn't see the title, so I inadvertently cheated - I can't just choose one, but G3 is my favorite of them all, but I just love the whole franchise... you can delete this reply if you want.

I'm tired of the pegasus all having short manes. Its super sucky.

Is that the direction that G5 is heading?  I hadn't noticed it, but yeah, it would be good to spice things up with more variety.

It's not the same, but I'll try and remember that when it comes to designing ponies.

(Side Note: I'm not sure when I'm going to be watching the G5 shows, so I'm going to at least try to avoid looking at stuff directly about them for now - that's for everyone, of course.)

I think I've mentioned this before, as one of my unpopular opinions, but I don't mind the cell phone thing personally.  It's not what I'd have done myself, but I think so far they've made it part of the show so naturally, that I don't really notice it, it's like it's always been there, for me.

I mean, I still found Tales to be a fantasy world with all its technology for the time, and G5 feels very fantasy to me, as it reminds me of Final Fantasy in places (Bridlewood and Zephyr Heights remind me of FFX) and because of my influence from the FF series, I've never really found use of technology to be counteractive towards the idea of a fantasy world, to be honest.

Also add to the fact that they're not really in you face about the phones, they're just there, so it doesn't feel like they're trying to modernize the show, in my opinion.  Pony Life kind of brings it to the foreground in some episodes, but that show is more light-hearted and fun, so it even feel natural there in its own way for me.

Another thing that helps for me is... well, I don't actually view cell phones as "modern" these days - they've been around long enough, that they are just part of the world for me now, it's no different to including a TV or a radio on as show in my opinion.  They just blend into the scenery for me, most of the time.

I respect those who don't like them in MLP and I will admit, I wouldn't include them myself, but... it doesn't bother me that they're involved as it just seems natural to me.

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...