How much My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan content is there out there? LET'S FIND OUT. A few highlights:
What I Learned Today, morals to episodes
Twilight adjusts to a Season 3 plot development
Apogee, random, catchy
Celestia and Luna play Resident Evil 4 (repurposed from Two Best Friends)
The best of Sweetie Bot, from Friendship is Witchcraft
Slice of Life, a very well done fan Tumblr
How much more could there be? Well....
Have you heard about this thing called "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?" Do you adore the show intensely and watch it with your collection of plush and plastic dolls? Or, do you run screaming from the room whenever it is mentioned? Either way, you're probably aware of the gigantic, improbable community of fans built up around the show, called bronies. Whether reading about them makes you scratch your head, squee with joy, or curse the darkness, it is true that they have produced a lot of fan content. We tend to fear that which we don't understand, and somehow there's a lot of lack-of-understanding between bronies and others, and so to remedy this I present THIS: A Jumbo-Sized Observer's Guide To Pony.
Instructions for use:
- The world of bronydom is very large; instead of exhaustively following every link, consider using this post like (as jessamyn suggested of a previous post) a map, a map of bronydom.
- Absorb in small doses. Overexposure to pony can cause abreactions such as fan obsession, frosted baked goods and death metal.
- Browsing videos here will be much easier if you use the in-line YouTube/Vimeo player (click on the little "play" icon after link) to watch videos from this post. (Turn on in your MeFi profile if not visible.)
- While there is no "clop" in this post, review material before showing children due to occasional profanity and shipping.
A warning: Whatever you think of bronies, I should warn you that we're going to be swimming in the deep end of the Geek Pool here. You don't write fiction about characters on a show, any show, or for that matter write a 25-page post about them, without testing positive for nerd. If the thought of all this makes you scratch your head, you probably should just move on to another post. Remember, it's okay to not like My Little Pony.
The intent here isn't to present a comprehensive overview of the whole fan community, but more to give an impression of its scale, and the best content. There are both the good and bad elements of the fanworks of bronydom. At their best, they're witty, catchy, clever and self-aware. At their worst, they're glurgy, self-indulgent, full of empty sentiment, and embarrassing. They can be all over the map regarding professionalism. The purpose of this thread is to present good brony fanworks, the best face of the subculture. Not all of them, but a good number, and the ones, with my help, to be the most comprehensible to outsiders.
Notes applying to the following:
1. Absolutely no "clop," or sexually-explicit works. I know they exist, but I'm not interested in giving it an audience. It's actually much easier to ignore than you may have heard; the month I've worked on this, I've not encountered any of it. The most prominent non-board pony sites tend not to feature it. My goal is to make everything in this post acceptable for kids unless otherwise marked, although it is possible that the occasional use of a swear word sneaks through.
2. Longer video works (over seven minutes or so) will typically list running times. Please heed those times, some video works are over an hour.
3. There are lot of good things here, but there exists much more. Any compilation is bound to be biased towards the tastes of the compiler. I do apologize for missing those things that escaped my eye, or that I ran out of energy before including. You can take any one of the YouTube videos in this post and use its Related Videos sidebar as a diving board to the Great Ocean of Pony. Remember to bring a life preserver. There's also the Sources listed at the end of the post.
4. One of the things I find most interesting about Pony is how it's right at the forefront of the copyfight, where a huge and dedicated fanbase is put directly at odds with the rights holder over transformative uses of its property. Hasbro and the bronies have a weird relationship, mostly amicable. But two very popular remix series, Friendship Is Witchcraft and Mentally Advanced, have recently been taken off of YouTube due to the sharper edges of Hasbro's IP policy. (The creator of Mentally Advanced, FiMFlamFilosophy, made a video to educate bronies and the public at large of where copyright law currently stands in this area. See Mentally Advanced's entry, below, for more.) The fanbase has been more directly affected by copyright laws than most, and considering the size, breadth and fervor of bronydom, it is a place where public attitudes towards copyright are directly being shaped. It is an important demographic to watch regarding changing attitudes towards copyright.
Of aid in understanding the content in this monster of a post, I present my personal three rules of bronydom.
Rule #1: Bronies know how weird being fans of My Little Pony is, and they revel in it.
Rule #2: There is nothing a serious brony enjoys more than a bit of inspired randomness. -- Example.
Rule #3: The best brony fanworks are often more interesting than the show itself.
-- while the show is pretty good, bronies will figure out the weird implications of, say, making Twilight an alicorn princess within five minutes of the end of a show, and probably have a comic made poking playful fun of it up within a day, and that may be hilarious. One still generally must watch the show to understand the work though... unless one has a helpful guide to help them with references. Like this one.
