My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic gets its own page due to the absolutely immense size of the fandom leading to many instances where the characters become defined by a few random events, a holding of a ball or two, or one-off jokes.
ALL spoilers on this page are UNMARKED.
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The Show
- Derpy Hooves is nothing but this trope. A five-second shot has a pony with Fish Eyes in the background, and the fans create an entire character based on her. She was part of a group interested in having some muffins when they were served to a group of ponies (the word "muffins" matches the lipsynching of at least one, possibly two other ponies), and everyone went with it; her toys' boxes even frequently feature muffins, and later appearances would list her name as "Muffins" in the credits. She drops a bunch of things on Twilight, and she's The Klutz.
- Ever since Sweetie Belle was shown to not understand that "more than I can chew" was a figure of speech, she gained a reputation as The Ditz. While there may be some some merit to this given that her plans tend to backfire, fans tend to ignore the fact that she is shown to be rather perceptive at times, making her at worst a Genius Ditz.
- Fluttershy wanting to be a tree, based on a random night conversation on a train. This received a Continuity Nod in "Hurricane Fluttershy" where she hides inside a tree costume to avoid participating in the local pegasi's efforts to supply Cloudsdale with water.
- Fluttershy's Sanity Slippage in "The Best Night Ever" forever convinced a large section of fans that she's secretly a Yandere.
- A Meme in which Scootaloo is secretly a chicken, based on a short bout of teasing from her friend Apple Bloom.
- Pinkie Pie being a sadistic serial killer who may or may not have severe childhood trauma, based on her Sanity Slippage in "Party of One", compounded by a certain infamous fanfic. Never mind that in the episode she was, at most, bipolar/manic depressive, which is many times more likely to result in self-harm than any violent tendencies. While Pinkie has certainly been sad before, she's largely remembered for this one time where she temporarily shut herself from everyone else.
- This also created the character of "Pinkamena" (based on Pinkie's full name), which is either a vicious alter-ego or a Superpowered Evil Side of Pinkie's, based on the same fanfic. Not only does Pinkie never act like this in the show, she didn't even act this way in the fic it's supposedly based on; Pinkie acting her usual cheerful self while doing horrific things was supposed to show how insane she was. Having an evil alter-ego would cheapen the horror. Didn't stop the fans from creating an entire character around it, even though the character never showed up in the show itself or the fic it's supposed to be from.
- Celestia is often depicted in fan works as an arbitrary and capricious dictator.
- She banished somepony to the moon once — a Mad Goddess and Superpowered Evil Side of her sister Luna named Nightmare Moon, whose scheme would have killed all life in Equestria had it succeeded. Even then, Celestia only did it with the help of the Elements of Harmony, and in the episode where this banishment is shown, Celestia is clearly torn up by having to banish her own sister to protect her people. This doesn't stop numerous fans from depicting Celestia as solving all her problems by banishing them to the moon, and even having her own Catchphrase ("TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOOON! BEEYETCH!").
- Before that, Celestia (and Luna, which no-one seems to remember) turned Discord to stone... after he conquered Equestria and turned it into a nightmarish World Gone Mad. Naturally, this led to depictions of "turn it to stone" being her answer to every problem that can't be solved with "send it to the moon". (Funnily enough, Discord seems to think this In-Universe. "Unlike you, I don't turn ponies to stone!")
- Luna herself has been hit with this. Her return in Season 2's "Luna Eclipsed" has her speaking in fairly accurate archaic English and having many outdated customs, all to drive home how utterly out of touch she has been with civilization since her imprisonment as Nightmare Moon. While she's been learning to speak in more modern English and no longer acts in such a hammy way, several fanfictions have portrayed Luna as speaking in nothing but Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe all the time, even struggling with modern vocabulary, and frequently acting like an individual of the middle-ages, even in an increasingly changing modern Equestria. It doesn't help that in the show itself, there are post-season 2 episodes where she can either speak with more modern terms and more frequent contractions or in downright Spock Speak with a few old terms thrown in.
- Rainbow Dash said "twenty percent cooler" twice and "ten seconds flat" once throughout the show's runnote , often seasons apart. To a lot of fans, these might as well be her Catch Phrases that she says all the time. The former was finally referenced after four years from its first use in Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks, where she says "twenty percent less cool." And even then, it's not the pony Rainbow, but her human counterpart.
- Twilight will never live down her Sanity Slippage in "Lesson Zero". In fairness, it was terrifying
. However, not only did Twilight have some basis for Sanity Slippage in "Swarm of the Century", but she did it again in "It's About Time". She's also had a few smaller breakdowns when she's stressed, and her obsessive-compulsiveness that leads to such slippage is shown to be a recurring character flaw that she routinely works on (such as "Games Ponies Play"). But to look at some fanart, Twilight was a loose cannon just waiting to go off at any moment. - Shining Armor did a Fastball Special with his wife Cadance exactly once in a life-or-death situation where there was no other option. (And it worked, saving Spike from certain death and the Crystal Empire from enslavement by King Sombra.) Since then, the fandom only knows Shining Armor as "Wife Thrower" (albeit affectionately).
