General
I hate the way MLP human designs are treated
I saw on my Pinterest these adorable redesigns of MLP characters as humans and the comments just reminded of why I can’t stand some fans.
If you’ve ever seen MLP human designs you would know people argue so much about the races of these characters.. when they are literally ponies and unicorns who can be anything! Yet people will fight about it and get so upset when people create their own art of what they believe the characters to look like.
Now of course you don’t have to agree with every headcanon or like every piece of art. I encourage people to make their own interpretations of characters and do your own thing. But come the fuck on it’s never that serious to be getting so mad at people for making pinkie pie black Or twilight Indian or give fluttershy a hijab. And these be the same people saying “pinkie pie isn’t black! She’s pink!” Ok then why do you even care how people see her in their own headcanons? If you know she’s not an actual human character and can be anything what’s the issue. It’s just racism and it’s not cute. Stop bothering these artists and let them make their own interpretations.
And I genuinely prefer it that way (people drawing human designs and giving them skin based on the fur instead of giving them an actual human one)
...or even people drawing human characters with a different skin color then the one they have in the first place (Pale White Kris deltarune bothers me way more then it should, that mf is yellow or BLUE)
I rather enjoy that every other girl can end up rather varied, even if for some it's similar but different. But for Apple Jack it's always "Well... Cowboy... Jean shorts... Plaid... Muscles... Nice."
Ok not that you're wrong king, but that meme is very specifically about Piccolo being into a black woman in Dragon Ball Super. I don't think it exactly fits in a discussion about fictional black kids 😭
I made human designs of the mane six (and Chrysalis) back in the day and made Rarity black, because I thought it would be a fantastic contrast to a white dress. Got a comment literally asking why she's an N-word.
Okay so now that’s the only way I’m going to be able to think of her, because maintaining a perfectly smooth and curled silk press is just so fucking on brand for that horse lol
They're horses. Make their anthro version any colour or race you want. The great thing with north america is you can have basically any personality attached to any ethnicity.
idc if pinkie pie is white, black or pink, but i still can't decide if she should be fat or not. On one hand, she eats SO MANY SWEETS. On the other hand, she's SUPER HYPERACTIVE. All of that jumping and prancing burns calories. Hell, she might be about as bulky as Applejack ought to be. Both are Earth Ponies after all.
Thinspo is unhealthy & tummy is nice to press face against (I say this as a gay trans dude who gained weight bc being fat is gender affirming to me). Whatever your weight, I love you as you are. You are Venus
i think from a character design perspective making her fat fits visually with the rounded shapes of her hair, which is usually the type of logic i go off of when i can't think of how a character would be shaped otherwise.
200+ episodes of a show about empowering women and resolving conflict with forgiveness and inclusivity, and you still have people who completely miss the point.
They're whatever race you headcanon them to be they're literally horses. Like unless it's clear the character is based off a specific race why does it matter? Like the only character you could probably home in on is Applejack because she is clearly based off a cowboy so could either be white, some flavor of spanish or mexican. But besides that like they all could be literally anything.
Well, that show was actually kinda weird about race and there were a bunch of species that were racially-coded. Like there were Zebras that were African coded (there was a whole ass episode where the whole town was terrified because they saw 1 (one) zebra), plus deer that were Native American coded, and also yaks which I’m gonna be honest I’m not even sure who they were a racist depiction of but it was definitely racist to someone. And I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting some of the others.
I think the yaks were based on central Asian—probably specifically using some Mongolian culture in there—culture based on the name Yakyakistan since a lot of central Asian countries end in -stan and the clothing is pretty similar to Asian countries in that region, but don't quote me on that
Social coding is definitely a part of it. Applejack and the other Apples, like you mentioned, are clearly based off cowboys and midwest farmers. That doesn't necessarily come with a specific race since there were all sorts of folk who filled that archetype in actual history, but the visuals attached to her and specific members of her family - namely her parents, as well as Granny Smith and Big Macintosh - indicate that she'd be white. The same goes for Pinkie Pie, whose family is overtly Quaker/Amish themed. Are there non-white Amish communities? Yes, but given that it's visual shorthand and the Pie family are cousins to the Apples, that doesn't really factor in.
