These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
"Winter Wrap-Up" seems to have the message "If you have no talent, and are good at nothing, go into management" (or "managers are incompetent at everything except bossing people around"), even though Twilight wound up the All-Team Organizer because she actually is good at getting things organized (and everypony else stinks at it).
"Suited for Success" provides the explicit moral of "don't look a gift horse in the mouth", and the implicit moral of "if you hire a professional to do a job, let THEM do the job they're paid for."
"Feeling Pinkie Keen" was interpreted by many as the triumph of religious dogma over skepticism. According to Lauren Faust, this was totally unintentional, and she was a little freaked out when folks on DeviantArt started complaining about it.
The moral of "The Show Stoppers" was probably intended to be "Be Yourself, and embrace your natural talents," but to some fans it came off as "Don't waste your time trying new things. Just stick to what you're good at, even if you hate it."
"A Dog and Pony Show" can be misinterpreted as "Whining will make everyone bend to your whims!"
Also, "Just ignore it when your friend gets kidnapped; they can probably handle themselves."
"Cutie Mark Chronicles" is about "be patient and be yourself and you'll learn who you are", and "Sweet and Elite" is about "don't be ashamed of where you come from" but both have the sub-lesson of "city people are shallow, snobby, and sneer down their noses at anything outside their experience, so don't let their opinions sway you."
"Owl's Well That Ends Well" and "Lesson Zero" both have "if you blow off your friend's concerns/feelings/freakouts, it will cause more trouble", which apparently means Aesop Amnesia as Twilight learned it in the first and then freaked out in the second.
Celestia's amendment at the end of "Lesson Zero" sort of turns the moral into "if your friend has a psychotic breakdown, you're obligated to share her homework load. Even if you don't go to school."
It may also be interpreted as "you will take OCD seriously, or terrible things will happen".
The episode also has the lesson the CMC should've learned: "If someone offers you something you really don't want, you can politely turn it down and not trying to dance around avoiding accepting it to avoid hurt feelings. Honesty is the best policy."
The moral of "Cutie Pox" is about having patience and that good things come to those who wait. While this is a valid aesop, it's not the real aesop of the episode, which was earning what you want and not cheating by taking short cuts and being dishonest.
In "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" many fans seem read this one as "it's okay to humiliate your friends to teach them a lesson of humility." It wouldn't be the first time a lesson about hubris fumbled slightly.
"Cutie Mark Chronicles", "The Best Night Ever" and "Sweet or Elite" all have the secondary lesson of "If you're from a quaint and sweet little provincial town, all the rich big city people are going to be shallow snobs who sneer at you and your "country" ways." So far the only exceptions have been Hoity Toity from "Suited For Success" (who was fairly impressed with Rarity's original designs for the dresses she made) and Fancypants from "Sweet and Elite" (who seemed to think that Rarity's Ponyville friends were "charmingly rustic")
The pageant in "Hearth's Warming Eve" seems rather anti-authoritarian, depicting all the rulers of the pony tribes (be they aristocracy, the military, or elected officials) as selfish, stubborn, and/or incompetent.
Fridge Brilliance: No matter one's race, color, or creed, we all question the sanity of upper management (at least sometimes). Notice that the "assistant" ponies bonded over shaking their heads at their superiors' foolish actions.
"A Friend In Deed" seems to teach kids "If someone doesn't want to be your friend, bug them until you find out why."
"The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" could be taken to teach the lesson that market competition is a good thing, because it was clear that, the way things were, the Apples were unable to serve the needs of the market. The Flim-Flams were definitely bad, but them introducing competition did force the Apples to innovate and make enough cider for all.
Rarity's shop includes bridles (one is even shown on Carousel Boutique's sign), as seen in various episodes (such as "Swarm of the Century", in which Twilight calls outfits incorporating them "gorgeous") and other official materials (such as Adventures in Ponyville, in which Rarity and Applejack wear them). Given that ponies don't even wear them while pulling carriages ("Over a Barrel", "The Best Night Ever", etc.), it makes you wonder just what they are supposed to be used for... probably just for fashion, as none of the ponies wear clothes either, except when clothes are used as a status indicator or simply for fashion.
Are you saying my mouth is making promises my legs can't keep?
Rarity getting to bed in "Look Before You Sleep" makes noises that, when taken out of context, make this scene look... interesting.
In "Bridle Gossip", Rarity is lounging in a hot tub, with a look of sheer bliss on her face. Cue Pinkie rising out of the water in, um, questionable proximity to Rarity...
Alternatively: "I have located the water jet."
In the same episode, Twilight Sparkle's horn becomes floppy with blue dots on it. The way it flops around is reminiscent of, well... you get the picture. The way Spike stares at it on the verge of cracking up almost implies he's in on the joke.
Due to where Spike is sitting during Twilight's first verse in the "Winter Wrap-Up" song, it's easy to see how he might be doing something else entirely. The way he bounces while Twilight is walking along does not help.
A squicky example occurs in "Feeling Pinkie Keen" when ponies are running away from hydra, and Spike is seen sitting on Twilight's head right in the place where her horn should be, which is nowhere to be seen, and there's an expression of pain on his face. (not to mention he's positioned there suspiciously firmly considering they were running uphill at high-speed)
"Sonic Rainboom", which ends with Rainbow Dash flying off with two (male) members of the Wonderbolts and declaring "... I've got plans!", could be taken as this.
That same episode also opens with Fluttershy recapping "the elements of a good cheer": "loss of control", "screaming and hollering", and "passion". Taken out of context, it kinda sounds like she and Rainbow Dash are talking about... something else. Not to mention that it's given out of context, with no explanation until afterwards.
"Well if I ever saw one of them cock-a-thingies face to face, I'd laugh at how silly it was!"
"Who would want a picture of a hammer on their flank anyway?"
When the episode first aired, some fans got a little carried away with the fact that "Twilight went to Zecora's house and got stoned, then snails left a trail of goo across her face"
"Over a Barrel" gives us Rainbow Dash and her now-infamous "wing-boner".
Spike remarking in "The Best Night Ever" "I gotta show Rarity the crown jewels."
In the same episode, to get the Wonderbolts' attention Rainbow Dash catapults a male pony into the air and "saves" him from the fall by catching him on her back... and if you cut the last scene out of context, it suddenly starts looking completely different. It doesn't help that Rainbow's expression looks really dirty.
In "Lesson Zero", Twilight tries some Armchair Psychology on Rainbow Dash when she thinks Rainbow is angry at Applejack, and tells her "Oh, Rainbow Dash, you don't have to hide your feelings from me." TwiDash shippers took notice.
It doesn't help that she delivered that particular line in this◊ pose. Some AppleDash fans also interpreted the scene as Twilight being a Shipper on Deck
In "The Cutie Pox", some amused fans noted "Apple Bloom gained the pony equivalent of puberty, and Applejack was kept awake during the night due to loud clopping coming from Apple Bloom's room".
In "May the Best Pet Win", Rainbow Dash tells Twilight that her inability to understand the difference between "coolness", "awesomeness", and "radicalness" is why she would never qualify to be her pet. Errmmm...
In "The Mysterious Mare Do Well", the sounds of Amethyst Star opening a jar of peanut butter off-screen, can sound... different. Let's leave it there.
A Singin' in the Rain tribute (in "Hearts and Hooves Day") wound up being mistaken by some for a pole-dancing joke. What made this particularly foul was that the tribute was done by Sweetie Belle, of all characters.
The trading card for Lyra Heartstrings and Golden Harvest includes the line "... lolling in the park, sharing bonbons with Golden Harvest." Bonbon is the name of Lyra's fanon girlfriend, making this either a poorly thought out Fandom Nod, or a case of ramming a freight traininto the radar.
Given that Hasbro hired members of the fandom to write the cards, it's likely a little of both.
Alternate Aesop Interpretation: "Griffon the Brush Off" and "Green Isn't Your Color" set us up to believe the aesops "a prank is only fun if everybody is laughing" and "don't be jealous" are coming. Twilight instead ends the episodes with "a bad friend will eventually make themselves known" and "be honest about your feelings." Both are decent aesops which fit their episodes and could also be a subversion or double subversion of stock aesops.
"The Mysterious Mare Do Well" could be said to not only preach "You shouldn't let glory go to your head and turn you into a braggart", but also "Fame is fleeting", based on how quick the ponies of Ponyville were to celebrate Mare Do Well and almost completely ignore Rainbow Dash. And given that Mare-Do-Well is actually four of the other members of the Mane Six, who manage to accomplish more than Rainbow Dash could alone, it teaches a lesson about the Power of Teamwork.
A different Aesop that can be taken from the episode "Hearts and Hooves Day" than the one given at the end can be taken as "You don't NEED a 'very special somepony' to be happy, even on a day dedicated to having one."
In the pilot episode, Twilight says "All the ponies in this town are CRAZY!" By the end of the season, every mane character has suffered a nervous breakdown at some point. And then in the season 2 episode "Lesson Zero", Twilight goes completely (if temporarily) over the edge.
In "Return of Harmony's second part", Twilight laments of how her friends turned into complete jerks. Throughout the entire second season, every Mane member has done some jerk move to one another, from recklessly putting lives in danger through ill-timed showboating, all the way to ditching someone in despair for someone who turned out to be a villain.
Knowledge of astronomy and a close look at the Ursa Major's tail in Boast Busters may tip you off early that it's actually an Ursa Minor.
The scene in "Winter Wrap Up" with the two hedgehogs embracing and accidentally sticking each other with their spines is a reference to the hedgehog's dilemma theory of psychology.
Look at the chalkboard in the beginning of "Call of the Cutie". These kids are learning damn astrophysics!
Or at least physics *
based on the magnetic permeability symbol
and vector calculus. *
Based on the gradient sign.
Gilda's maltreatment of the ponies actually borders on Fridge Brilliance when you realize that in mythology, griffons and horses were mortal enemies.
Rarity re-enacts the Greek myth of Icarus at the Young Flyer's Competition.
At the end of the second episode (part two of the pilot), "The Elements of Harmony": two foals lay a wreath of red and white roses around Princess Luna's neck. This might seem like a conventional way of honoring and welcoming a princess, but consider that, at the end of the War of the Roses, Henry VII took as his symbol a red and white rose, combining the Lancastrian red rose and the Yorkist white rose. So red and white roses together are a symbol of reconciliation following a civil war within a royal family for control of the kingdom, or principality in this case.
In "The Best Night Ever", Spike mentions Princess Celestia has a golden apple tree. In certain Greek and Norse mythos, golden apples grant immortality.