- Lyra Heartstrings was once seen sitting on her haunches (like a human would) in "Dragonshy". After that, you couldn't swing your arm without hitting a fanfic, music video, comic, or some other fan work depicting Lyra as a human-obsessed fanatic bent on proving humanity's existence in Equestria, gaining hands instead of hooves, or becoming human herself. Lyra wasn't even the only pony to ever sit like that; future episodes depict more ponies sitting in similar ways, and this way of sitting appears to be normal behavior in their world. But Lyra's the only one who ever gets the "obsessed with humanity" treatment.
- "A Canterlot Wedding":
- Fans will not let Twilight's friends, her brother Shining Armor, and Celestia calling out and ditching her after the accusation scene, with a throwaway apology from Applejack afterwards. This is despite "Cadance" having an alibi for her suspicious behavior, and Twilight being a jerk about it even before she had a reason to be suspicious, had no proof for her claims, and admitted she was wrongly paranoid. Many exaggerate it as them cutting off ties with Twilight when they were simply leaving her out of the wedding, which would’ve been harmless if not for the unforeseeable Changeling invasion. This also ignores that Shining Armor was implied to be brainwashed by "Cadance", and Twilight's friends not knowing of or seeing what the audience and Twilight's saw, and "Cadance" making offscreen efforts to win Twilight's friends' trust.
- Celestia being easily beaten despite it being due to exceptional circumstance even the one who beat her was surprised by.
- The Season 3 premiere featured King Sombra, a villain who was intended to be a sinister and ominous presence in the vein of Sauron, but whom many fans interpreted as being an ineffective Orcus on His Throne. It looked like poor Sombra would never get to redeem himself in the eyes of the fandom, as he is the only villain on the show to actually be killed, rather than redeemed or banished. This changed with the season 5 finale, where a Bad Future where he wasn't defeated showed him as a frighteningly competent overlord, leading a brainwashed army capable of fighting the rest of Equestria to a standstill.
- Princess Cadance will never live down not inviting Spike — one of the key figures in saving the very empire she rules — to the preparations for the Equestria Games. In the episode "Equestria Games", she invited Spike to light the torch at the opening ceremony - and later the fireworks at the closing ceremony, giving up her own place to do so, but many fans still won't let Cadance forget the previous snub. Some fan works even go so far as to depict Cadance as racist against dragons, when she's never shown any hint of such a thing in canon, where she's an All-Loving Hero.
- Angel Bunny will never live down the domestic violence he inflicted on Fluttershy in Putting Your Hoof Down. He has never been seen doing this before or since, and has occasionally been shown comforting Fluttershy at her lowest moments, but the viewers will forever remember him as "the asshole who slapped Fluttershy and kicked her out of her own house over a cherry", and even demonize him in fanfics for this.
- Soarin the Wonderbolt had his first real debut scene in the season one finale "Best Night Ever", where he enthusiastically purchases an apple pie from Applejack. This resulted in many fans flanderizing him into being some kind of pie-addict. Said flanderzation became canon in "Rarity Investigates!" where he's shown sloppily eating a pie.
- Applejack's Gen 1 counterpart was made famous for being the subject of a song in a My Little Pony cassette tape from the '80s which is about her being a "silly pony".note The silly pony trait has been projected onto the Gen 4 Applejack by fans on account of her sleep deprivation and exhaustion in exactly one episode. Note that the Friendship is Magic version of Applejack is somewhat accident-prone and goofy, but no more so than nearly every other pony in this slapstick-heavy series.
- Rainbow Dash's G3 counterpart is best known for being a fashionista from G3.5, supported by the infamous line "Rainbow Dash always dresses in style" in the Theme Tune Roll Call. G4 Rainbow Dash is shown to be the complete opposite, as a Lovable Jock with a dislike of dressing in fancy clothes. Any time Rainbow does were a dress, the "always dresses in style" line will be referenced.
- Starswirl the Bearded is very often remembered as the guy who deals with villains by banishing them to other dimensions and making them other people's problems to deal with. In canon, this only occurred on one of the three occasions where he dealt with a villain — he banished the Sirens in this manner, while he locked the Pony of Shadows outside of any dimension or time alongside himself and simply befriended Scorpan — but very often he remains remembered as the guy whose go-to solution for problems is to dump them in other people's backyards.
- Sonata Dusk from Rainbow Rocks excitedly says "It's Taco Tuesday!" once in the film. The result: nearly every fan art of her including tacos or a reference to them. Her obsession is canonized in Sunset's Backstage Pass, where her costume features multiple tacos. One could also swear Sonata Dusk's Catchphrase was "for realsies", despite saying it a grand total of once throughout all My Little Pony media in which she appeared.
- Fluttershy was shown as being afraid of her shadow once in "Dragonshy" (while under immense stress over the fact that she could have to confront a dragon, even), yet it's a common part of her fanon characterization for some reason.
