When I posted a pic on the Fluffy Metropolis, u/Lycaon125 was of the opinion that "when you make fluffies to smart, you basically just make them normal MLP character."
Well, in my opinion:
An Intelligent Fluffy is NOT an MLP character
In this rejoinder to that statement, I will go over the various reasons why fluffies (at least now) are nothing like MLP characters, to the extent that if you did make them intelligent, they wouldn’t be anything close to a ‘normal’ MLP character.
- What is a normal ‘MLP’ character in the first place?
Thats the first question to ask when making the comparison. And thats where I feel we have the first problem. I shall define “a normal MLP character” to be any equine member of Equestria, which, aside from earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns, also includes zebra, donkeys, kirins, changelings, breezies and so on. And thats not even counting the non-equine members of the show’s setting which have included dragons, griffins, changelings, Discord, the Smooze, Tirek, various monsters and so on. So for the sake of this argument, we’re going with an ordinary, normal speaking equine that lives a normal life in a society in Equestria, whether it is Ponyville, Canterlot, Manehattan, or what have you. And thats where we have the first problem
- Different settings
MLP:FiM takes place in a high fantasy world where a land of intelligent and civilized equines are governed by two alicorn sisters - Princesses Luna and Celestia - with the Mane 6 getting involved in various adventures and they all have interactions based on relationships that play off their respective differences. (I remember a friend of mine pointed out that any 2 members of the Mane 6 can work as a foil to the other)
In contrast, the fluffy pony AUs, at least as how we’re familiar with them, involves Hasbio genetically-engineering a species of genetic chimeras based off the popularity of MLP. Depending on canon, there may or may not be a PETA breech, but what is necessary is that the resultant “fluffy pony” needs to speak in fluffspeak, or have a diminutive form that allows it to be sold as a “pet” or “biotoy” to the human, depending on headcanon.
And thats the thing. Its a different setting. Its like comparing a hacker from a espionage story with Merlin from Arthurian legend. The hacker may not know magic spells and thus may seem “useless” or “unintelligent” in the fantasy setting, but for his tech world he’s a genius. The same would apply to the wizard, assuming his magic has no effect on computers and technology. To put it another way, even if a fluffy was intelligent, most of fluffy fiction as we know works within a pseudo-contemporary setting that lacks the trappings of fantasy and magic that, if a fluffy was moderately intelligent, its effect and impact on the world different from how the the average pony would affect its own fantasy setting.
Which leads us to
- Neoteny and Fluffspeak
It is true that Fluffy ponies started out from the MLP fandom as a combination of three separate memes, and that artists like Marcusmaximus and Art-anon where inspired by depictions of infant foals in the main show, as well as similar shows like Baby Looney Tunes and Muppet Babies to make fluffy ponies into a similar neotenic version of MLP because the idea was cute.
But of course, there had to be a separation between fluffy ponies and normal MLP. And that is where fluffspeak comes in. That is where the PETA breech comes in. Basically put, fluffy ponies were not supposed to grow up into normal MLP, having a sort of Peter Pan phase. Thats the reason why the canon was originally written to have fluffy ponies be imperfect. But, see all this made sense when fluffy ponies was still part of the MLP fandom.
Then the Scruffening happened.
The deletion of fluffy pony content from derpibooru and /mlp/ is its own story and is not the subject of this article. But suffice to say is that when the Fluffy Pony fandom made the transition to fluffybooru, there was a move towards the fluffy pony fandom distancing itself from the MLP fandom it came from.
Bawsnia’s redesign of the seafluffies was one such take in that direction. In addition, artists like u/Carpdime_1 and Wolfram Sparks joined who had not watched MLP, and were bringing their own unique design of fluffies to the fandom. Over time, the design of fluffies became even more distant from their original version. And it is from there that we see the main point
- Different aesthetics
To put it simply, fluffy ponies and MLP no longer look the same. And to illustrate that point, consider this example:
Even with artists who were familiar with MLP, the design of fluffies had changed so much from their MLP origin that they looked very different from the show. To drive home the point further, lets take this thought experiment.