They are also, in Greek mythology, a symbol of DISCORD... one golden apple in particular led to the Trojan wars, and the sacking of Troy— and the death of a dozen or so legendary Greek heroes.
The Apple(s) of Discord return in the second season's first episode, where they are used to sow discord among the mane six, fittingly, right at the start of the challenge.
Twilight's mentioned Star Swirl the Bearded created an "amniomorphic spell". "Amnio-" as a medical term deals with the fetus, so "amniomorphic" potentially deals with the development of babies, which is essentially what Twilight did when she hatched Spike.
Actually, it's highly possible that the spell's name refers to "lamb-shape". Which would make Star Swirl the inventor of a spell that turns ponies into sheep.
Some claim that amniomorphic is actually a subtle joke. Amnio could be translated to bowl. That would make Star Swirl the Bearded a hairy potter.
Also in "Luna Eclipsed," Luna keeps using old-fashioned, "formal" versions of the second-person personal pronoun: thou, thee, thy, thine, etc., even though she supposedly wants (much like her sister, in a way) a closer, warmer relationship with her subjects. But actually, thou, thee, thy, and so forth are actually the informal, personal versions of the second-person personal pronoun, much like "tu" in French or Spanish, or "du" in German. You, your, and so forth are the formal forms. When Luna addresses the other ponies as "thou," she's basically saying that she considers them to be close friends.
This makes sense if you consider that she has been trapped in isolation for a thousand years. Thou, thee, thy and thine are Early Modern*
read ‘Shakespearian’
English, which was still in use a thousand years ago.
Which is also why she would not know the meaning of the word fun (in this case amusement) which in the real world has only had that meaning since the 1700s.
Both Princesses wear collars. Celestia, who wears the larger collar, is older, more mature, and more experienced... and has bourne (and still bears) most of the burden of ruling Equestria. Luna, whose collar is much smaller, is the younger, less mature, and more impulsive sister... and is still adjusting to 1000 years' worth of progress. Factor in the purpose and benefits of the real-world horse collar harness, and decide for yourself if the symbolism was intentional or not.
If you have any interest in color theory, Celestia's mane might be of great interest to you. Sky Blue is the main color, and one of the stripes bears a shade of cyan called Celeste. The third color present is Orchid, a shade of magenta. Why Orchid? Because the orchid is one of the flowers representing the Chinese Four Gentlemen. It symbolizes spring, the season in which the sun warms the earth so life can continue.
In "It's About Time", Twilight is seen looking over a chalkboard covered in equations, which are apparently real equations for the effects of time dilation.
Oh, how is this for genius: in "A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1", during the song "B.B.B.F.F", there is actually a double meaning (which Daniel Ingram has confirmed):
The song is in the key of Db Major (just like winter wrap up!) . That means that the root chord is a Db major chord. Usually, a Ab major chord will lead into a Db major. This is the V-I chord progression and it is also known as the Authentic Cadence (stick with me here). Now, it seems to resolve to a sadder chord at the end of the phrase. Instead of ending on Db major around 1:16, it lands on Bb minor: the relative minor of Db major. Now, when a chord progression seems to be heading to the root chord but lands on the relative minor instead, that is called a...
...
Deceptive Cadence
Also worth noting, listen to how Twilight sings the last "forever" in the song. Her little cadenza (I am seriously not making these words up) quotes the opening notes of the theme song.
Daring Do's grey-scale tail and mane (at least as imagined by Rainbow Dash) incorporate the "colours" of a rare phenomenon known as a moonbow.
Glurge: While the show does seem to make a rather commendable effort to avoid this trope a lot of the time, it sometimes can't resist falling into it due to its cutesy nature and sometimes easily re-enterpretable Aesops. Faust has even admitted to some stories such as that of "Feeling Pinkie Keen" as giving a very bad message.
Growing the Beard: A lot of fans consider the very early episodes weaker than the rest of the show. Depending on who you ask, the series hit its stride either on "Applebuck Season" or halfway through the first season. Some contend that it didn't really take off until season two.
Regardless of one's opinion on the writing, there's been some definite Art Evolution when comparing Season 1 to Season 2. Season 3 seems to have taken that Art Evolution and about doubled it from Season 2.
Considering the episode was produced long before Cupcakes was written, Pinkie Pie's psychotic break in "Party of One" is rather eerie, doubly so considering Rainbow Dash is the pony to visit her during her episode.
Twilight Sparkle's line "All the ponies in this town are crazy!" is either a lot less funny or a lot more funny, given the episodes in which one of the mane cast suffer some sort of breakdown.
Scootaloo has been called a chicken by Apple Bloom and a dodo by Sweetie Belle, which means that her two best friends are taunting her by calling her the names of flightless birds. Now keep in mind that Scootaloo is a flightless pegasuswho idolizes and wants to be like Rainbow Dash, a pegasus that's known for her flying ability, and think how painful that must be for Scootaloo.
Most people thought that Twilight's panic attack about Princess Celestia possibly being upset about Ponyville being destroyed by the Parasprites in "Swarm Of The Century" was pretty funny. Now look at Twilight's nervous breakdown in "Lesson Zero" along with Princess Celestia's appearance in the end, and see if you can laugh at Twilight's nervousness about staying on Princess Celestia's good side.
The entire story presented in "Hearth's Warming Eve" becomes really creepy for those who are familiar with the mythology surrounding Wendigos.
In the Canterlot Wedding two-parter, the need for increased security at the wedding seems a bit more eerie in light of the recent issues with insufficient security at the London 2012 Olympics. Keep in mind that the Canterlot Wedding was based off the Royal Wedding between William and Kate... Which also happened in London.
Also, "Look Before You Sleep" has Twilight Sparkle so obsessed with having a slumber party, she doesn't even sensibly react to half of a tree crashing through her bedroom window.
Although, that might not be Idiot Plot so much as Twilight Sparkle specifically holding the Idiot Ball. Most likely from the concussion she got from the tree hitting her.
In "Fall Weather Friends", Rainbow Dash uses her ability to fly to cheat in various events. Until Applejack points it out, none of the ponies think it unfair, and neither do they bother rerunning the events she cheated in. Let's face it, when even Twilight Sparkle doesn't object to Dash LIFTING APPLEJACK INTO THE AIR DURING A TUG OF WAR, this trope is definitely in play.
In "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", the Flim Flam brothers are either holding the Conflict Ball or the Villain Ball, but either way a lot of what they do triggers one of these. If either of them had possessed an ounce of business sense, or at least hadn't been so arrogant during the contest, the episode would have been much shorter.
The plot of "Games Ponies Play" relies on the cast not realizing that the pony they greeted at the train station wasn't the games Inspector. It's an understandable mistake at first, as they're in a rush, but as the episode goes on they grow increasingly more oblivious to the fact that the pony they're escorting around doesn't resemble the inspector at all, as well as the fact that despite spending the entire afternoon with her no one ever thinks to refer to her by name. If any of them had thought to ask her name (or if the pony in question had thought to introduce herself), the mistake would have been caught within five minutes.
It Was His Sled: Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon, Nightmare Moon was defeated and turned back into Luna. There are toys of her and she came back in one episode of Season 2 (she even gets mentioned in the Season 2 première). The reveal at the end of the second episode isn't much of a spoiler anymore.
The Season 3 finale, namely the ending where Twilight becomes a princess, has been widely and openly discussed long before the relevant episode's airdate.
Less Disturbing in Context: Fluttershy's song from "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" includes the lines "Oh, what a magical place!/And I owe it all to the Pegasus race!" If heard out of context and without the accompanying visuals it may sound like Fluttershy is propagating Pegasus supremacy. It doesn't help that the mentions of wild animals, bees, and trees might be mistaken for a reference to "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"...
In "A Bird in the Hoof", what should be a Tear Jerker is utterly ruined by a recycled sound clip when Fluttershy squeaks, very clearly, "I'm Fluttershy" from episode 1.
It's hard to take Twilight Sparkle's 10-Minute Retirement in "Return of Harmony, Part 2" seriously when Discord's influence is causing all sorts of ridiculous things to happen in Ponyville, like ballet-dancing buffalo and rains of apple pie.
The Flim-Flam brothers laughing during their Kick the Dog moment in "The Super-Speedy Cider-Squeezy 6000". They laugh again later on, but it sounds nothing like the first time, which makes the first laughs even narmier.
The jarring application of Never Say "Die" in the climax of Wonderbolts Academy really dampens the severity of the situation at hand. "Smashed to pieces"? "Demolished"? Your friends are pony beings, Rainbow Dash, not fine china.
Nightmare Fuel coupled with Fridge Logic: Many of the situations in the series, although portrayed as saccharine, in reality are unmitigated nightmare fuel incarnate. Some examples that come to mind are the mind rape of the Mane 6 by Discord (As well as implied with everypony in Equestria), or the Nightmare Moon arc's threat of eternal night.
To clarify why that last one is nightmare fuel: A night that "lasts forever" seems like a pretty harmless concept. Why, think of the endless campfire parties you could hold! The problem is, since night and day are concepts that matter only if the sun is hitting the land at different times, the only way to have an eternal night is to take the sun away. Then imagine the crops where all your food comes from dying from no sunlight, and then imagine how the land would gradually lose all its remaining heat over the next few weeks and then freeze over. You would eventually either freeze to death or starve to death, whichever comes first.
Paranoia Fuel: Anypony you see on the screen may be a changeling. Any one at any given time. Much worse in-universe.
There's a joke about the repeated background ponies.
Some fans also felt this way about "The Best Night Ever", while others thought the episode was So Cool It's Awesome. Amusingly enough, part of the lesson for that episode was not getting your expectations up too high.
Any time Pinkie Pie starts singing. Thankfully, her songs are presented in an ironic fashion; breaking into song impromptu is one of Pinkie Pie's personality quirks in-universe. The rest of the cast reacts appropriately ("Tell me she's not..." "(sigh) She is."). Thus, instead of being the Narm that one might expect from this franchise, this subtle Fourth Wall lampshading allows the Periphery Demographic to feel at ease watching the show.
You think Pinkie Pie's songs are that? When Fluttershy sings, it's the equivalent of syrup flooding the room!
In general, watching this show has been known to cause cavities.
The fact that the 6 main ponies have had nervous breakdowns tends to lessen the sweetness.
The whole show could be considered a huge subversion/aversion (compared to expectations), which is why it has the popularity and fanbase that it does.
Still, the theme song... Let's just say it remains embarrassing.