- Babs Seed for being The Bully, despite the fact she immediately stopped and apologized once her reasons and the issue were talked out, she protected the Cutie Mark Crusaders from being bullied afterward, and has been shown to be 100% redeemed and repentant in all her (admittedly limited) appearances in the show and comics since.
- Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon mocked Scootaloo for her inability to fly. Despite having been reformed in Season 5 and Discord and later Starlight Glimmer having been redeemed of far worse, many fans haven't forgiven them for it.
- Although Gilda has since then been reformed, a Vocal Minority still attack her for yelling at Fluttershy in her debut episode "Griffon The Brush Off".
- When the preview to "Flutter Brutter" was released, the Periphery Demographic got a first glimpse at Zephyr Breeze... and they were not amused at his characterization. When he turned out to be a lazy, manipulative jerk, they immediately accused the show of painting them as This Loser Is You. The backlash died down after the episode aired where it turns out he's a Jerkass Woobie with a crippling fear of failure, but some fans will still remember Zephyr from their first interpretation, even if it doesn't match how he's depicted.
- Big Macintosh has a secretly flamboyant feminine side, if his dreams of being an Alicorn Princess and enjoyment of wearing dresses are any indication.
- Strawberry Sunrise's very first appearance in the show was to proudly express her dislike of apples in front of Applejack. She even insults Applejack when she demands an apology from Strawberry Sunrise."Oh, I'm sorry... that you actually bite into those tasteless, mealyworm-filled things. Ohhh."
- What's worse, the whole point to her character was to establish that "having an 'honest opinion' doesn't mean you can go around expressing it and not risk upsetting others", something that Applejack was guilty of in the first place, and which she admitted. Yet fans like to depict her as a rude jerk overall who gets 'deserved' punishments from the morally correct Applejack.
- Some fans still hold a burning hatred against Starlight Glimmer for brainwashing the Mane 6 in "Every Little Thing She Does", despite the fact that she apologizes, spends the rest of the episode working to earn their forgiveness, and learns her lesson afterwards.
IDW comics
- Twilight acting Lawful Stupid and refusing to use her magic to help her friends in an issue dealing with buffalo in the Wild West, despite her never acting this way in the show. Even later comics where she's back to normal, which came off as deliberate attempts to atone, are used as examples of how the creators don't care about consistency.
- The 2014 Equestria Girls Holiday Special has easily inspired more fan works on it than any other My Little Pony comic book, albeit not for the reasons the creators wanted. Many a fan work has been created about this one issue of the comic, and the characters involved in the story have become indelibly linked to its events in the Equestria Girls fandom.
- The Human Cutie Mark Crusaders will never live down their cyberbullying of Sunset Shimmer. The comic's resolution was a Once Done, Never Forgotten moment — the Human CMC fully own up to and apologize for creating Anon-A-Miss and framing Sunset for it over what amounts to petty jealousy. It was also mentioned that the CMC could never fully take it back, since they couldn't magically delete everything everyone had posted, and they received six months of detention for it. Meanwhile, the fandom saw the Human CMC as being more Easily Forgiven than their pony selves despite being more antagonistic, despite that detention possibly being the harshest punishment any redeemed villain has received in the franchise. So both the canon and fanon pull this trope; the fandom just double-downs on it by making their punishments in fan fiction even more severe.
- Some fans also won't let the rest of the Rainbooms live down turning on Sunset Shimmer when she was framed for being Anon-A-Miss, even though the Rainbooms defended Sunset before doing so and ultimately heard her out. Many fics, be they Fix Fics or Betrayal Fics, paint the Rainbooms as being awful people for not believing Sunset in spite of the evidence pointing towards her, even if the evidence was fake. The impostor account seems obvious to the audience, but that's because the audience knows things that the characters don't know. Also, Sunset's "devious manipulation skills" in the first movie were just as obvious, and the fact that her attempts were transparently obvious were a major source of mockery towards Sunset Shimmer before she became a Breakout Character.
- Sunset Shimmer herself has become known quite a bit for this issue, despite being the victim and forgiving the Human CMC at the end of the story. To see some Fix Fics or Betrayal Fics tell it, Sunset will never get over being framed for being Anon-A-Miss by the Human CMC or for the Rainbooms betraying her. Even though Sunset truly was innocent in the cyberbullying, her reputation still had a long way to go before she was accepted by the rest of Canterlot High School, and Sunset openly admits she can see why people think it was her (even though she maintains that she's innocent). Yet in some fics, Sunset is incredulous that her friends wouldn't believe her (even though the Rainbooms did defend Sunset at first until evidence pointed towards her), demonizing the Rainbooms while sanctifying Sunset. Some fics even have Sunset be Driven to Suicide by the accusation, in spite of the fact that she ends the comic in a good place with the Rainbooms. Even fan works that don't revolve around the Anon-A-Miss story have been known to bring it up.