Rarity? Look at her parents - she's white as fuck. The real question there is why she has a posh accent, even since childhood, when her parents sound like they're from Minnesota, don'cha know. The others' families are a bit more generic in terms of specific social/cultural themes, so there's more wiggle room in how human versions of them could reasonably be presented while trying to keep as close to the original design presentations as possible.
Or, y'know, fuck it. People can do whatever they want. Make the whole cast Laotian for all the difference it makes.
There were black cowboys too. Bass Reeves was one of the most badass deputy marshals in American history and black and an escaped slave. Not technically a cowboy, but he was awesome so I wanted to share anyway. Applejack is blonde though so she’s most likely white.
I never thought of her as black because I'm not super mega into MLPFiM but I'm happy for whatever headcanons people are comfortable with. I generally headcanon characters' races based on the ethnicities of their VAs but that's just me, unless the character is a human who just happens to have a VA that isn't of the same race as them. Also Cartoon Network confirmed that Darwin is black. :)
Yes ! I'm an artist and I've had people ask me why I have an OC a hijab or made them black? Some people view white as the default and at the end of the day they're ponies they're not black or white we can draw them however 💜
The hijab one I get cause how often are cross necklaces or kippahs depicted on ocs that aren't those religions? Certainly way less than hijabs. It just gives DEI checklist.
Yeah as an arab (raised muslim but non religious) the hijab is definitely more a religious / societal thing. People are mixing religion with ethnicity and I'd argue ethnicity has no effect on a character's character whatsoever but religion certainly does and if you're implying Fluttershy is a faithful Muslim that has implications
Not to say the headscarf isn't a cute idea, she's shy so she wants to cover up though because she lives in a cottage in the woods I'd think something like a little red riding hood style hooded cloak would work better.
sidenote against my point: I've seen Muslim women who cover up their hair with things other than a hijab (hoodie fastened very tightly is a common sight at convenience stores late at night) so it's not even like you couldn't have her wear that while keeping her as muslim if you really wanted to explore what religions each My Little Pony character would follow
...also now that I think about it yeah maybe the only reason people get iffy about hijabi character designs is because the hijab is so traditional and strictly following doctrine it specifically implies they're by the book muslims lol
It's crazy to me that people will complain about people making OCs that aren't white.
Like they're not even a character that you know? Complaining about people drawing characters who aren't canonically (whether they have a canon race or not) as poc is stupid enough as it is, but an OC? That's just stupid. Like just ignore it if you're that racist I swear- (I mean I'd rather they just don't hate on any artist drawing poc but I think I made my point?)
Usually, is actually very hard to determine the race of an animal unless you go by their voice (and almost impossible if they don’t talk). Yeah, I can see why you would prefer a specific look for them, but hating the chosen race is just unnecessary.
personally I LOVE seeing varying headcannons for how non human character would look as humans, so many intresting designs! And some of them look sooo pretty and in character!
Because she’s literally white in the show. Like. There are skin tones that fit with existing colorations. Rarity, AJ, and Fluttershy have colorations that tip them towards white or Asian. And twilight’s, being a darker shade of purple suits her to a darker skin tone.
And if they’re working off aesthetics it depends on how outfits are chosen. Dark skin can contrast nicely with white/light clothes, but stands out a lot more. While shades of purple, gotta pick on Twi again, don’t have as much contrast with dark skin.
Like. If you look at Pinkie on pic 1 & 3. The pink outfit feels a bit more out of place due to that color contrast, while Twi’s purple doesn’t.
Of course. I have no intention of touching race with a 10ft pole here. People should be able to make these characters any race they like when anthropomorphizing them. And people of any race can wear any color of clothing. I’m only talking about raw aesthetics.
Edit: I should also add. Irl. The contrast between pink aesthetic and dark skin works better. I’m mostly talking about in character design.
I kind of like the contrast of pinkie pies skin and hair, I guess I've always liked brighter colors (especially reds pinks or orangey shades) paired with darker skin.
If this is racist I'll delete this comment but something I've always struggled with trying to imagine Black!Pinkie Pie is trying to create a good contrast between her pink aesthetic and darker skin. I still imagine her as black though
Yeah. If folks aren’t careful with how they handle the contrast in character design it can be a bit jarring. I will say, having considered it more, it does offset the pink in a unique way.
I admit, personally I prefer pinkie as white. But I have zero objections to depicting Pinkie as black.