Some people think it's okay. That said, some people do feel a need to turn down the volume when someone's in the room for the theme song.
When the "Teens React" show used the intro, the reaction from both the teens and the bronies responding to that was fairly predictable.
The ending to The Cutie Mark Chronicles was even further on the sweet side than usual for this show, but well-written enough for come off as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. It didn't stop Scootaloo and Spike from Lamp Shading how sappy it was, though.
Spike: Gross! When did you get so cheesy?
Some have noted that Baby Cakes is this trope incarnate. At least, up until the Nightmare Fuel-inducing sequence when Pinkie loses the babies.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In "Dragon Quest" Spike wants to learn about dragons during "The Great Dragon Migration". Good, but then the plot goes into him being picked on teenaged dragons, earning their respect and then finding out they're just mean bastards. It could have been better spent building a mythology of the place of dragons in Equestria and add in that the bullying subplot could have just been easily done with stallions in Ponyville.
An episode about Rainbow Dash breaking her wing? That's an amazing idea! Think of the drama she would go through, wondering when she would fly again, being forced to live the life of an Earth pony until it heals... or it could be about her getting addicted to reading. Uh, sure, that might work too, I guess.
The premiere of Season 3could have beenawesome. It concerns the return of a long forgotten empire, the coming of an ancient evil ruler and Twilight and friends tasked to help save the empire alongside Shining Armor and Princess Cadance. Too bad that the entire two-parter kept its focus on almost everything but said ruler, who had fewer lines than certain background characters and very little screentime. Plus, the Aesop for the episode certainly didn't warrant a two-part special.
"Over a Barrel": The conflicts between the colonists of the American Frontier and Native Americans could all have been resolved if only people had not gone up on stages begging for peace and the Native Americans just adopted aspects of settler culture.
"Feeling Pinkie Keen" was interpreted by many to advocate superstition and religious dogma over skepticism and logic. The way Twilight worded the intended moral did not help. The episode also written by the writer of "Over a Barrel", David Polsky.
Polsky strikes again with "Too Many Pinkie Pies". The degree of autonomous thought that some of the Pinkie clones exhibit had a lot of viewers wondering whether Twilight's de-summoning of them didn't entail the murder of sentient beings.
Pinkie Pie's family, seen in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", is apparently based on Amish communities, and paints a rather unflattering stereotype of them being drab, joyless, and humourless. Even considering Pinkie's reputation for storytelling, this isn't all that well-off.
Spike's relative age, lack of formal schooling and status as Twilight's "research assistant" (as well as whatever else she might need) has some people bringing up child labor issues.
Speaking of Spike, "Green Isn't Your Color" show him acting as a personal pincushion for a pony he loves, who doesn't seem to return the favor. While Twilight does at least ask if he's feeling pain, (as a scaled dragon, he doesn't, but asserts he wouldn't care if he did) nopony seems to mind that Rarity is manipulating Spike's affections in an extremely degrading way.
Sapphire Shores's English voice actress mimics the Sassy Black Woman archetype, for which, in some circles, "sapphire" is a pejorative term.
Twilight's element of harmony, magic, is clearly treated as the best and most special (Season 2, episode 1 especially 'most powerful and elusive of all'). Seems power or made up mystical ability is way better than being honest, loyal, or generous. It takes a while to realize that it's supposed to be a stand-in for Friendship...
This was probably not done intentionally by the creative team, but mention is still warranted. While the ponies come in all colors of the rainbow, they come across as eurocentric, with other nationalities represented by entirely different (and stereotypically indigent) species. Granted, even if they didn't, the implications would probably still be unavoidable.
Special mention goes to Zecora, a zebra whose character bears shades of Magical Negro. She speaks with a deep voice and a stereotypical accent, talks exclusively in verse, and works as an apothecary. Of course, this is before we get to the mock-Swahili she spoke in her debut and the African-sounding Mood Motif that scores every scene in her shop, or the gold rings covering her limbs and neck.
And Rarity's flip out in "A Dog and Pony Show" over being called a mule because "Mules are ugly!" Since mules are half-horse and half-donkey, this and Zecora's treatment seem to accidentally hint at Fantastic Racism by ponies.
A scene in which one of the background ponies spoke caused a split in the fanbase as to whether or not it fit this trope. In it, she was a Walking Disaster Area with a Simpleton Voice, and was treated like a needless burden. Prior to this, her only character trait was Fish Eyes. The real kicker, though: the character was named Derpy, which, depending on who you ask, is a rather harsh jab at the disabled.
The infamous "mental patient" pony from "Read It and Weep," who barks like a guard dog and sports a screw for a cutie-mark. Seemingly addressed in-show, as she's shown behaving perfectly normal in season 3.
Some of the things Angel does to Fluttershy in "Putting Your Hoof Down" when he's unsatisfied with his meal are close to Domestic Abuse, including slapping her across the face and kicking her out of the house. He is a Vague AgeTsundere, maybe a smidge older then Spike, that swings between Hypercompetent Sidekick and Bratty Half-Pint when it comes to his "needs". He is also a rabbit, so take that all as you will.
Spike "adopting" a baby phoenix named "Peewee" at the end of "Dragon Quest". It's supposed to parallel Spike being Happily Adopted by ponies. Cute, until you remember that Spike is well-aware of who Peewee's parents are and could simply have just returned the baby phoenix to his parents. In other words, Spike is pretty much guilty of kidnapping. One can argue that he has no way of reaching them (they did fly away by episode's end and Spike was teleported god knows how much distance), but... well.
Likewise, the main conflict of the episode is that Spike wants to learn more about his dragon heritage. The problem? About the only dragons Spike interacts with are a bunch of teenage bullies and the episode implies that all dragons act like this. When you consider the Real Life conflicts between cultures and how various ethnicities have been stereotyped over the years as being "evil", it's not exactly a good way to teach the kids a lesson about "What you are doesn't determine who you are".
There's also the fact that although Spike is much beloved of the ponies, he is usually treated as a page at best, and a pet at worst (he sleeps in a pet bed at the foot of Twilight's bed). So he's better off with ponies who treat him as a convenience than he is with his own kind, even if his own kind behave in a way ponies don't understand?
The real problem with this episode (as with several others) is that can be seen as subscribing to the idea that the Pony way of thinking is morally superior to any other race. Spike is depicted here as being compassionate because he was raised by ponies instead of dragons, and while it doesn't go as far as to suggest that phoenixes have a horrible way of life, Spike's delight at bringing up Peewee the "pony way" can be interpreted in a negative manner.
The next season has an Author's Saving Throw where we learn that Spike eventually did return Peewee to his parents.
In "Secret Of My Excess", it's revealed that Spike's greedy behavior is normal for dragons. Fair enough. Yet the episode treats this like it's a bad thing. Let's just say a few members of the fandom were quick to notice parallels between this and how some people try to keep a wild animal as a pet by attempting to hinder its natural instincts and leave it at that.
Character reactions/interpretations
Angst? What Angst?: Discord was stuck as a stone statue twice, once for well over a millennium, and fully conscious both times. Once freed, he seems completely unfazed by the experience, even mentioning his boredom and loneliness off-handedly. Luna/Nightmare Moon is in a similar situation, having been sealed on the moon for a thousand years. Yet her sanity seems unaffected. Though in her case, the details of her imprisonment are much more vague.
As of "Magic Duel", Trixie's ego may very well stem from having spent a life being terrible at things, and being desperate to be the best at something.
Base Breaker: Pick a pony, anypony. There will be people who love him/her and people who think he/she's the worst character on the show and ought to be removed. Yes, even THAT Pony.
This is VERY notable with King Sombra, the villain of the Season 3 opening episodes. While some fans praise his intimidating looks, the fact that he's questionably evil on the show and the first villain who apparently actually got killed, others complain that he got extremely poor characterization, very few lines and didn't do anything much. Both those who love him and those who hate him seem to agree he lacked in screentime, but still others are perfectly content with how he was dealt with.
Alicorn Twilight, in which Twilight went from unicorn to Winged Unicorn, something that many in the fandom associate with her becoming a Physical God. There are the people who love seeing Twilight as a new Princess, and there are people who despise the thought of her with wings. Mentioning it causes any fans within a 15 mile radius to erupt in flames.
Princess Luna base is pretty much shattered, with a ever growing number of people hating her due to how over bloated her fanbase is most being full on Fandumb.
Pinkie Pie and Kirby, mainly because they are both pink heroes with huge appetites and also inflate there bodies at certain points (Kirby to fly, and Pinkie Pie during some of her random cartoon physics most noticeable during her Pinkie Sense when she found out that Twilight believing in her abilities was the doozy she predicted). They also have had trouble with dealing with bird based characters (King Dedede for Kirby and Gilda for Pinkie) so these characters do have a lot in common.
Pinkie gets a lot of comparison to Deadpool as well. Both characters are Fun PersonifiedMotor Mouths with a tendency to act completely random. Both characters also have Medium Awareness, but, despite what the fandom says, Pinkie's is official league's behind Deapool's.
Princess Celestia shares more than one similarity with The Doctor: they both lived an undefined long time, they both have a backstory enveloped in absolute mystery, they both had a particular event that changed their life and it's treated like their biggest failure (the banishment of her sister Luna/NMM for her, the Time War for him) and they both have cheerful personality hidden inside their aura of professionality.... oh, and they both have shades of a Guile Hero and are both very protective in regard of their subordinates/companions.
Same can be said of Celestia sharing some similarities to Optimus Prime.
Gets better; Rarity's cat Opal who is hostile towards anyone, respects him.
In "Family Appreciation Day" Granny Smith says and does a number of strange things which turn out to be very important for the harvesting of Zap Apples and the creation of Zap Apple Jam.
Creepy Awesome: Discord practically wrote the book on this trope.
There are some people who actually think that the Flim Flam brothers didn't cheat or "push people around," and that their bad moments were "few and far between".
Queen Chrysalis is starting to get this treatment, partially due to some people interpreting her as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who just wanted to feed her people.
Her minions, the changelings, also get this treatment. However, this is more justified, as they appear to bear little ill will and just want to feed.
Dudette, Not Funny!: Rainbow Dash, considering that some of her actions and pranks fall under this description.
Her behavior in "Luna Eclipsed" is a shining example of this.
Queen Chrysalis to an extent, for some. Some of her fan-art has been quite... provocative.
Face of the Band: For the band that played at the Grand Galloping Gala, Octavia is the most popular and always in the center of the band (or near it at least) during "The Best Night Ever" and the first to appear on-screen when they show up again during "Sweet and Elite".