Here we go!
*** PROMINENT MEMES ***
*** Side characters/Background ponies
A "background pony" is a generic character design used to fill out street and crowd scenes. In the early days of the show the creators made a number of these and reused them indiscriminately. This is why in Season One you can sometimes see large crowds that contain multiple copies of the same character. Fans latched onto these characters and invented names and personalities for them. Now, nearly every background pony from the first two seasons has such a fan-canon background, and a few have popularity to rival main characters. In some cases, the sheer force of their enthusiasm has forced even Hasbro to accommodate it: the cyan unicorn with a lyre symbol known to fans as Lyra was, once toys started being made of her, called Heartstrings on packaging for a short while, but then changed to Lyra Heartstrings, as if they were her first and last name.
In some cases the use of fan names has had certain problems, such as with....
Derpy Hooves, aka Ditzy Doo
In case you're not up on the origins of this infamous character.... At the start of the fandom a bunch of guys from 4chan watched the first episode and noticed, in a crowd scene, one particular gray pegasus with askew eyes, that seemed to give her a crazy expression. They immediately adopted the character, naming her, in the two-word style similar to that of other pony characters, "Derpy Hooves." Production house Studio B claimed her appearance was an animation error, but the fans claimed her with such ferocity that they started putting her into episodes as an in-joke and shout-out.
Derpy's roots go back to the origins of the current show's fandom, and she is deeply beloved. So fans were delighted when Derpy was, briefly, promoted from being a cameo in-joke to a speaking character, even named Derpy by Rainbow Dash, in a notable sequence at the start of the second season episode "The Last Roundup." But then Hasbro got complaints that the name Derpy might be seen as ridiculing of the mentally disabled, and so after the initial broadcast later showings were edited to change the character's somewhat-dopey voice and remove usage of the name. This might actually have been the best call -- truth be told, the word derpy is not typically used as a compliment, and anyway the voice actress who did the original voice originally thought the character was male. At the time, the community took the change as a slap in the face, but that fervor seems to have passed, in favor of complaining about things like Twilight getting wings. Derpy still shows up once in awhile, although less often now, and never by name. Even semi-official products that refer to her make it a point not to mention her name.
Some other aspects of the fan image of the character: she's a mailmare, clumsy, loves muffins to a degree approaching mania, and sometimes she's depicted as being a single mother (her foal, Dinky, is like a smaller version of her mother, but a unicorn, with a slight purple tint, and no crossed eyes). Sometimes she's paired up with Doctor Whooves (below), both because of the name and due to their positions at the forefront of fan characterization.
As the keystone of brony fixation, the character finds its way into many fan works.
* Know Your Meme page on Derpy Hooves: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/derpy-hooves
* Derpy says "Muffin," early on, her sole spoken word until The Last Roundup, and central to the fan's concept of the character. The first third of this video by Mr. Poniator demonstrates the strength of her mania.
* Epic Rage Time: The Incredible Derp. More muffin shenanigans.
* "Did you know that carrots are good for your eyesight?" (Very short)
Doctor Hooves
Another background pony, this one a mostly plain-looking brown stallion with shaggy dark hair and an hourglass symbol on its flank. Some fans took it into their heads that it looked like David Tennant, and christened the character "Doctor Whooves." How intentional the resemblance was at first is not precisely known, but around episode 9, at a party, several other ponies were seen with hourglass marks, and fans quickly drew lines between them and other past Doctors, going back to Jon Pertwee. Cutie marks are generally not duplicated casually among background ponies with different designs, making it a bit more substantiated that this was a legitimate reference. The Know Your Meme page on Doctor Whooves has examples. There is one other common background pony with an hourglass symbol, who is variously named either Romana (after the 4th Doctor's female Time Lord companion) or Colgate (because her striped mane looks like toothpaste).
Hasbro's own attitude towards the character remain obscure, but semi-official, licensed works like the comic book series, We Love Fine t-shirts and collectable cardgame all use the character and name "Doctor Whooves," or sometimes "Doctor Hooves," without apology. For the part of Doctor Who's owner, Doctor Whooves been recognized favorably in promotional materials put out by the BBC, which has got to count for something. You can get T-shirts from WeLoveFine with "Doctor Hooves" standing by a TARDIS. It's also known that Studio B/DHX uses the character's fan name internally.
For the two fan series based on the character, see below under Video.
Octavia (aka Octavia Melody) & Vinyl Scratch (DJ P0N3)
Both characters got brief cameos in Season One, and have turned up rarely since. Octavia is a cello player who showed up at the Grand Galloping Gala at the end of the first season, and Vinyl Scratch first spun tracks at one of Rarity's fashion shows. An absence of official content leaves room for the fans to speculate on the characters. Fans decided that Octavia was a classically-trained musician and Vinyl Scratch a party animal addicted to thumping music and loud WUBs. Both being musicians, and opposites, they are often paired, usually presented as roommates, and sometimes shipped.