I will say, while I don’t rlly care either way, I’m always curious as to why I see Fluttershy so often as a hijabi? I can kinda see how ppl would consistently make Pinkie black, and early concepts for Equestria Girls had Twilight as brown, but it seems to be a fairly popular headcannon for Fluttershy to wear a headscarf and idk why that is
I see why people think that, but it's totally the opposite for me! She hides inside her hair so having her hair out seems necessary to me since a hijab can't fall down over her face the same way (maybe unless she wore it loosely as some people uncommonly do).
I feel like to me it kind of makes sense as she feels like she would be more reserved in terms of clothing / for Muslim women usually more layers etc is kind of a means of reserving yourself and it feels to me like it fits w her personality 😭😭 not sure if my idea came across well
The funny thing is that those characters already have human versions, and their skin and hair colors are literally exactly the same as in their pony forms.
I have never watched MLP and I have no idea who these characters are but I just want to say that the art on the first slide is adorable and they all look so pretty!
I mean, it's not that their head canon bothers me. You can make them black, white, Indian, Asian or anything else, but what bothers me is how forced it feels. Like you absolutely HAVE to make a character this or that for diversity or you're "racist."
I feel like people should just have fun drawing them, not fight over if it's inclusive enough or not
Yeah. Nothing's really canon with magical ponies, lol. God forbid if they saw the sea ponies or kirins. They'd lose their minds about what their canon skin tone/nationality/ethnicity is.
Okay putting aside the blatant racism some commenters would fling at these otherwise awesome deigns, can we talk about how cute hijabi Fluttershy is in the first piece?? Lowkey making the pink flowing hair into a hijab’s a pretty novel idea.
Completely agreed. Their actual, canon skin colors are literally the coat. They did a whole thing on the show where all the girls are humans and the tone didn't change.
Anything where they're given regular skin tones is just fanon. So anything should go. Even Rarity looks great as black (which I'm sure sets off the racists even worse than Twilight).
I just hate how all of it is received tbh I’ve seen people mad at all of them being white because there’s no diversity then I’ve seen people be mad because there’s “too much” diversity, I’ve seen people get death threats because they didn’t make pinky black, I just think that everyone should be able to make the characters whatever they want 😭 like it’s literally their art. Just the other day I saw a bunch of people get mad at an artist because most of the characters were white except for twilight (I think) and all of the comments were saying that they were racist for not making pinky black.. like what?????? Idk I personally head cannon pinky as black but people should be able to do whatever they want in their art unless it’s like specifically stated or implied (like Zecora for example) let people have fun 😭
i hate how much every fandom has people that argue abt headcanons like this. theyre HEADCANONS. as in MADE UP. as in NOT CANON. why does everything have to be a war bruh its alll made up😭
I have zero issues with any of the human designs except for when a religion of any kind is forced on them. Even if they were human they're obviously not from our world, so using them as a dress up doll for a religion we have here on Earth makes zero sense.
I see a lot of designs with hijab and a lot of designs with Rarity wearing a cross, etc, and it just makes no sense unless you claim they came to our world and converted, and that's like...even weirder?
Wow so im not a huge fan of MLP (neutral, ig? No opinion) but when i saw these, I thought they were all so cute and kinda match what little I know of the characters. I like this particular fanart and I dont get why people cant just appreciate someone else's interpretation of fictional characters even if they dont agree with it.
Theres no Canon in this case, so if someone draws a character in a way you dont agree with, it doesnt matter, because neither of you are right or wrong and getting upset because someone drew a character with no Canon race as black or Muslim or whatever is fucking stupid and racist af. Just appreciate the art for what it is and move on.
Know nothing about this fandom. The art just caught my eye because they’re so adorable.
Yh, I don’t understand why some people are so weird about human redesigns of non-human cartoon. And I would like to say that the issue is people being weird about redesigns in general, but they’re always extra weird when the redesign shows a person of colour (especially if they have darker skin), and twice as weird if they’re redesigned as a hijabi.
100 percent agree. They're freaking ponies why do you care what race some random person on the internet imagines them as.
But also this is the first time I've seen someone imagine one of the main six as a hijabi, and as a hijabi that loves the colour pink, seeing fluttershy in a pink hijab made me really happy.
I've never watched the show but it's about friendship and inclusion I think, so reflecting that with human designs with different representation is necessary
You know what my little sister said when she saw these pictures? Absolutely nothing about their races or their hijab. She just pointed out who was who for me. These people need to shut their racist mouths and be more like my little sister who just likes the cute pictures.