Genius Bonus: Remember that rather prominent stars that were shining through the Ursa Minor's body?? When the whole thing was perfectly standing still and straight, guess what stellar formation they gave off.
To the Japanese fandom, Big Mac, Cheerilee, and Fluttershy are the top three most popular ponies. Big Mac is usually known by the honorific "Aniki" ("Big Brother"), Cheerilee is greatly respected for her teaching skills (earning her the nickname "Cheerilee-Sensei"), and Fluttershy has been regarded as an “Honorary Japanese” because of her personality.
According to a Japanese poll, Applejack is more popular in Japan than in the West, even beating out "Honorary Japanese" Fluttershy. A lot of fans even consider her an Ikemen.
Another poll taken in Laketown shows that Japanese children were very fond of Pinkie Pie (of course, Pinkie is extremely popular as a character worldwide). A translation of the Bushiroad conference even shows that the Japanese marketers think that Pinkie seems more fitting as a main protagonist than Twilight Sparkle.
Jerkass Woobie: The large majority of time in the Slice of Life stories however, said character brings it upon themselves out of arrogance or stubborn refusal to get out of an often easily escapable scenario and are handed An Aesop at the end of it all.
Luna, with the emphasis on "jerkass" in season 1's first two episodes, and the emphasis on "woobie" in "Luna Eclipsed". *
Wherein she just wants to be admired yet everypony else is running away from her.
Trixie is also often seen in this light, mainly because she loses her home after her debut episode.
Twilight Sparkle herself usually has plenty of legitimate reasons to be upset about her problems. However, her Super OCD-ness and inferior complex gets the better of her, causing her to make her own problems worse more than better.
Rainbow Dash in some of her lower points. To some extent, all the mane cast have moments in the spotlight that involve them acting arrogant or reckless, and paying a heavy price for it a couple of times.
Magnificent Bitch: Princess Celestia. Yes, her. If her plans throughout Season 1 didn't qualify her, then Out gambling Discord by sending Twilight some letters certainty does.
Queen Chrysalis is as cunning as them both.
A possible interpretation of Pinkie Pie can paint her as this. Despite her... bizarre personality, she always seems to be at least two steps ahead of everypony else.
Princess Celestia, memetic goddess. All but omnipresent even on this wiki. Things such as her defeat by Chrysalis almost immediately getting blamed on the Worf Effect and discussions of whether or not Princess Cadence is even a "real" alicorn can be pretty straightforwardly traced to this.
"The Great and Powerful" Trixie is one. In show, she's displayed as being somewhat talented, but rather pathetic in terms of power. The fandom likes to think of her as a worthy rival to Twilight who is equal in terms of power.
With the advent of "Lesson Zero", Twilight Sparkle of all ponies now bears this title (this coincidence◊ only adds to the hilarity).
The fact that next episode she used candy to lure Pinkie Pie into a dark alley, then pins Pinkie down and makes her promise not to scream hasn't helped.
Discord has also gotten a bit of this, mainly due to his No Sense of Personal Space with Twilight Sparkle, especially the scene were he runs his paw across her cheek. Of course, unlike the previous examples, Discord is actually evil and nasty enough for this to have at least some degree of validity.
Queen Chrysalis is quickly gaining steam. On top of essentially being a G-rated succubus, she, like Discord, has No Sense of Personal Space, placing her hoof on Twilight's chin◊ (What's with villains and touching Twilight's face?) and getting really close to Shining Armor (As both fake Cadance and in her true form!).
Memetic Sex God/Memetic Sex Goddess: Gonna save you some time here: basically every character. Which, to be frank, is highly disturbing.
Fillyshy. Even with disproportionately long, skinny legs (she's obviously going through a growth spurt), she's still as cute as ever, if not more so, in this "ugly duckling" form. Plus, she sings.
All of the Mane 6 could qualify to certain extents.
Moral Event Horizon: If by part two of Return Of Harmony you're still clinging to the idea that Discord hasn't crossed this, odds are his absolute glee over the fact that he has broken Twilight Sparkle's spirit to the point where she's near the Despair Event Horizon will probably destroy any semblence of morality you might still see in him.
The gang of dragon bullies from Dragon Quest collectively cross this when they attempt to steal the seemingly-defenseless phoenix hatchlings. Spike, on the other hand, stays on the safe side of the horizon by refusing to shatter the remaining egg when pressured into doing so.
In the two-parter episode, "A Canterlot Wedding", Fake!Cadance/Queen Chrysalis crosses this when she leaves Twilight trapped in the caves beneath Canterlot, which no one remembers even exist, meaning she'll likely never be found! Chrysalis even taunts her with that very fact! And if that wasn't enough, she probably crossed it even earlier by doing the same thing to the real Cadance herself!
King Sombra crossed this by enslaving the Crystal Ponies and basically breaking the spirit of an entire country.
Lightning Dust's rather indifferent response when she nearly killed Rainbow's friends.
Princess Celestia banished somepony into the Moon only once (reluctantly even) within the series' canon. The princess is now notorious within the fandom for banishing anyone or anything she dislikes into the Moon.
We have this to thank for most of the "TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" stereotypes associated with Celestia.
And not to mention the whole 'Molestia' thing ever since that one fanfic of the same name, 4Chan, fan tumblrs, and especially youtube videos.
Given that the first episode of season 2 reveals she dealt in a similar fashion (albeit with a different form of punishment) with another ancient evil, there may be more truth to this than fans ever imagined. Though in her defense, Luna helped do that one and Discord probably earned it.
Let's not forget Jerk Celestia which many fans enjoyed turning the princess into an unpleasant pony thanks to those memes and all, mainly in parody comics.
The candid photo of Celestia gorging herself on cake is another thing nobody will get over. At this point, any brony humor relating to Celestia is almost guaranteed to involve cake, banishment, or both.
The photo of Mayor Mare dying her normally pink mane silver in "Ponyville Confidential".
Really, a character does anything in this show entire memes will spawn and Fanon forged around it, especially background ponies. One of the most famous examples is Derpy's muffin obession is based on a line heard in "Applebuck Season". However she's among a group of other ponies that are also there for free muffins, some of them drooling, and she's among three ponies whose mouths flap in the scene.*
In fact, it could be argued the line better fits Sea Swirl/Seafoam and Minuette/Colgate's mouth movements, but that's over analyzing at its finest.
For another such example, Lyra Heartstrings' fanon personality revolves around her obsession with humans. This is based on her human-like posture in the background in one episode.
they call this state as "Pinkamena" due to the fact that Pinkie Pie's appearance dramatically changes similar to when she was a sad straight maned filly in her family's rock farm. This was also the time we learn of her full name for the first time.
only once in the entire series yet this is one of the things that she is known for. It's gotten to the point where everyone is expecting Pinkie's mane to deflate whenever she gets depressed.
And is portrayed as homicidal when it happens, instead of self-destructive. Though, the whole homicidal personality did not come from the show but from a certain fanfic.
Princess Luna being useless due to her absence from the Wedding's events has started to gather fan works already.
Scootaloo is known for being called a "chicken" even though she was called as one only once and it was because she and Applebloom were bickering on how to call a chicken.
Another thing that made this popular among the fans was due to the fact that Scootaloo doesn't seem to be able to truly fly even though she has wings. Just like a chicken.
Firecracker Burst was originally released with her description "Firecracker Burst loves watching fireworks and guessing how they'll look when they burst—it's always a surprise!" shortened to just "Firecracker Burst loves surprises!" Combined with her fire cutie mark, this led to fans interpreting her as a pyromaniac.
Gilda has yet to live down roaring at Fluttershy and making her run off in tears.
Cherry Fizzy is primarily remembered for one thing. Kicking Derpy off stage making her sad in Hearth's Warming Eve.
One-Scene Wonder: Many one-shot characters that have shown up for little gags have left a lasting impression. We should start with, of course, the pony patron of this trope: Vinyl "DJ Pon3" Scratch. Proof that all you need to be popular is to have a cool design, she originally only appeared for a few seconds in "Suited for Success" doing nothing but bobbing her head yet she became one of the most popular characters in the show. She returned in the Season 2 finale for the Dance Party Ending, revealing her eye color*
They're magenta, by the way
.
While Derpy is not a One-Scene Wonder character, her speaking scene in "The Last Roundup" came as such a surprise a ton of fans forget the episode was about Applejack.
Crackle, the rather amusing looking dragon in "Dragon Quest" that just so happens to look like the ponies' dragon disguise.
Paranoia Fuel: Discord is capable of shapeshifting. That's paranoia fuel enough for younger audiences (specifically, the target audience). He could be any stranger you meet!
When Pinkie Pie is chasing after you, go ahead and hide. No matter where you go, you can never escape. She will find you. Even when you're in a place that she couldn't possibly reach, yup, she's there. This is taken Up to Eleven if you break a Pinkie Promise, and she Turns Red.
The Changelings have the explicit ability and tactic of turning into your loved ones, and they can use mind control to keep you from noticing or fighting back.
Many people take the whole "Celestia is pony Hitler" thing a little too seriously and a little too far. Combined with Draco in Leather Pants towards Nightmare Moon for extra mileage. A number of fics involving Princess Celestia, who in canon is a kind, laid-back, accessible Reasonable Authority Figure who loves her subjects and sometimes engages in lighthearted mischief. In fanfiction however, "Trollestia/Molestia/etc" is a cruel and shameless prankster, a manipulative bitch, a tyrant, a rapist/annoying flirt, or worse. This kind of meme tread started ever since the show's very first premiere.
Pinkie Pie also gets painted as a cold-blooded murderer thanks to a certain fanfic and fans interpreting her breakdown in the episode "Party of One" based on said fanfic.
Or, people take Pinkie's Cloudcuckoolander, Genki Girl ways and interpret it into her being a bully, like in "A Friend In Deed" with her behaviour with Cranky, ignoring the fact that Pinkie Pie wanted to be his friend and, canonically, she is shown to have Ambiguous Disorder, No Sense of Personal Space and has a naïve, childlike outlook on things and desperately wants to please everyone.
Rainbow Dash and Rarity, as the Jerks With Hearts of Gold among the Mane 6, will occasionally get this treatment (the latter suffering the worst of all).
They actually seem to both provoke it or vent it onto another character, some fans think they are too arrogant and obnoxious, while others complain about them being hit on the head with An Aesop harder or being treated hypocritically by the other "nicer" ponies. "Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" invoked this trope hard with a large amount of the fanbase, though for which character in particular varies depending on who you ask.