Say one day, you are watching an episode of MLP:FiM. When all of a sudden, you hear a tap of the door, and are greeted by these two Wolfram fluffies.
But lets put aside what you plan to do to these fluffies (personally, I’d call animal/biotoy services and have them whisked off to a shelter) Lets say, instead of the fluffspeak, the fluffy mare says, in Queens English and with a posh accent:
“Please kind sir, I am pregnant, and my mate and I are in need of nourishment!”
Would that make the intelligent Wolfram fluffy “an MLP”? I’d say, NO.
- Existent Examples
And they wouldn’t be MLP, because their design is not similar to the typical equine from MLP, and the setting is different. And the fluffy pony fandom has had examples of intelligent fluffies in the past.
Greg, from Mutagen’s Postfluff, is an intelligent fluffy. However, I wouldn’t call Greg “an MLP”. Even with the presence of the Fluffyshy on this page, Greg’s design does not resemble anything from MLP:FiM, and the apocalyptic setting of Postfluff is different from any in the show, even its most postapocalyptic one.
But Greg is an intelligent fluffy surrounded by mostly dumb fluffies. What if its an AU where all the fluffies were intelligent? Again, if the aesthetics were different, it would still not make them MLP:
The artist Pinkyfluffy is unusual in the fluffy pony fandom for depicting fluffies that are intelligent, can speak Italian, and are mostly independent. However, even despite being intelligent, Pinkyfluffy’s unique artstyle, as well as depiction of a contemporary Italian setting resembles nothing from MLP.
- Hassenfeld
But lets say Hasbio decided thats “alright, fine, so these intelligent fluffies look nothing like MLP, while the ones that remotely do are speaking fluffspeak and so are fluffy ponies and ‘not MLP’.” So you think to yourself, what if Hasbio decides to make Fluffy Pony 2.0, but its an EXACT duplicate of characters from MLP:FiM, down to how their hooves and snouts look, and without the fluffspeak?
Then they’d just be making Hassenfelds.
One topic of fanart that exists in MLP fandom even to this day is the idea of “owning a MLP character as a pet.” I have decided to use the name “Hassenfeld” to describe a genetically engineered pet that is a 1:1 recreation of any character from MLP in reference to the Hassenfeld meme on 4chan’s /mlp/. The reason for this distinction is that fluffy ponies, by nature of their current aesthetic and lore, are so far removed from the MLP origin that, in my humble opinion, there has to be a term for a genetically-engineered pet by Hasbio that is an exact duplicate of a character from MLP:FiM.
In that sense, a Hassenfeld is not a fluffy pony, and an intelligent non-fluffspeaking fluffy pony, if it does not resemble its show counterpart, would not be a Hassenfeld.
- Fluffle Puff
But lets say you want to ignore the contemporary setting. Lets say you want to make a fluffy pony OC that is intelligent or at least of moderate IQ, but based in the setting of Equestria.
Then you’re just copying Mixxermike’s Fluffle Puff
It is true that Mixxermike originally drew fluffy ponies as basically “MLP characters but fluffier”, a concept which he applied to the creation of Fluffle Puff. In that sense, it is true that Fluffle Puff is an intelligent fluffy pony that is an MLP. But thing is, Mixxermike made Fluffle Puff to be an MLP OC. He had distanced himself from the fluffy pony fandom, and chose to focus on developing an OC that would fit in with the MLP lore. Fluffle Puff being a MLP OC that’s fluffy will not make a genetically engineered chimera creature that no longer resembles a character from MLP:FiM suddenly become an MLP once it becomes smart.
So, tl;dr
- Fluffy ponies have become so far removed from their MLP origin, in terms of lore setting and design, that making them more intelligent will not magically make them MLP
- if Hasbio did make a “perfect fluffy” thats exactly like a character from MLP:FiM, it would be a Hassenfeld
- If you made a MLP OC thats basically fluffier, you’re just making a Fluffle Puff ripoff
~
But hey, all this is just an opinion. I’d love to hear your thoughts. This is a reupload from the reddit post - I have removed the images from it, but you can see the original version with pictures on reddit.