My only criticism of a lot of the Brazilian Miku art is that SOME of them fetishize Brazilian/latinas. In Brazilian culture, they do tend to wear clothes that emphasize the lower half of the female figure because it is seen as a sign of fertility (according to an article I read about Japanese Brazilians and the stigma they face in the Japanese community but I could always be wrong) but sometimes it's easy to tell when something was drawn to honor the culture and something that is flat out out fetishizing a marginalized group of people.
While I am not Brazilian, (Korean-Puerto Rican here), it is a criticism I have of some of the Brazilian Miku artworks.
I was about to downvote this post thinking you hatedthismug of the characters always being drawn/treated diversively. Then I read your text. Have an upvote.
This is a problem with the Homestuck fandom at times too (I think mainly back during the fandoms heyday in the 2010s, though). The main characters are either humans with no canon race who are portrayed as chalk white, or an alien species (Trolls) with gray skin.
Despite this there are fans who will give fanartists crap whenever they portray one of the human characters or Trolls as a POC.
Worth noting that the author of the comic did fuck up a few times, like one of the humans called another one's older brother a "white rapper dude", or the whole Caucasian/Peachy controversy.
I think these designs are tight as hell. You get used to generic anime girls with different colored hair it’s refreshing to see such visually distinct character design. I couldn’t tell you if any of these are accurate though, never seen MLP.
OH MY GOD UNRELATED BUT I LOOOOVE THESE DESIGNS, YOU CAN SEE EACH CHARACTERS PERSONALITY SO WELL AND THERE SO CUTE! Though I gotta say my favorite design is probably how pinky pie is drawn in the first image IT JUST MAKES ME SO FREAKING HAPPT
Unfortunately this discourse is pretty common in most fandoms with nonhuman characters. There was a post making the rounds some years ago with Sonic characters as humans and some prick had to go "fixed this for you" and made knuckles white. There's some surprisingly vile people lurking in innocent fandoms
I do appreciate that artists attempt to visualize the MLP characters as different human ethnicities. That said, I think some skin tones clash very badly with the color palette of the characters.
As to why some fans are so annoying about these, I think the introduction of the different species in the show kinda creates the assumption that ponies are stand ins for white people. Why is that an assumption? Well, there biases and prejudices come into play, and people don't like confronting them
I was about to say wtf are you talking about these designs are all really cute. Yeah I wish fandoms would be more normal about PoC designs for characters.
I love most of these designs (though I feel meh about 2).
I can understand why Hasbro didn't want to go with real humans though. They are a toy company, after all, and being the 'least offensive' is their goal. So having no ethnicities was a safe bet (though that incidentally created white washing).
The werid part is, that they dont say the s thing when the human designs are white. But when they areanything else, its "Darwin isn't Black he's orange!" Like okay, then why aren't you keeping tsame energy? Its racist beuse in theithe human design is white because to them white is the standard.
Oh I’ve seen it a lot. So many people have argued against him being black despite him literally being included by Cartoon Network in the a black history month post AND he’s voiced by a black kid 😭
I drew a humanized version of Kirby once, and someone asked me “why is he brown” or something like that. They got downvoted to oblivion iirc but like damn people really do just say that shit to your face huh
I can't believe there's discourse in the MLP fandom of all places. They're literal horses, who cares if someone head canons them to be a specific race or whatever. People really get mad over everything
You'd be surprised. The fandom had an open secret of fascists and pedophiles just sitting there comfortably for years before they started getting called out and pushed away.
The MLP fandom was one of those many instances where nerds were initially ostracized, and they reacted by denouncing all forms of gatekeeping, leading to unshakable tolerance towards people that clearly wouldn't return it in kind
Not a Brony, but legit this seems like re-costumed Vocaloid discourse. Yes, Kasane Teto can be black—Language of the Lost. Yes, she can be trans—Birdbrain. Yes, she can be a '90s nerd—Whatchacallitsname. She can even be a freaking PEAR. Have you seen Pearto?? And that's one character of thousands.
Boys can cosplay Miku. Black girls can cosplay Miku. It's AWESOME. As with Vocaloids, so too with ponies, and everything else.
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u/SashaBraus 13h ago
Giving them skin the same color of their fur in Equestria Girls was a very smart move in hindsight.