Rainbow Dash is also portrayed as a psychotic killer in Rainbow Factory. She's also seen as more of a genuine Jerk Ass than a true hero by a portion of the fandom.
Rarity herself sometimes get this treatment. In canon, she's a somewhat haughty but kind pony most of the time. In fanon however, some fans enjoy taking her character and twisting it into her being a manipulative bitch or a psychopath, mainly in a few shipping fics that she appears in. Certain fan artists like Gavalanche continually portrays Rarity as a gold-digging slut who had Sweetie Belle out of wedlock and then burned her flesh with bleach in order to make her look like her sister. Half of his comics (the half not portraying Sweetie Belle as retarded) show Rarity trying to kill Sweetie in order to make her own life easier.
Twilight gets this treatment in yet another fanfic Severing. Also from this same fanfic is Celestia being portrayed yet again as a Ron the Death Eater.
Fluttershy also gets this from a lot of fans for taking several levels of jerkassitude in the episode "Putting Your Hoof Down." It doesn't help that she made Pinkie Pie and Rarity cry, and some fans use that particular moment to bash her. She has her moments in other episodes as well.
Ever since the show started, Princess Celestia herself got a rather unsettling reception on some of the show's fandom. She herself wasn't well liked by some fans due to the backstory of the two Princesses. It's made worse by the fact that thanks to 4chan, the Memetic Molester, the troll counterpart, The Worf Effect during A Canterlot Wedding, and especially the Ron the Death Eater treatment she gets half the time. Which isn't good considering that it ruins Celestia's reputation and sadly she isn't even a Designated Hero or Designated Villain in the first place.
After his behavior in "Putting Your Hoof Down" Angel launched himself squarely into this territory.
Although he has been redeemed in "Hurricane Fluttershy" for comforting and helping an upset Fluttershy.
Launched back to Scrappy status as of "Just For Sidekicks", and it's even lampshaded by the other pets giving him a Death Glare for his Jerk Ass behaviour.
Of all the CMC ponies, poor Scootaloo wasn't well liked by a few fans. Many fan complained that she was nothing more than a knock-off of Rainbow Dash or she was too boring to a CMC character.
Sadly, Twist gets it the worst since all it took was a nerdy lisp and already most fans have despised her regardless for the fact that Twist is a kind filly and was best friends with Apple Bloom.
Diamond Tiara also counts as a scrappy to fans. Granted, she's a bully, so she's not intended to be nice, but she's written so unapologetically cruel and meanspirited that Bronies just want her dead.
Snips and Snails. Just. Snips and Snails.
Take That, Scrappy!: Every time Diamond Tiara receives her karmic punishment.
In the episode "Too Many Pinkie Pies", one of the Pinkie Pie clones turns her face into a G3 pony's face only to get zapped and killed by Twilight Sparkle. This is even more noticeable in an ad for Season 3 in which Rarity and Fluttershy react to the face with disgust.
Snips and Snails get their just desserts in Magic Duel when they are abused by Trixie, whose cart they ended up wrecking through their own stupidity in her first appearance.
Fluttershy arguably even moreso; "Applejack, we can always fix that hole in the roof, but if you don't come home, [[{Narm} we'll never fix the whole in our hearts]]."
They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character: Princess Luna. With her being purified of her Nightmare Moon side, she was certainly set up to be a good recurring character for season 1, at least as a sidekick of sorts for Celestia, but she didn't appear at all. In season 2, they at least explained that "Luna Eclipsed" marked her first public appearance since being rescued, and then she was again clearly set up to be a recurring character again, but, alas, she still didn't appear at all for the rest of the season until the finale. But then, the finale manages to waste her potential even more. With Celestia losing her fight against Queen Chrysalis, it would have been a good opportunity for Luna to come in and avenge her big sister...but instead she managed to miss the whole event (a common fan theory is that she somehow just slept through it all) and then only reappeared with a few seconds left in the episode and a single line of dialogue.In Magic Duel, Twilight needs an expert magician, and Celestia is out of the country, so who does she go to? Zecora◊. Kinda justified because Everfree forest was much closer than Canterlot. Also Twilight actually says during the episode that without Spike, getting a message to anyone would take way too long, suggesting that she thought of it, put Zecora was the more practical answer.
Season 3 seems to be looking to avert this, with her having appeared in two episodes so far.
Another one is KingSombra. While arguably the most competent and deadly of villains, Sombra was portrayed with so little character development and focus, many fans find it difficult to feel the impact he was meant to have on our heroes. His forms were frightening, his abilities were terrifyingly powerful and his legacy on the Crystal Ponies was more than unsettling, which only makes it even worse that he had very few lines and didn't even interact once with the mane cast. Top it all off with a rather anti-climatic death in the form of being blasted to oblivion, and one can't help but feel slightly bitter about it.
PrincessCelestia herself. While her personality is well established and known, her (including Luna's) backstory were not explored further. What's more disappointing is that the chances of having a Celestia episode or a major role of a certain episode aside from exposition and possible plot device is very slim at the moment. Naturally on many fanfics would explore more into her character but not in the same way the show makes her to be.
The Ursa Major cuddling its Ursa Minor cub? Equal parts hideous and precious.
With her braces and ugly 80's style, younger Cheerilee was definitely less attractive than her current adult self.
Even the vultures are adorable and Fluttershy loves them.
Snips and Snails also count.
And even Discord for some people.
Some fans have hoped and prayed for a return appearance of the Diamond Dogs for this very reason.
What about the scraggly, doe-eyed mule in brief appearances in "Applebuck Season" and "Hurricane Fluttershy"?
Queen Chrysalis may count due to her enormous green eyes and Cute Little Fangs.
As well as her changeling army, to a certain degree.
Tank, Rainbow Dash's pet tortoise. "Aww, look. He even smiles slow."
Uncanny Valley: The pony's faces look extremely human-like when viewed from the front, and, when combined with the horselike ears, can look quite unsettling... And then designs for Equestria Girls came in...
The artwork in the Expanded Universe picture book Under the Sparkling Sea sometimes falls under this. Mary Jane Begin is a good artist, and to her credit the illustrations are wonderfully painted, but her detailed pseudo-realistic art style doesn't mesh well with the cartoonish character designs (most evident with faces).
There have been two ponies so far (Lickety Split from "Secret of My Excess" and the young earth pony who gets a bowling Cutie Mark at the beginning of "The Cutie Pox") who have male-looking head shapes, but also have eyelashes which are only visible when their eyes are closed or not fully open.
Scootaloo and Babs Seed. Both have short hair and rather masculine demeanour and voices. About the only giveaway as to their real gender are the very short eyelashes carried by both of them.
Rainbow Dash can qualify for this. Besides being primarily blue (a typically masculine color), she often behaves in a boyish manner and is voiced with a classic example of the young-boy-portrayed-by-female-voice-actor voice. You could probably come up with a good Drinking Game. Just take a swig every time you have to correct yourself for thinking of Rainbow as a him.
Played for laughs in "Suited For Success". After Rarity's fashion show ended in disaster (thanks to trying too hard to give her friends "perfect" dresses), suffering a brutal review by a fashion critic and getting laughed at by the other ponies, she locked herself in her shop and cried out in shame and depression. This one may actually be justified, since she just wanted to please her friends, since they didn't like the dresses she made, and she didn't know that the fashion show would end up in disaster.
Rarity: Leave me alone! I vant to be alone! I want to wallow in... whatever it is that ponies are supposed to wallow in! Do ponies wallow in pity? Oh, listen to me! I don't even know what I'm supposed to wallow in! I'm so PATHETIC!!!
Rarity is the master of trope, but Twilight can wangst something fierce too.
Rainbow Dash: AAAUUGH! What do I do?! Everypony's going to see me fail! The Wonderbolts will never let a loser like me join! Princess Celestia would probably banish me to the Everfree Forest! MY LIFE IS RUINED!
Wheelchair Woobie: Played with. Every time she used her adult walker, Granny Smith was the butt of a joke.
When Gilda terrifies her into thinking there's a rattlesnake, she gimps away as fast as she can. Which is no faster than she usually moves. You just don't do that sort of thing to someone as old as Granny, which explains some of the hatred towards Gilda.
Oddly enough, the one time a character was actually in a wheelchair (Twilight after she fell down some stairs), it was treated as Amusing Injuries.
Fandom reactions
Americans Hate Tingle: According to various queries, Russians hate Rarity - she fares only on par with one-off and background ponies, way behind the mane cast. CMC and Spike are even worse. "Lesson Zero" is considered one of the worst episodes, same for all CMC episodes. Surprisingly, "Sisterhooves Social", despite being heavy on CMC and Rarity, is rated very high... two negatives equal positive?
Comments left on Japanese fansubs indicate that Trixie is not thought of very highly over there - her bossiness and show-offiness makes her seem (even more) disrespectful and unsympathetic. At least initially. See Germans Love David Hasselhoff above.
For the 2012, both of FIM's entries for Best Original Song lost to "Happy Little Land of Hoboken". To say the fandom wasn't happy was an understatement.
Awesome Art: Many fans love the show's colorful and unique art style.
Art Evolution: This has only increased in the second season. And in season 3, they're raising the bar even higher!
Broken Base: With the fandom as large as it is, this is inevitable. Some dividing factors include the Aesop of some episodes coming off the wrong way to some fans ("The Mysterious Mare Do Well" being a prime example), the portrayal of fan-favorite characters, and whether or not Fandom Nods are good for the show.
While humanization of any of the pony folks won't cause that much of a uproar, it will when they add their own indication on their race or ethnicity.
Alicorn Twilight. You can probably split it between those who love the idea, those who are not opposed but would have preferred to have a better build up, and those who hate it with a passion of a thousand fiery suns.
Canon Fodder: The fanfiction community for the show is one of the biggest and fastest growing fanfiction communities in all media fandoms. One of the many reasons is the many gaps in the details about the history of the FiM universe. Fanfic writers have a field day answering questions such as "What turned Luna into Nightmare Moon?", "What happened between the founding of Equestria and the rule of Discord?", "Where does the Hearts and Hooves Day backstory fit into this?", and so on.
The whole fandom kicked off because of an article on Cartoon Brew — written before the show even started airing — saying that the very existence of the Hub represented (exact words) "The End of the Creator-Driven Era". How ironic when Friendship Is Magic turned out to be proof of how dramatically a creator-driven approach can improve a Merchandise Driven franchise. The article's hubris attracted a lot of attention from 4chan's comics-and-cartoons board, whose visitors decided to watch the show for themselves just to spite the writer.
