chachonimrod:

malisteen: parrotbeak: strifeandslash: korra: The “Collect Her” episode of The Powerpuff Girls essentially predicted Brony culture which is funny because My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic was created by Lauren Faust who was an artist/writer/director for The Powerpuff Girls holy shit Note that the fan was the villain of the episode but that Faust has gone out of her way to defend bronies even by the time they drew highly misogynist porn of her self-insert OC. There’s a lesson in there. Somewhere. That may or may not have to do with Faust. Like the villain of the episode, who trapped and kidnapped the girls to keep them all to himself, Bronies have to a large degree stolen the current generation of MLP from its original target audience by spamming the internet with child-unsafe mlp fan content, swamping appearances by creators and cast members with sketchy adults such that parents feel unsafe with their children there, and noisily attracting so much attention to themselves that it has distorted the nature of the show itself and especially its marketing. ie, the MLP comic book, that is very much ‘by bronies for bronies’, an adult minded parody of the show’s characters rather than an adaptation that remains true to the style, spirit, or all ages nature of the source material. And as it has grown in influence, we’ve seen insensate brony screeching change from ‘its not just for little girls’ to ‘its not for little girls at all’. We’ve also seen vicious, ugly, herd-mindset attacks on anyone within the fandom who dares to question the way the brony herd behaves at all, up to and including death and rape threats directed at said critics. Far from being a ‘few bad apples’ situation, we’ve seen brony musicians making death and rape threats within their music go on to be invited to perform at brony conventions specifically because of how well received their hatred and bile proved to be within the community. Maybe Faust shouldn’t have been so supporting of the Brony community to begin with, and maybe show creators shouldn’t have gone out of their way to include explicit nods to them in the show and the marketing. After all, bronies already liked the show and purchased the merchandise, pandering to them and encouraging them didn’t widen the show’s appeal. Rather it just seems to have driven them to heightened levels of obnoxiousness and entitled possessiveness, and if anything they’ve in turn narrowed the show’s appeal. They’ve certainly badly subverted its message, bringing a heavy dose of misogyny to the fandom of a show that was directed with all love and earnestness at young girls, and in doing so have brought down a cloud of ugliness and cynicism on what was so refreshing and engaging to begin with specifically for its openness and sincerity. Word. I wish more people could understand this.

“Like the villain of the episode, who trapped and kidnapped the girls to keep them all to himself, Bronies have to a large degree stolen the current generation of MLP from its original target audience by spamming the internet with child-unsafe mlp fan content, swamping appearances by creators and cast members with sketchy adults such that parents feel unsafe with their children there, and noisily attracting so much attention to themselves that it has distorted the nature of the show itself and especially its marketing. ie, the MLP comic book, that is very much ‘by bronies for bronies’, an adult minded parody of the show’s characters rather than an adaptation that remains true to the style, spirit, or all ages nature of the source material.”

Hi there, I’m the colorist on the MLP comic series and felt I should reply to this. Yes, much of the MLP comic staff are adults that are already a fan of the show, which is why it’s important to us to be true to the show. Some people have complained that the comic is “too mature” or “too dark”, but by who’s standards?

Even the original MLP show from the 80s got pretty dark, I mean look at the villains from the show, there was some that would be considered scary by today’s cartoon’s standards. I was a little girl in the 80s and yes, I saw the original show. I also watched things like Return to Oz, Watership Down, and The Dark Crystal.(even as an adult, the wheelers from Return to Oz scare me!) Kids can handle darkness and as the show itself said, it can be fun to be scared sometimes.

I always found it a little insulting to children, especially those of my gender, when people assume they can’t handle at least a little darkness. They shouldn’t be reading Kentaro Muira’s Berserk, but I myself was able to handle bunny blood bath to the death in Watership Down and disembodied heads floating around and staring at people in Return to Oz.

Yeah, there’s nods to bronies, but even children are fans of Derpy and Dr.Whooves. (if the number of kids I’ve seen wearing shirts of those characters are anything to go on)

A lot of people are under the impression that only bronies read the comic, and yes of course there are bronies that read the comic. But outside of brony specific cons that I have been a guest at, most of the people that come to me at general comic cons and comic store signings are children.

And no, don’t give me some silly “they’re just getting their embarrassed dads a signed copy” BS because that’s not true in most cases. I’ve had a lot of children talk to me with a lot of enthusiasm about how much they liked Nightmare Rarity. (funny how the arc a lot of bronies hate on seems to be the favorite of the show’s target audience)

There was one little girl in particular that told me how the comic’s Chrysalis arc made Chrysalis her favorite character. She couldn’t have been more than 6 years old. She told me that she didn’t feel that Chrysalis was truly evil because in the comic we showed that Chrysalis did evil things for the sake of the survival of her people. Not those exact words, but that’s pretty deep stuff you wouldn’t expect to see a kid say!

Are there bad MLP fans that taint the reputation of bronies? Of course. But there’s also bad Homestuck, anime, Sherlock, Dr.Who, comic, furry, sports, etc. fans that also give the community a bad name. I’ve never felt weirded out or creeped out by a brony at a con. If there’s a brony that’s talking to me a million years, they’re always fine with stepping aside to allow the younger readers to get to me too. A few bad apples spoiling things has happened to every fandom ever made. Believe me, I’ve been into anime for 20 years, I know a thing or two about crazy fans. (I’ve seen many a fan fall in a sub vs. dub debate)

I’m not okay with all the explicit porn that gets done of well, any character ever made in the history of ever, but it’s the internet, them’s the breaks. Parents should be responsible enough to monitor what their children are looking at on the internet. I’m 29 years old and I have no problem avoiding porn on tumblr, deviantart, even a site like furaffinity, because I use things like safe search, turn off mature content, tumblr savior, etc. If I can avoid stuff like that, it should be no problem for a parent to keep their child from seeing that sort of thing.