* Epic Wub Time (5m) interviews the two and reveals a contentious relationship.
* Another short cartoon with the two, Sunrise Surprise.
* A bit out of character for her, Octavia fights changelings hand-to-hand in Once Upon A Time In Canterlot.
* Vinyl and an OC character try to stage a fake rivalry.
Lyra & Bon Bon
(Not covered: Seapony Lyra)
Both characters are used as background ponies throughout the show's run so far, and are often presented together because of their complimentary color schemes. Lyra is a unicorn with a bright cyan coat, and Bon Bon is a cream-colored earth pony with a two-toned mane. Lyra was used by an animator in Season One to occasionally do silly things in the background, like bouncing on clouds or sitting oddly on a bench, that endeared her to a lot of fans. Bon Bon occasionally has a speaking role -- but, confoundingly, with a different voice each time.
Lyra is my personal favorite pony. Although other characters may be more popular, I think none have been fleshed out as interestingly, and humorously, as her with her bizarre human fixation, and most fans give her an appealing bright and manic personality on top of that. Bon-Bon works well as a straightpony for her to bounce off of, in the time-honored manner of Ernie and Bert.
Submeme: Lyra is fascinated by humans
* Lyra - The Big Secret
* Another video titled Lyra's Secret
* Lyra Finds A Blob On The Floor
* Human Studies with Lyra, a collection of image macros
* "Humans are known for their ability to quickly grow giant mushrooms in times of famine."
* Know Your Meme page on Sitting Lyra
Submeme: Lyra is crazy, Bon Bon is her long-suffering roommate
* Lyra, Bon-Bon and Gangnam Style
* Dubs of a few Lyra and Bon Bon fan comics
Submeme: Bon Bon in the spotlight
Bon Bon usually is played as pretty centered compared to her crazy counterpart, but there are exceptions. One of them relates to the fact that, unique among background ponies, Bon Bon is sometimes voiced, but has had a different voice every time she has opened her mouth!
* Fan explanation for her changing voice #1: Special candy.
* Explanation #2: There's multiple Bon Bons.
* I'm sorry for this, but... here's Bonpun, a Tumblr of groan-worthy puns on her name. A highlight: Old Bon Bonbadil.
(The Great And Powerful) Trixie (aka Trixie Lulamoon)
Trixie isn't really a background pony so much as a recurring antagonist, but she's been in two episodes to date. Despite this she's very popular with fans, not only for being an effective rival to main heroine Twilight but also pulling it off with terrific style. BTW: she doesn't trust wheels. Although she pretty much always ends up being insufferable, fans interpret the character with differing degrees of sympathy.
* #1: Trixie can't catch a break. Here, she's pretty much behind the 8-ball of life, forever in Twilight's shadow, who gets all the blessings and attention from Celestia while Trixie is forced to work as a performer, going from town to town to make ends meet.
Twilight can be vindictive with those time spells
* #2: Twilight's girlfriend. Perhaps related to the rival thing, it's equally popular to ship her and Twilight together, a pairing usually referred to as "Twixie."
Power Mare Zero uses Twixie as an incidental element.
* #3: Trixie's a jerk. Well, she's usually a jerk in all those other interpretations too, but here the character is used specially for that reason, which contrasts nicely with the general friendliness of the Mane 6, and is sometimes endearing because of it.
PixelKitties' "Great And Powerful Trixie, Consulting Unicorn"
More Consulting Unicorn, with Twixie mixed in
Consulting Unicorn: Trixie and Pinkie
The flower ponies: Daisy, Lily (Lily Valley) and Rose (Roseluck).
Unlike the other background ponies these seem to have been characters before the fan interpretation of them, but only in a broad, on-stage extras kind of sense. Daisy and Rose have been named on-screen. The three sometimes appear together and seem mostly interchangeable, and are noted for being scared easily. That's typical behavior for real horses, of course, and residents of Ponyville in general, but these three seem especially easy to frighten. Lily is particularly remembered for saying "The horror, the horror!" after 1. a stampede of cattle, and 2. a stampede of rabbits.
* Lily is easily spooked.
Other popular background ponies not covered here: Carrot Top/Golden Harvest (sometimes Derpy's roommate), Berry Punch (alcoholic), Bulk Biceps/Snowflake (roided-out white pegasus with tiny wings). Here's a more complete list of characters.