Additionally, it's been an uphill climb for people spreading the news about how good the show actually is. The first discussion thread at Something Awful was a veritable mine field of Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch. Oddly, the second thread, after having been going strong without too much trolling and attracting dozens and dozens of new fans to the show for almost 150 pages (!!!), and generating over a thousand dollars in account, avatar, and banner purchases, was unceremoniously deep sixed. The moderators explained that they disliked having to patrol a thread in which people talk about how much they enjoy a cartoon directed at elementary school-age girls. Incidentally, the Star Wars Clone Wars thread is still okay...
This decision was actually good for both sides: The posters in that thread simply moved their discussion to an off-site forum. The ponygoons now have a whole forum to themselves while the non-fans don't need to be annoyed/creeped out by said ponygoons. It's also caused a bit of a Streisand Effect: Why on earth would a show that's as innocuous as My Little Pony cause such a commotion?
A word of warning for those who want to post on their forums: They loathe Ponibooru and will ban anyone who posts a link to it (because of its NSFW nature). They suggest using their own image site, Bronibooru. Which is free from NSFW images and images of terrible quality.
They also have their own website with well-written editorials if you want an alternative to EQD.
A similar incident occurred on 4chan on February 27, 2011note ironically, almost exactly one year after Robot Unicorn Attack day on /v/, when a moderator , without warning, decided to place an autoban filter on the website, making everyone who posted the word "pony" or "ponies" receive an automatic one day ban. People who were not posting anonymously received a 2 week ban. However, Pony Threads on /co/ were accumulating, on average, one post every fifteen seconds, twenty-four hours a day, constantly, for weeks, resulting in hundreds being banned. No real justification was given, other than "pony threads were shitting up 4chan." Many pointed out the hypocrisy in that just as many threads were constantly posted about Batman or Homestuck on /co/, and that the rules of /b/ stipulated that users can post anything they please. The moderator(s) refused to listen, so for about 12 hours, all of 4chan was incapacitated due to angry bronies protesting (as well as people who didn't like/watch the show but thought this whole thing was stupid). Eventually the moderators relented and removed the autobans (but didn't unban anyone that was banned). This historic event became known as "The Great Pony War", which bronies are sure to tell their children for years to come.
A radio show in Pittsburgh made fun of this wired.com article about the fans. Another radio show also lambasted the show and its fans, at one point claiming it was causing the decline of society. Not long after, a TV "news" team followed up a report of a man filing for government unemployment benefits because he was too busy with some fandom he was in to get a job... with a brief blurb about bronies that heavily implied that they do the same thing.
One such radio show ("True Capitalist Radio", hosted by a fella under the alias "Ghost") has since become a frequent target of internet troll raids due to Ghost's tendency to do acrobatic pirouettes off the handle in reaction to just about anything that draws his ire.
NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and Redeye (A Fox News opinion program) also poked fun at the fans, but were considerably gentler about it. The latter asked "how ashamed" bronies should feel, and one of the guests did imply that bronies were drug users.
On the other hand, In Living Glover stated the above-mentioned baseless idea that bronies are taking disability because they like My Little Pony too much to actually work as fact.
Daniel Ingram, the show's composer, gets some of his own worship for composing the series' Awesome Music.
M.A. Larson is one of the more well-received writers on the staff, most famous for "Sonic Rainboom", "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", Discord's debut two-parter, and the full-fledged introduction of Princess Luna.
This attitude has gone sadly extreme, actually: There is a large amount of Fan Dumb (mainly of the Theocrat variety) who hold Faust to be absolutely infallible and praiseworthy, and a smaller, but still significant, reaction Fan Dumb who get irritated at others' praise of Faust, and paint her as an ungrateful quitter (after she left during season two), a Moral Guardian, or any number of insults concerning her style, attitudes, or actions.
Dude, Not Funny!: Rule 50 is very much in effect with this show. And then images appear on gallery sites and search engines that show, among others, Celestia photoshopped into a picture of one of Hitler's parades. Or the mane cast appearing in the American Civil War. Or most infamously, Rainbow Dash becoming a Holocaust victim.
The Molestia jokes to an extent became very old rather fast for many fans.
Scootabuse is this.
During a livestream of the episode "One Bad Apple", some hackers claiming to be from /v/ decided to troll the viewers by cutting into the video with a message that they've been hacked by /v/ and asking "U mad, horsefuckers?" it's especially ironic given that the episode in question has an anti-bullying message.
A few people got sick of the Trollesta/Molestia/Tyranlestia/etc jokes that are implemented on Celestia all the time in fanon.
The same can be said of Cupcakes Pinkie Pie which is way worse than the Molestia treatments
While Scootabuse is slowly dying, Sweetieabuse is pretty much dead at this point.
Epileptic Trees: For a show where the creators claim they don't "hammer logic very hard", the fans sure like to speculate on stuff. Just look at our own massive Wild Mass Guessing pages. Yes. Pages. Massive pages. And we're probably gonna need more.
Fanfic Fuel: The fanfiction community for FiM is huge. In addition to the Canon Fodder described above, the show has the tendency to drop things that serve as good starting points for fanfiction.
Fandom Berserk Button: Don't ever say anything bad about Fluttershy if you know what's good for you.
Going meta, altering Derpy Hooves is the fandom's Berserk Button.
Fandom Rivalry: Some Fan Dumb of FiM are pissed that it got snubbed at the Daytime Emmys for Transformers Prime, however for the most part Transformers fans and My Little Pony fans get along, which makes sense if you consider most male Pony fans probably grew up watching Transformers instead of Ponies. Also, both properties are owned by Hasbro, so there is a natural brother/sister dynamic. In fact, the Transformers fanbase and the "old" MLP fanbase, the one who existed even before FiM came along, have historically had good relations.
There is also a bit of vitriol between FiM and Homestuck; for quite a while, whenever ponies appeared on Homestuck image boards, everyone would flip out, and vice versa for pony image boards. However, after the Homestuck Image Board hit a Hard Reset and lost all of its comments, the pony-Homestuck battles have lessened considerably (though they haven't disappeared completely).
In addition, Andrew Hussie, of Homestuck, seemed to help the rivalry turn into a friendship by putting Rainbow Dash posters in Dirk Strider's room.
In certain places, a noticeable hate towards Sonic the Hedgehog seems to be developing. Equestria Daily has had a ban on FiM/Sonic crossover content of ANY kind for a while now. This is due to negative reactions from staffers and beta readers, along with the volatile reactions whenever Sonic related content was initially posted. There are recent exceptions to this: a fan-made Sonic style Super Mode for Rainbow Dash has made it onto the Drawfriend posts and one fanfic that only featured Dr. Eggman/Robotnik and OC ponies got past the beta readers, only to get the same level of venom as expected in the comment box. Some theorize that the bronies hate Sonic out of the fear of becoming like the Sonicfanbase (and, at worst, they can come off as not being too far off). Meanwhile in the Sonic fandom, opinions of FiM are just about the same as you'd get elsewhere, although some of the saner Sonic fans will remark on how the brony Fan Dumb makes the SonicFan Dumb look easier to deal with in comparison. Despite this, there are plenty of crossover pictures and fanfic to be found (even shipping Sonic with Rainbow Dash). And, yes, at least oneAwesome Music mashup.
Fandom Rivalry even exists within the franchise. Scuffles are known to pop up between some of the Fan Dumb and those who're fans of G3/G3.5 and Tales from time to time.
Another major example occurs between Ponychan posters and "/mlp/" posters. The former sees that later as "bronies in name only" who do not follow any of the "love and tolerate" polices that the former believes the fandom is built on. On the other hand, the latter sees the former as "douchebags" who should just "give in to the internet."
Some fans of Educational Slice of Life programming also do not get along well with some bronies since FIM Season 2, with the former seeing the latter as crude trolls who ran a promising slice of life show to the ground by pressuring Hasbro to drop the Slice of Life format in favor of more villains and adventure, costing the show its E/I status. The latter sees the Educational Slice of Life fans as babies who should go back to watching Barney & Friends*
Adding salt to the wound, many Educational Slice of Life fans hate Barney for its unrealistic depiction of school and family life anyway, making this an extremely hurtful insult
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Ditto for bronies and the Battlefield 3 fandom, owing in large part to the fact that the first MLP thread on Battlelog was infested with rule 34 links and fandom arguments.
This also happens with Furries too. Some bronies subscribe to furry stereotypes, while some furries simply hate having to sift through dozens of pages of Pony art.
There are fans of previous generations of MLP who have received hate mail and death threats from bronies. If this isn't Fan Dumb to the extremes, then what is?
Fan Hater: There are some clueless folks out there assuming all bronies to be zoophiles/pedophiles.
4chan, particularly /v/ hates ponies with a passion, even today with the fandom at its lows. But then again, compared to at the show's peak, the site was flooded so much with viral material that the servers chugged constantly, forcing a ban on ponies to /co/ until the inception of /mlp/. During this quagmire, ponychan was created as a safe haven...and regarded as a hugbox because of it.
Rainbow Dash is considered by many in the fandom to be the "lesbian" pony (probably due to her boyish appearance, rainbow motif, and attitude... which happens to be exactly the stereotype that Lauren Faust dislikes).
After Lyra Heartstrings was shown sitting human-style on a bench, she was portrayed as having a marked interest in humans, even wanting to be one in certain works.
Derpy Hooves is depicted as a letter carrier who is somewhat obsessed with muffins, has a unicorn daughter named Dinky (who shows no connection to Derpy in the actual show, but looks like her), and is anywhere between Inspirationally Disadvantaged and merely a space cadet.
There are so many fanon surrounding the background ponies that we have created an entire page dedicated on documenting and studying it.
With King Sombra's appearance, some fans have shifted blame of Luna's corruption to him.
Fanontinuity Lockout: Fans talk so much about Fanon without forgetting that not everybody knows about Fanon that some people can feel a form of Continuity Lockout.
It is better off if one doesn't get too into the fanon, lest Canon comes along and renders it invalid. Flame Wars have erupted due to details in the actual show apparently not fitting their fanon exactly.
Works both ways. Many fans of the G4 toys also completely ignore the show for various reasons. The recent announcement that Hasbro is going to sync the toys to the show already has some fans of the toys crying foul.
Big Macintosh at least has his "gets all the mares" jokes to even it out. Braeburn, on the other hand, is probably written/drawn/whatever as gay just as often (if not more often) than he is as straight.
Fountain of Memes: Pinkie Pie is the primary source of the show's reaction faces.