*** Character remixes
Taking primary characters established on the show and reinterpreting them. Not covered here, among others: Flutterbat (vampire Fluttershy, fairly new), Woona (cutsy Luna, see Moonstuck, later), Gamer Luna (see Two Best Sisters, below), Metal Gear/Big Boss Twilight
Pinkamina
One popular episode, "Party Of One," showed a despondent Pinkie Pie who thought her friends had turned against her. It revealed that, when disheartened, Pinkie's curly hair deflates, and hangs limp and straight from her head and tail. This, combined with her borderline insane behavior at the time (talking to inanimate objects), contributed to the fan character Pinkamina (after Pinkie's full name, "Pinkamina Diane Pie," used by her mother once), who is at best depressed and at worst a murderer. The way to tell this character apart from standard Pinkie, besides frequently being a psychopath, is straight hair. Straight hair on Pinkie always signifies Pinkamina.
The character got fully underway in the classic (and best left unread) story "Cupcakes," where she graphically cuts Rainbow Dash into pieces and makes her into baked goods. Pointedly not linked. Here's Know Your Meme page on "Cupcakes" (NSFW). Further below we have a (much less graphic) video interpretation of Cupcakes.
* Here's Viva IMMATOONLINK Reverie's delightfully evil treatment of the idea, thankfully without gore, set to Scissor Sisters' "I Can't Decide."
* Smile first appears to be merely an animation of a remix of "The Smile Song," but it rapidly takes a much more violent tone. (NSFW violence, gore.) I don't actually think you should watch this, but we're all grown-ups, right? Note, technically this version isn't Pinkamina (Doesn't act sad! No straight hair!), but just Pinkie killing ponies. You can find all kinds of brony fanworks, just as there are all kinds of bronies....
Trollestia
Once in a while on the show one can catch signs of a hidden, mischievous personality for ruler of the land Princess Celestia. It's not gone unnoticed that many of the problems Twilight and her friends face have their origins in some request made by Twilight's mentor, which might even be intentional and canon. Additionally, there's the whole sending her sister to the moon a thousand years ago thing. Take this to an extreme and you end up with Trollestia, where the ruler of Equestria basically tries to make life as difficult for those around her as she can.
* Here is an early Trollestia video, "Friendship is Magic Bitch." (NSFW language) "To the moon" is a submeme that suggests Celestia's solution to handling problems or ponies that offend her is just to send them directly to the lunar surface to chill for a thousand years. Video reacction.
* Trollestia messes with Luna playing Mario 3.
* Know Your Meme page on Trollestia/Molestia
* The flipside to Trollestia material is "Luna on the moon," which fills in the blanks about what she did for a thousand years on the lunar surface. These can vary from silly and cutesy (such as in Moonstuck), to kind of heartbreaking.
Another Celestia meme is Molestia, which suggests less than honorable motives for the ruler of Equestria's tutoring of impressionable young ponies, along the lines of the infamous Pedobear. Trollestia often wears a trollface; Molestia always has crazy eyes.
* The Tumblr "Ask Princess Molestia" (formerly NSFW, now gone) closed up shop in the past few days, and in fact appears to have been entirely deleted. Although of somewhat contentious content, it was the site that spawned the equally popular "Gamer Luna" meme.
Sweetie Bot
The fan repurposing series Friendship Is Witchcraft (further below) created many alternate versions of the characters (like a demon-worshipping Fluttershy), but this one caught on, by incongruously giving Rarity's little sister Sweetie Belle an obviously computer-generated voice. Rule #2 of Bronydom: There is nothing a serious brony enjoys more than a bit of inspired randomness, and so Sweetie Bot was born. Besides the robotic voice, fan depictions often show her looking rather cyborgy.
* A collection of Sweetie Bot clips from FiW.
Flutterrage
One of the most memorable sequnces in the first season came near the end of the last episode, in which the usually-meek Fluttershy, driven to the breaking point by animals rebuffing her usual winning ways, handled it in a rather uncharacteristic fashion.
* Fluttershy's descent into madness, from the episode.
* In the different language dubs.
* YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE ME, Sparta Remix.
*** Prominent OCs (Original Characters)
Fausticorn
Created by show creator Lauren Faust herself. This interview with Equestria Daily is headed by an exclusive sketch she made of a pony version of herself. Many fan works since have iterated their own versions of the character. Does not have an official name. For some reason, often depicted in combination with Subway sandwiches.
Fluffle Puff
Honestly I'm not entirely sure what's up with Fluffle Puff, who is a pony covered with thick fur. She seems to have a popular Tumblr (under Tumblr blogs, below).
Fluffle Puff Stories: PFUDOR (crossing over with a bit of Dan Vs.)
*** Other Memes
Pony Art fads on Know Your Meme. Not covered here: ponies in sweaters, juiceboxes, wet manes, Cyclops Pony, many others. A good list is on the MLP Fan Labor wiki.
Shrugpony, evolution of lol idunno
First drawn by DeviantArt user MegaSweet, these were popular image macros in the early days of the show.
* Know Your Meme page on Pony Reactions, leading off with shrugpony.
Ponies in socks
Created by Egophiliac, creator of Moonstuck and Slice Of Life. For some reason, ponies wearing socks are popular.
The focus of an early Drawfriend post on Equestria Daily.
Solar Empire vs. The Lunar Republic
Very early on the theme of there being a rivalry between Celestia and Luna, the two rulers of Equestria and emblems of the Sun and Moon respectively, became a prominent in-joke among bronies, despite the fact that in the show's lore all that ended at the end of the second episode. The webgame CLOP (under Games, later), a pony-oriented geopolitical simulation, uses the Solar Empire and Lunar Republic as two opposed world superpowers that player nations must appease, basically turning them into horsey versions of the United States and Soviet Union.
Rarity is a Marshmallow, Scootaloo is a Chicken, Fluttershy is a Tree
The latter two are based off of jokes or throwaway lines in the show, but Rarity being a mashmallow is a fan interpretation based on her white color and the fact that FiM hooves are usually depicted as being cylindrical, giving them a tube-like appearance, with the caption "No one must know that I am part marshmallow."
* Know Your Meme page on Pony Reimaginings, including all three of these.
Rarity vs. Giant Crabs
This one's more recent, and its origins seem to be a bit obscure. I've heard that it started with help from Equestria Daily, when one of their Artist Training Grounds posts asked novice artists to draw Rarity fighting a (giant enemy) crab. I can't see to find that post now, though. A comment on Tumblr points to a DeviantArt user who just happens to commission people to make pictures of ponies fighting crabs. Whatever its original, pictures of the equine clothing designer attacking giant crustaceans with all manner of weaponry continue to pop up. As they do.
One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - you know what this meme needs? ZOIDBERG
Lyra's "hornwarmer"
I figured I should address this. Some time ago someone on eBay sold a plush toy of popular background pony Lyra (see under "Background ponies," below) with a pocket in her rear. It was explicitly offered as a sex toy on the auction. Most bronies did not approve, but under the principle of "what you gonna do," some of them took to mocking the toy.
Some of the better takes on the unfortunate toy come from popular pony artist PixelKitties:
* It's a hornwarmer!
* Two of them can be slippers!
* It's a beer cooler!
* It's a scabbard for Samurai Jack!
* Know Your Meme page on the Lyra Plushie
Sweetie Belle Derelle
Another of the more WTF examples of bronydom, this time entirely due to randomness. A picture (sometimes an animated GIF) of Sweetie Belle with mouth wide open and screaming AAAAAAA. The name comes from the fact that it was used to derail threads, or refer to their derailing. I'm not sure why the alternate spelling/pronunciation. Probably because it rhymes.
* Know Your Meme page, with examples.
* "Oh my Celestia, make it go away"
Twilight-licious
MLP:FiM's production staff has a relatively close relationship to the fans. In one tweet, the actress who voices Twilight Sparkle, Tara Strong, tweeted what Know Your Meme calls "a short freestyle rap," which she then recorded. Fans later animated the recording. Sometimes it comes up in other fan works. The tweet: "I'm the T to the W-I, L-I-G-H-T, and ain't no other pony troll it down like me, I'm Twilightlicious..." Fan art.
OBEY/READ
A combo meme referring both to Shepherd Fairey's famous Obama HOPE poster, and Soviet-style propaganda posters, and are often cross-linked with the Solar Empire meme.
* Propaganda poster for the Solar Empire, noticed by Fairey himself.
* Twilight demands you READ
Ponies sliding into a box
* A silly YouTube video.
* Going the other direction.
* With an unexpected ending. (NSFW language)
Twilight Scepter a.k.a. "Twilicane"
Fans are quick to seize on anything for memeing purposes. In the Season 4 premiere, Discord (an omnipotent trickster figure) took an opportunity to mock Twilight's newly-gained princess status by giving her a goofy-looking scepter with her face on it. I refer you again to Rule #2.
* Neo fights Agent Smith with a new weapon.
* Not actually a new TF2 melee weapon.
* Versions for the other main characters.
* Pink Floyd: The Wall edition (orig)
* "This fucking fandom."
* Finally, a bit of leekspin.