The show in general, for that matter, with most of episodes having spawned at least one meme, and a few episodes that produced more than one.
Even the commercials aired during new episodes can become memetic - "Secret but(t) fun", Gyrobowl and Gak can be considered prime example (the latter even getting commercialsong remixes and a fan album within a day of it airing like mad during the Season 3 premiere. Just goes to show how explosive the fandom is with memes.
With fans of Valve Software games, since Team Fortress 2 helped spread the word of the show in its early days, and crossovers with Valve games are probably the most common pony crossovers.
With Doctor Who, thanks to the background pony "Doctor Whooves".
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Bushiroad at least thinks that this would be the case in Japan, as they gave its Japanese dub considerable hype and aiming it towards both little girls and the Moe crowd.
Girl Show Ghetto: A lot of male fans, though most people would argue it hasn't broken out of it. Lauren Faust's words on the subject:
"When I took the job, I braced myself for criticism, expecting many people — without even watching the show — to instantly label it girly, stupid, cheap, for babies or an evil corporate commercial. I encourage skeptics like this to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with an open mind. If I'm doing my job right, I think you’ll be surprised."
Growing the Beard: As beloved as the first season was, most the fans agree that season two introduced a major improvement to the show's formula by having Celestia ask all the Mane Six to send her reports on friendship lessons, meaning that Twilight no longer had to be shoehorned into a major role in every episode.
Guilty Pleasure: One of the main descriptives given by several fans for liking it.
Hypocritical Fandom: For a fanbase whose main mantra is "Love and Tolerance", they're surprisingly prone to infighting and being nasty with other fandoms if the Fandom Rivalry section is to be believed.
This reaches truly mind-boggling proportions if you're unfortunate enough to meet nastier bronies who are casually racist, sexist and/or homophobic. Its like the "Love and Tolerance" message is twisted to "You must love and tolerate us while we do what we want".
And for a fanbase who preaches about The Power of Friendship, there are a surprisingly amount of them who've burned their bridges with their old friends. Irony at its finest.
Bring up "Feeling Pinkie Keen" on the adult-fan websites. Fans argue over the intended message and if it was a good message to have in the first place.
Also the episode "Over a Barrel" seems to have this effect. These episodes were both written by Dave Polsky, which is probably no small coincidence.
Bronies were in quite an uproar over several toys of background ponies. More specifically, they were mad about the official names, which are the way they are not because Hasbro is snubbing the fandom (in fact, they do◊ try to utilize names fans have developed), but mainly because of Writing Around Trademarks, or the inverse, trying to create a name that can be trademarked.
Do not bring up "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" on any of the fan websites, unless you want to send everyone into a heated discussion over things like whether or not the episode was any good.
For that matter, DO NOT mention Merriwether Williams on any fan site. Not only will every thread drift back to MMDW, but things will always degenerate into a Flame War over whether she should still work on the show, whether she's gotten better, and whether or not she's wrecked the show.
Mention Derpy's behavior in "The Last Roundup" if you have to - but make sure you're wearing asbestos underpants if you want to stick around for the Flame Wars between the "There's nothing offensive about her character, she's just acting silly" camp and the "She's an offensive stereotype of the mentally handicapped" camp. Amy Keating Rogers even received a bit of hate mail for Derpy's depiction claiming she was offensive and a jab at mentally-challenged people, even though other characters in the show are depicted as similarly dopey and, as Rogers pointed out, she has a mentally-challenged son herself.
And then fans started causing a ruckus due to worries that Hasbro was taking Derpy down, based on iTunes removing the episode "The Last Roundup" (though The Hub's and later Hasbro's temporary online uploads still included it, and it's still on Shout! Factory's DVD The Friendship Express) and WeLoveFine removing and/or renaming their licensed merchandise (though in some cases only temporarily, as it turned out).
iTunes later re-added TLR with edits to Derpy's scene: she's no longer referred to by name, her voice sounds completely different, and her eyes have mostly been un-crossed. No, the fanbase did not take it well. At all. Even later, this edited version went on to be aired by The Hub.
Howard Stern's report on bronies has caused a lot of controversy between both fans and haters of the show, after he, to no surprise, portrayed the fanbase in a negative light. Fans completely unaware of how to handle a shock jock proceeded to send hate mail to him, which only gave him material for a followup.
There was quite a big one in response to the confirmation that Twilight was to become an Alicorn and a princess of Equestria alongside Celestia and Luna.
Derpy's canonization (having started with shirts and promos, with it all but confirmed in The Last Roundup) is one massive catering to the Brony community.
A number of seemingly minor interactions by the background ponies are a result of Ascended Fanon, such as Lyra Heartstrings and Bon Bon hanging out together, Berry Punch continuing to be an implied alcoholic, and Derpy having a muffin pin on her carry bag.
The mention that Alicorn Twilight and the possibility of a human-based adaptation being introduced has sent some bronies into an uproar, however. One of the main reasons of their complaints, of course, is this, due to the fact that there's a metric ton of fanart done of these very things well before they officially existed.
Periphery Demographic: The very existence of this work page's Troper Critical Mass and its many Trope Overdosed subpagesnote Even those subpages have subpages of their own. is evidence enough. You can go to any website and you're guaranteed to discover a member or two who is a fan of the show or even the existence of an entire brony subcommunity within that site. The fandom has grown so large that even news media is taking notice.
Scapegoat Creator: It used to be Dave Polsky, but since then Merriwether Williams has become the prime target for fandom scorn. To be fair, her first aired episode was not the best hoof to start out on. But since then, arguments have mutated from her just not getting the show, to more than a few fans pinning everything they dislike about Season 2 on Merriwether's shoulders. Merely mentioned her name on many fan sites can cause an immediate Flame War. Never mind that she's just the writer, and has to go through editors and other members of the production team before her episodes are aired, or that she's helped write great episodes on other shows before FiM *cough Band Geeks cough*. No, she's just a bad writer that doesn't "get the show."
This hits incredible levels of Fridge Logic when you consider that her next episode "Hearth's Warming Eve" was extremely well received by a majority of the fanbase.
Tainted by the Preview: The lead up to the "Royal Wedding" made many fans angry over just about everything. Of course, most fans agreed it was much better than expected.
"Magical Mystery Cure", on the other hand, was incredibly divisive before airing due to its use of Nothing Is the Same Anymore, and remains fairly divisive to this day, although not entirely because of Princess Twilight.
Some Slice of Life fans who were drawn to the show by Season 1 also feels this way about Season 2.
The pony names from the toys (which in most cases only JossedFan Nicknames rather than changing previously-established official names). To say that the fans weren't happy is understating things.
Some Japanese fans are upset at the fact that the Japanese version will be using different opening and ending themes, preferring that they use the original theme songs. One fan even made a "Hitler Reacts" video in frustration.
Unfortunate Implications: The idea that male fans enjoying a show primarily aimed at girls is unusual when girls watching shows aimed at boys is rarely met with anything but indifference. Why is it so incredible that a boy should like something made primarily for a girl?
You can blame the Girl Show Ghetto for this one: Most boy shows tend to have epic plots and solid characterization while most girl shows don't generally have that, thus if a girl wanted to watch something that wasn't vapid crap, they didn't have much choice and would need to settle for a boy show. Lauren Faust's original intention of the show was to stop this by making a girls show that boys would be envious of. Did she succeed? Hard to say, but the fact that most media coverage of the show isn't about how well written it is for a girls cartoon, but its huge male viewership probably means it didn't.
There's also the fact that some viewers seem to like the show despite being a girls show rather then because it is a girls show (which implies that being "girly" is still a negative thing, which is the very idea that Lauren is against).
Vocal Minority: Most fans enjoy it and will recommend the show to anyone, but that's as far it goes. The ones that obsessively push it are viewed as embarrassing to everyone.
Game Informer took a very lighthearted and harmless jab at the show in their Timeline feature, which led to an oversensitive brony sending an angry letter ranting about how the ponies are badass and "not frilly". They poked some lighthearted fun at him while sincerely acknowledging the show's quality... which led to more oversensitive bronies sending hate mail. By then, they could've easily ripped the bronies a new one and no one would've blamed them — yet incredibly, they took the high ground and vowed not hold a grudge against the fanbase. Instead of publishing any of their hate mail, they published a couple of letters from levelheaded bronies apologizing for the idiots in the fanbase. GI also specifically stated that frilly does not equal bad or lame — a sentiment Lauren Faust would agree with 100%.
Within the fandom, there are many people who voice their negative opinions of the show or certain episodes, and they are very loud and obnoxious about voicing their hatred. But judging by the amount of thumbs up comments praising the show or calling out the haters on EQD get, we have a Silent Majority of sane bronies.
Shipping
Despite the show being focused on friendship and very little romance outside of seeing a few married couples, shipping is quite popular. Especially Les Yay Shipping, probably due to there being so few males.
Broken Base: As in any fandom, some fans think everypony should be gay or lesbian, some get angry if a character is anything but heterosexual, and some get angry that shipping exists at all, citing the fact that it's a kids' show and that Lauren Faust specifically invoked No Hugging, No Kissing. And even more only subscribe to filly/adult pony ships or incestual ships.
Cargo Ship: Rarity x "Tom," a boulder nearly twice her size which she is hypnotized into believing is a diamond.
Big Mac and "Smarty Pants".
Crack Pairing: Most Discord ships are viewed as this, except Discord/Celestia, which is just straight up Foe Yay.
Discord/Twilight Sparkle also arguably avoids this status, if only because of Discord's peculiarfascinationwith her.
Doctor Whoof shipping has been done, usually with Derpy, Twilight, Colgate, or Roseluck in that order.
On the Team Fortress 2 front, there have been videos on Youtube shipping Rainbow Dash/Scout, Twilight/Sniper, Applejack/Engineer, Rarity/Spy, Pinkie Pie/Pyro, and Fluttershy/Medic.
Also Luna and Gentaro, due to being space related.
Double Standard/Selective Squick: It's rather jarring how lesbian ships are instantly accepted while male/male ones often result in death threats.
Dry Docked Ship: Many people in the fandom say that Discord is Celestia's ex.
And with Keep Calm And Flutter On It adds even more fuel to it with Celestia actually giving him a shot in redemption.
Some also say similar things about Rainbow Dash and Gilda.
Foe Yay Shipping: Twilight Sparkle and the Great and Powerful Trixie is a popular ship. Oddly enough, they hardly interact with each other directly in "Boast Busters".