Pinkie's Family
In a first-season episode we get a glimpse into Pinkie's foalhood, where it's revealed that she grew up on an Amish rock farm. Her whole family is mostly grayscale in tone except for her, which might explain how she got the name Pinkie. But she has two sisters. In what is my favorite bit of fanon (fan-canon) related to the show, folks decided that the perfect names for her sisters should be Blinkie and Inkie. And her parents? Clyde and Sue. (Giving away the reference. It was the noise I made when I discovered this that made me realize I might be a brony....)
Magneto
This is a weird one even by brony standards of randomness. I can report on it because I watched it go down when it happened...
Let's go back in time to the evening before the premiere of the second season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. A bunch of bronies affiliated with the podcast Bronyville did a streaming event mare-athon of the whole first season, with the final episode of the season, the excellent "The Best Night Ever" at the end, which is full of songs. The stream provider interposed small Flash ads in the corner of the window while this was going on, at the time promoting the movie X-Men: First Class. So while the show's first song "At The Gala" played, appearing at the bottom of the window was a distracting animated ad with the words "Click here to unleash Magneto's powers!"
The whole thing was being voiced-over by the Bronyville podcast guys and guests, and host Cereal Velocity started improvising his own, Magneto-flavored lyrics over the music of the show, throwing everyone (some of whom by this point had watched approaching thirteen solid hours of pony) into gigglefits. Here's three minutes of it, but it didn't stop there. Know Your Meme describes the meme's spread. Equestria Daily "post". Magneto "fanfic".
*** DRAWN & WRITTEN FAN WORKS ***
Cataloging some of the many, many fan contributions to the lore of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
*** Comics
PixelKitties
One of the more well-known pony artists. She made a name for herself early in the fandom's history for being able to reproduce the show's look accurately, and for the general quality of her comics. She has a tendency to ship Twilight and Trixie, and to produce some of the geekier crossovers.
* You got a purdy mouth
* Writing of Daring Do books taken over by 'George R.R. Mareton.'
* A completely unnecessary Castlevania comic
* Trixie adjusts to Twilight's new station - Page 2 - Page 3
* Princess Sign-Up Poster (Trixie has no luck)
* Arrested Development reference
* Only because it has Dan (Vs) in it
* NightMares
* Rainbow Dash starring in They Live
* Trixie's plan to get close to Twilight's mother
* More Dan, and Pinkie clones
* Poster for "Daring Do and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"
* Doctor Whooves Watches Transformers 3 - Part 2
CSImadmax
Another comic artist, specializing in more grown-up humor.
* Daring Do's stalker
* Twilight (in Equestria Girls) gets used to clothes
* Don't eat the green muffin
* Twilight tells her family about her promotion
* Changeling natal care
* Gemstones aren't worth a lot in Equestria
* Possibly the weirdest crossover in this post: Hellboy and Derpy - 2 - 3 - 4
* Pinkie decides she's a Pokemon trainer, for some reason - 2 (with Cthulhu) - 3 - 4
* Lyra looks for a pet
* Cadence looks on her husband's computer
* More Cadence vs. Chrysalis
* Mystery solving twins!
* Summoning Dr. Manhattan
* Metal Gear Twilight
* Celestia vs. Luna
* Luna wasn't much help in the Season 2 finale
* Friends don't let friends ship ponies
Egophiliac
He did the Moonstuck and does the Slice of Life fan Tumblrs (see further below), but he also does one-off comics. Mostly okay for all ages.
* Luna loses her snack chips
* Snow Day on the Moon (WARNING: CUTE)
* Lyra and Bon Bon switch postures - More - Even more - PANTS
muffinshire
Creator of the "Twilight's First Day" series, depicting Twilight Sparkle's first day at magic school. Fairly high on the cute meter, and very well-drawn. Suitable for all ages. Currently incomplete.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16
bronybyexception
Takes character art made by other people and makes comics out of them. Not NSFW, but kids might scratch their heads at some of the jokes.
* It's "Liar Liar" in Ponyville: Applejack's 'Element of Honesty' adventures! - #2: Facts of Life - #3: Santa Claus
* Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo - Emotionally Fragile
* The joke here is that, in a different comic, the kids stole Zecora's voodoo kit
Miscellaneous
* Pogo-styled Christmas art!
* Lyra and Bon Bon debate fan usage of characters from "My Little Human"
* KTurtle of DeviantArt tells us of changes coming to the characters in Season 4, and in the process mocks fandom doomsayers
* dm29's Parts of an Equestria Pony: Female - Male. Whimsical.
* What if the Mane 6 watched a slaughterhouse video?
*** Art styles
Equestria Girls
This style isn't really created by fans, but by Hasbro themselves, in an attempt to position My Little Pony as a competitor to Monster High, from Another Company. The result was the "Equestria Girls" movie, in which Twilight travels to a human world and temporarily becomes a human herself, and in the process takes one solid step into fanfic territory itself.
* An essay decrying the movie. Makes good points.
* Spike the Dog, with a voice like Christopher Walken, wants to play a video game (audio from Dave the Barbarian)
Wind Waker
Aping the unique, cel-shaded art style of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker might be a surprising direction for fans, but it's turned out unexpectedly popular. Tends towards more cartoony stylization, stubby legs and fanciful swirls in accessories and hair. Most of these are from DeviantArt user AWildDrawfagAppears.
Mane 6 - Another Mane 6 - Spike - Celestia - Luna - Cadence - Twilight and Celestia - Mane 6 humanized - Iron Will (minotaur) - The Cake family - Snips and Snails - a Ganondorfy King Sombra - Big Macintosh - Another Twilight and Celestia, more thematically appropriate.
3D/Source Filmmaker
A side-effect of the surprisingly large intersection between the Team Fortress 2 and My Little Pony fandoms (which I don't get into here) is that fans have made models of all the main ponies in Source engine format, allowing them to be used for video production in Valve Software's popular tools Garry's Mod and Source Filmmaker.
* A song from the show, "The Smile Song," animation recreated in Source Filmmaker.
*** Fan Tumblrs
A prominent outlet for pony fervor is the creation and interaction with Tumblr blogs written in the style of some character, either official, mutated or original. Here are a few. Note: Tumblrs are blogs, and while these popular examples are mostly tame, shipping tends to be common, and some pony Tumblrs contain objectionable content, especially in the Ask blogs. Even among those here, because we're approaching the huge beating heart of the internet here, sometimes NSFW language.
Ask Pony blogs
These are a common sort of the breed. This page on the fanlabor wiki rounds up the most prominent, with helpful flags for avoiding objectionable content.
Moonstuck -- a concluded blog, supposedly the adventures of young Luna on the moon, originally created as a ponified version of Homestuck.
Slice of Life
HIGHLIGHT: Hands down, the best pony Tumblr I've seen. Created by Egophiliac, the guy who made Moonstuck, this is a continuity blog of short comic stories centering around the Cakes, owners of Sugarcube Corner Bakery and employers/caretakers of Pinkie Pie, set a few years ahead of the show so as to present the adventures of their young children, the Cake Twins, as preteens. Well drawn and very well written, with interesting OCs and believable future takes on other characters. I think they should hire Egophiliac to write episodes of the show. Note, most fan Tumblrs present short, quick content, but not this one -- expect multi-page comic stories in many updates. Light-hearted, joyful, funny, and not NSFW at all, if you like Pony at all then please read this, domo arigato.
Note: What follows are just a few personal favorites. Every installment of this series is terrific, to those of a pony turn of mind. The major plots so far involve the Cakes trying to raise the money to send their kids to Flight Camp and Magic School, and planning for a Hearth's Warming Eve pageant, with digressions for Halloween and a visit to Discord.
* As of this writing, this is the start page. (Use the "Previous Page" link to advance.)
* Character page
* Pinkie Meets the Cakes Part 1
* Part 2: Serious Hats
* The Cakes Meet The Bons, Part 1
* Part 2: The Seven Sisters
* "How many cakes, out of ten, reach the customer?"
* Here are some of Egophiliac's character designs Slice Of Life character designs 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
Ask Surprise -- Surprise was a Gen 1 pony, one of the many that Hasbro failed to retain rights to. When Lauren Faust used her in the pitch for her reboot she had to redevelop the character into what would become Pinkie Pie. Of course fan blogs are less concerned with things like that, and this one presents Surprise as basically an even more random and flighty version of Pinkie -- with wings.
* Rapid hair growth
* Jelly bread, with Dr. Whooves
* Surprise flies to her homeland
Ask Hot-Blooded Pinkie Pie -- Takes the popular pink party pony and adds a large truckload, of all things, of Dragonball Z-style powerups and posing. Throws down pop culture references frequently. Occasionally NSFW violence (cartoony) and language (definitely).
Ask Sweetie Bot -- see below, under Videos, Friendship Is Witchcraft.
Ask Fluffle Puff -- Fluffle Puff is an OC ("original character") pony covered with thick pink hair. Very random and silly. Talks in raspberries. Hosts well-animated videos (see below). Shipped with with Queen Crysalis, for some reason. For some other reason crosses over with Dan Vs. Dan Vs. is another excellent cartoon on the Hub. Don't ask me, I'm just documenting. (Okay, the reason is this is a spin-off of another Tumblr that puts Dan in the ponyverse. If you think that sounds like the geekiest thing ever, well, you must be new around here.)