You would think that with his grotesque form and his Moral Event Horizon crossing that Discord would not get a lot of shipping. You'd be wrong. Doesn't help that at one point he strokes Twilight's cheek. Discord/Celestia seems to be gaining the most steam, probably because of them being ancient enemies and both being Trolls.
As a kind of inversion, many fans prefer to think that instead of being involved or in the future, Celestia and Discord were once in a relationship which ended in a particularly nasty breakup, possibly resulting in Discord's being Taken for Granite.
Apple Bloom/Diamond Tiara for the Toy Ship variety.
Also Shining Armor and Queen Chrysalis, although this is mainly one-sided because she is using magic to hypnotize him.
Rainbow Dash tends to get paired up the most out of the cast by the fandom, to the point where it's easier to count the ponies she hasn't been paired up with on one hand. To drive the point home one artist paired her with a kitchen sink.
Also Big Macintosh, due to being one of the few recurring stallions. He too has been shipped with the kitchen sink. And yes, it IS what you think.
Also Spike, due to the fact he the only main male character in the show. He's been paired up with the Mane Six Ponies, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and many of the background ponies. It's easier to name who he hasn't been paired with in the long run. It also help that he's a literal Chick Magnet and Ridiculously Cute Critter combined into one.
Soarin' the Wonderbolt is starting to catch up to Big Mac as the Alpha Stallion of Equestria.
Discord turned out to be one. This is supported by a villains poster in which he has his arms around Nightmare Moon and Queen Chrysalis.
OTP: Lyra Heartstrings/Bon Bon, two background ponies that are often seen with each other when Lyra is up to her wacky antics. Of all the shipping pairings in this fandom, there seems to be some unwritten law of fanart/fanfiction that these two are not to be shipped with anypony but each other.
How extensive is this? The first reaction to any other pairing is cries of "Lyra is cheating on Bon Bon!" and vice versa.
Braeburn/Little Strong Heart also comes up, playing up the Romeo and Juliet angle as well as the fact that they were two of the more level-headed characters on both side of the conflict who wanted to try to work out a compromise beforePies were discharged.
In the two episodes he was in, Discord spawned quite a few pairings. Discord/Celestia, Discord/Pinkie, and Discord/Fluttershy seem to be the most popular.
Twilight and Cheerliee have been in many scenes together. Some consider it a neat variation of the Teacher/Student Romance where they are not actually their own teacher and student.
Even background ponies get shipped! Lyra Heartstrings/Bon Bon, Doctor/Derpy, Colgate/Berry Punch, Vinyl Scratch/Octavia are among the most popular pairings.
Some fans have shipped Derpy with Ponet, the purple, blonde-maned unicorn painter from "Call of the Cutie", to explain how she can have a purple, blonde-maned unicorn daughter.
Adult!Pipsqueak/Princess Luna. The squickier version exists, though thankfully not to an extreme extent.
Now, some people are pairing Fluttershy and Iron Will, supposedly because of the way that Fluttershy looks up to him and imitates his assertive method.
There's even a fanfic called Shipping Goggles that parodies all this.
The Japanese fandom was particularly big on this. Look Before You Sleep was tagged "Yuri" on Nico Nico Douga at one point.
Ships That Pass In The Night: Discord/Chrysalis is quickly gaining steam despite the only thing connecting them is their ability to shapeshift and their threat to Equestria.
Soarin' once bought an apple pie from Applejack. This alone is the basis for the rather popular Applejack/Soarin' ship.
Rainbow Dash briefly saving Soarin's life in "Sonic Rainboom" and his pie in "The Best Night Ever" has automatically made the two of them into a popular couple. The picture of them together at the end of "A Canterlot Wedding" only adds fuel to the fire.
Also on the Soarin ship is Braeburn, who has, as far as can be determined, never even been in the same city as Soarin, much less met him.
Twilight/Trixie has quite the fan following, even though they barely, if ever, spoke to each other in "Boast Busters."
Of course, nowadays season 3 has given the shippers all of "Magic Duel" to play with, too.
Vinyl Scratch and Octavia have never appeared in the same scene, episode, or even city together. They do share a a trading card that suggests that maybe they know eachother somehow, but that's not alot to go on. Doesn't stop people from shipping them.
When the episode synopsis of "Hearts and Hooves Day" was released, Twimac and Fluttermac (and perhaps Caramac) shippers started to go on the war path due the the possibility of Big Mac/Cheerilee becoming canon. The episode ends with a very ambiguous Maybe Ever After.
Although the Caramac shippers were still on the warpath after the CMC song about finding Cheerilee a date showed Caramel with a girlfriend. It doesn't help that even for those who don't pair him with Big Mac, Fanon in general tends to portray Caramel as a coltcuddler.
The Hub released an image of "A Canterlot Wedding" that shows what looks likes to some as Rarity flirting with Fancy Pants. Spike/Rarity shippers began to mobilize the fleets.
Although that might be neutralized by another picture that shows Spike dancing with Rarity's little sister Sweetie Belle. Then again, it might add more fuel to the fire in the eyes of the Spike/Rarity shippers.
The fandom really likes to pair up Spike with Apple Bloom.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Spike has apparently been paired off with each of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and some of their classmates in certain parts of the fandom.
The fact that Spike and Sweetie Belle were shown dancing together at the end of "A Canterlot Wedding Part 2" helps. In many stories he gravitates toward her after being rejected by Rarity, or being reminded that he has no chance with Rarity in the future with explanation.
Apple Bloom is also shipped with Featherweight, Diamond Tiara (mixed with Foe Yay), and Snips, as mentioned below.
Pipsqueak/Dinky for some reason has become popular. Theme Pairing, perhaps?
Also has a rather popular fic written about the pair (just close friendship in the story, but implied to possibly transition into a relationship once they grow older).
Scootaloo and Rumble as well.
Other
Ear Worm: So far, the majority of songs have been declared ear worms. Pretty impressive all things considered.
Admit it, themaintheme is pretty catchy and won't leave your head. Daniel Ingram even released the original version featuring just Pinkie Pie, The Princess of Ear Worms, and the DVD The Friendship Express includes the two-minute Theme Tune Extended as a sing-along.
The Winter Wrap Up song. Listening to it will make you feel like spring is just around the corner. Not bad for a video first seen (and later aired) in December.
Actually, any time Fluttershy talks would qualify with most of the fans.
The *Squee* heard in various episodes is just one of the Stock Sound Effects utilized by the show, but rather than just being used for squeak toys, it's often used for ponies smiling.
Rarity's singing is also very highly regarded, same with her sister Sweetie Belle.
The sound unicorn magic makes, as well as the very similar Sonic Rainboom. SHOOM
Princess Luna's indoor voice can be added to the list.
"Dear Princess Celestia...", so wonderful, its become a Catch Phrase for Tara Strong whenever she wants to make a Shout Out to bronies.
Pinkie Pie's laugh. Since she's the Element of Laughter, it really isn't surprising that her happy little giggle is nice to hear.
Princess Cadance's singing voice.
Older Than They Think: The bronyfandom is this. Believe it or not, back in the 80s, there were a lot of boys watching G1 due to the adventure-filled plots that were highly unusual in girl's shows at the time. (Obviously, they didn't call themselves "bronies", though.) But since 4chan didn't exist back then, the franchise never caught on as boy-friendly.
Another good example, that's slightly less old, would be Sailor Moon fans from the nighties gave way to pretty much the same reaction as we're getting now the whole "these guys are a pile of happy ciagarettes" from the haters and a "it's the turning point of masculinity" from the fans side.
Painful Rhyme: Crops up occasionally; the show's "songwriter" just composes the music and relies on the episodes' regular writers for lyrics. Pinkie's song in "Over a Barrel" invokes this intentionally.
Similar with Rarity, they also provided a sound effect for Pinkie's uvula wiggling around during her "I'm at the Grand Galloping Gala" song.
Overlapping with Shown Their Work, "Return of Harmony, Part 2" has the ponies' pupil sizes increase and decrease accordingly as Discord screws with the sun and moon.
The Crusaders did get some flak upon their introduction; but to some fans, they are now adored on par with the mane cast.
Many people admit to hating Rarity early into the show, since she comes off as dim, shallow, arrogant and useless - in other words, typical Rich Bitch, the very stereotype she is designed to subvert. It's not until a bunch of episodes, starting with "Suited for Success", came out, giving her a lot of screen time, massive Character Development, and actually living up to her element more often that they started warming up to her.
Before the airing of "A Canterlot Wedding", there was a generally negative opinion of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor, due to being an alicorn without any explanation and being Twilight's brother despite never being brought up before, respectively. In addition, it was generally believed that they were forced into the show by higher-ups at Hasbro. While there is still much grumbling about these issues, after the airing of the episodes, they have managed to gain a lot of fans.
Seinfeld Is Unfunny: The quality of the writing in the early Season 1 episodes (especially the two-part pilot) may seem quite low to people who are used to watching the later episodes, which have a lot more Parental Bonus and Fandom Nods. This was before Hasbro knew about the show's Periphery Demographic, so it's justified.
So Bad, It's Good: The Cutie Mark Crusaders' music performance in "The Show Stoppers". Admit it, you liked it just for its nostalgic 80's cheesiness.
Her helmet seemed to be re-used for her Commander Hurricane role in "Hearth's Warming Eve", however.
That is to say, cool for a superhero. For a formal dance... perhaps not so much. Then again, her reason for attending was to crash the Wonderbolts' performance with her flying moves, so it makes sense she initially thought the dress would work.
The live show at the 2011 Calgary Stampede. Unfortunately, unlike the other examples, this is notStylistic Suck.
Twilight's very awkward dance from "Sweet and Elite."
One pony at the party in "Call of the Cutie" drinking straight from the punch bowl instead of using the ladle provided.
There's also Pinkie Pie's party in "Party of One" with Gummy the alligator swimming in the punch bowl.
The "baked bads" from "Applebuck Season"; muffins made with lemon juice and live earthworms, among other things. Mmmm, tasty.
Rarity stuffing her head in a garbage can in "Party of One". She wasn't the only one trying not to throw up.
The way the parasprites reproduce. Apparently, they barf out their babies.
Which they appear to have been doing inside of Fluttershy's and Twilight Sparkle's manes.
Mr. Cake changing his new babies' dirty diapers in "Baby Cakes" — with his mouth. The fact that most of the action is just off-screen just lets your imagination assume the worst.
Watch It for the Meme: This is generally how many fans started watching the show, but quite a few of them actually care more about the show then seeing Lyra/Bon Bon in the background.