Ask Gaming Princess Luna is a sequel of sorts to the defunct, NSFW "Ask Princess Molestia" blog, which was taken down (voluntarily) very recently. Gamer Luna was one of the best ideas to come out of it, and the new blog promises to ignore "inappropriate questions." It's a newcomer on the scene, with only two posts as of this writing, but the art is well done. May be worth watching.
*** Fanfic
Fanfiction is the writing, by fans, of additional stories using characters in some other work. It has a much more direct connection to the enthusiast id as other forms of fan participation, which might be worth keeping in mind. I have not read many, of these, especially in the case of the longer works, as fanfiction is not really my thing, so for this section inclusion does not imply endorsement. Instead, I have tried to provide a good overview of popular and well-known works. Here is a good primer on pony fanfiction. This whole section is probably one level geekier than the average.
Fallout: Equestria
The 700-pound horned, winged, magical gorilla of pony fan fiction, about ponyland after a magical apocalypse. The audacity of the concept is matched only by its length -- and then there's the plethora of side stories by other authors. Note: I have not read this, but I hear it is NSFW in places.
* Resource site
* Wiki.
* A few Fallout-style ad posters, made by PixelKitties: Changeling Espionage - Sweet Apple Sarsaparilla - Do you like bananas? - Twilight Securitron - Wear Your Badge
My Little Dashie
This fic is particularly well-known in the fandom. The premise is that a young Rainbow Dash is found in a cardboard box on Earth and is raised by a lonely man living by himself, who must keep her secret from the world. There are probably at least three different metaphors that could be made out here, intentional or not.
Past Sins
Entry on fimfiction. An early story, written before Luna's reappearance in Season Two, that sought to fill in what was going on with her after the events of the series premiere. Luna reappeared in Season Two and obsoleted the work, but it still exists. Introduced the OC character Nyx.
Antipodes
One of the older popular pony fanworks, it's set in a future where Celestia and Luna have disappeared, and the sun and moon don't move in the sky. (Note, it's old enough that it only uses the events of Season One as canon.)
Other works
* Binky Pie -- Crossover between Discworld and Pony, largely successful although incomplete.
* Progress -- A silly fic, Princess Luna tries to come to terms with 1,000 years of Equestrian technology development. Pretty long at 21 chapters.
* Friendship is Optimal is about a computer-generated Celestia creating a virtual world, and it going frighteningly off the rails. Gave rise to the Optimalverse, a set of related stories. Previously.
* Through The Eyes Of Another Pony -- A man falls asleep in Equestria and wakes in in Ponyville, as a pony. Played as a comedy.
* It's A Dangerous Business Going Out Your Door is primarily an adventure fic.
* Sunny Skies All Day Long -- Another early story, true to the series of around Season 1, about an overworked Celestia taking time off to visit her favorite student and her friends, in disguise. Note.
* Anthropology -- Lyra has an obsession. She found some old legends about a mythical, advanced race of bipedal, ape-descended creatures called humans, and for some reason she can't stop thinking about them. Her roommate Bon-bon tries to put up with her obsession. Quite lengthy; just when you think the story has reached its end, it begins.
* Arrow 18 Mission Logs -- Earth scientists in the future find a planetary system with bizarre astrophysical properties: the sun revolves around the planet! Sent to investigate, a realistic human astronaut achieves first contact with a peculiar race of magic cartoon horses. Side series Sparkle's notes presents the encounters from the other perspective. I will admit that I'm rather fond of this one.
* The Mane 6 Discover Human Music -- It's another juxtaposing of real-world culture with the pastel-colored, heart-studded world of Equestria. Features reactions to Simon & Garfunkel, They Might Be Giants (Particle Man, natch), Cage The Elephant and Louis Armstrong.
* LOVECRAFT PONY ROUNDUP: The Neigh of Cthulhu - The Call of Colthulhu (just a fragment) - The Stars Will Aid Their Escape (Warning: horrible affairs, unhappy endings.)
*** MULTIMEDIA ***
*** Video
Friendship is Witchcraft (series)
HIGHLIGHT: A primary theme of brony fanwork is that of repurposing, putting the characters, and sometimes the animation itself, to uses very unlike the show in content, for either humor or shock value. Sherclop Pones' Friendship is Witchcraft has a bit of both, and is one of the oldest and most popular repurposing fan series, now up to nine episodes. This is the source of the "Sweetie Bot" meme. As far as episodes go, it's probably easier to get into them in the later installments.
This series has had a long and troubled history with Hasbro's efforts to keep piracy of the show under control, and fell afoul of YouTube's ContentID feature. For some reason the videos aren't currently available on the project's