From MLP to Fluffy Pony
or “How Fluffy ponies came to be on 4chan’s /co/ and /mlp/”
- by Oculus
This piece is a complement to a picture series on the Genesis of fluffy ponies which I posted on the reddit. While the pictures series did briefly cover a few of the /mlp/ memes, including mixxermike’s own take on a fluffier MLP character, this guide is meant to be a more in-depth look at each meme which played a hand in developing MLP lore. I might end up doing a series of meta write-ups where I will tackle a few issues related to the history of fluffy ponies, as well as some exploration regarding the question of “what makes a fluffy pony”.
The first thing I want to make clear, which I have mentioned many times in other places, is that Fluffies were NOT “created to troll bronies”. Rather, fluffy ponies were created BY bronies on 4chan (or, to be more accurate, “ponyfags”). Mixxermike himself is an MLP fan and would later go on to become well-known as the creator of Fluffle Puff, which was based off the same concept he had when he drew the first fluffy ponies. Even if you specify fluffy ponies to mean “genetically-engineered pig-rat-horses created by Hasbio that is inherently flawed and have learning disabilities despite their sentient ability to speak human language”, yes, the original people who worked on fluffy lore were ALL bronies. LordAnubis, Mayclore, Vanner, they were all bronies. Hell, Vanner was one of the people who contributed to Fallout Equestria. Even Gingerfig and Mwike, the earliest of fluffy pony abusers, are themselves bronies.
In order to understand why fluffy ponies could come out of the MLP fandom of all things, it needs to be taken account that the MLP fandom has created all kinds of fan continuities and spinoffs. Including the aforementioned Fallout Equestria, there is also the Conversion Bureau, Them’s Fighting Herds, and the list goes on. And I haven’t even mentioned the grimdark stuff like Cupcakes and Fall of Equestria. Thus, and to best understand how the Fluffy pony concept, and the Fluffy pony fandom started out, its best to start from the beginning
- The early MLP:FiM fandom
First, a little background. I am writing this as a person from the MLP:FiM community, and one who was also a poster on 4chan’s /co/ since 2008. Back in the 2000s, MLP was mostly seen as a joke, as something that only attracted little girls, and female toy collectors who couldn’t let go of the 80s.
So, when Lauren Faust got hired by Hasbro to revive the MLP animated series, /co/ was shook. Lauren Faust was well-knonw in the animation industry, having worked on the Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. This fact sparked hype in the show being something actually decent compared to the other cartoons of the time (cough Johnny Test cough) as many posters on /co/ remembered the heydays of 90s animation like the Powerpuff Girls and Dexter’s Lab, and genuinely hoped that this new MLP series, being led by Lauren, would have a similar energy.
This interest in /mlp/ grew even further when a certain Cartoon Brew article dropped. The article, which had attacked the show for being a soulless cash-grab was quickly derided by both the /co/ posters and, ironically enough, /b/tards who ended up watching MLP:FiM because of the article. This ended up creating more ponyposting on 4chan which eventually led to the creation of /mlp/.
The story of the early /mlp/ community is long and complex and one that cannot be summarized in a few paragraphs. However, I wanted to give some context as to why MLP:FiM became the phenomena that it did. The increase in viewership in 4chan meant an increase in fan related content, which led to the development of different ideas.
- Ponies but fluffier
Many artists had drawn MLP characters but fluffier. The above pic by Megasweet was a redrawing of a reaction image of a sloth’s face, but this time with Fluttershy. I have theorized that this may be one of the pictures that may have inspired Mixxermike to create the first fluffy pony pictures.
This picture of a Sweetie Belle gaining more and more fluff until she consumes Rarity is often cited by many as the first fluffy pony picture, but I am strongly of the opinion that the Twilight picture came first.
Nonetheless, they were all a part of a “sketch wall” that mixxermike posted /co/ later in January 2012. It was from this art that inspired other artists in the threads to start drawing similar characters.
- Ponies as Pets
One topic of fanart that exists in MLP fandom even to this day is the idea of “owning a MLP character as a pet.”
Back in 2011, there is a famous fic about a man who finds a foal named Rainbow Dash in a cardboard box. He takes the foal home, and raises her as like she was his own daughter. This fic, known as My Little Dashie, is well-known within the MLP community and has provided a lot of feels. It had spawned many similar stories (as well as the inevitable abuse shit-edits)
Another prominent “ponies as pets” AU was cartoonlion and megasweet’s askfutashy. The AU revolved around a hermaphrodite Fluttershy (aka Futashy) being raised by a lesbian couple, that being a humanized Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. (oh yes, humanized versions of MLP character is its own big thing, but that’s another story for another time).
From My Little Dashie, one can notice Rainbow Dash being found in cardboard box, something that has become recurrent in fluffy pony stories, especially abandoned ones. Cartoonlion’s design of Futashy is a departure from the show’s design, as CL wanted to depict a pony as a genetically-engineered diminutive pet.
The ideal of MLP characters being pets could also be seen in Gorodetsky’s Magical Ponies, which involved characters from Equestria being abducted, taken to a human world, then lobotomized, so that they will be more subservient to their eventual human owners. The Gorodetsky link is mentioned as some of Gorodestky’s ideas found their way into fluffy fiction.
A final word on this theme is that, as recently as 2016, the /mlp/ board on 4chan attempted to push the idea of Hassenfelds, which some on the board have seen as “Fluffy 2.0”. I will go more into this in a future write-up, where I’ll debate whether an intelligent fluffy is no different from an MLP.
- Ponies but speaking and acting like babies
To me, this is the most unique aspect of fluffy ponies, and what separated them from their MLP counterparts, at least until the fluffy pony fandom was mostly separated from its MLP origins and started featuring designs that greatly differed from their MLP origin.
The idea of baby versions of various big characters is not a new thing. The looney tunes has baby looney toons, the Muppets has Muppet babies and so on. Even recently, there was baby yoda, which was one of the reasons why peopled were so hooked on the Mandalorian. And speaking of the Mandalorian:
There apparently is a group of people pretending to be raising their own “baby yoda”, and ascribing similar babyspeak language captions like in the ones depicted above. I mention this because this approach to “baby” or neotenic versions of other well-known characters may have inspired some of the earliest fluffy pony art. After all, the show itself already featured MLP foals dressed up like babies in diapers.
Interestingly, Marcusmaximus based this picture of fluffy Applejack on a scene in MLP depicting AJ as a foal.
But why did the early fluffy pony writers and artists decided to have their Fluffy ponies speak and act in this manner? This is where it dives into a bit of ‘chan culture. Unlike the show, and being an unofficial AU, the fluffy pony fandom has no set canon, which means that, if a meme is pushed hard enough, a certain idea will be see as hivecanon, or popular.
One of the most important contributors to the early fluffy pony fandom was Art-anon. Prior to art-anon, fluffy ponies were still mostly “mlp characters but fluffier”. It was art-anon that pushed one of the first phrases to incorporate the lisp: “wan pway?”
Prior to that, fluffy ponies were mostly silent, at most saying the phrase “wan die”. But, art-anon under an anonymous account starting pushing the phrase “Wan pway?” And from there, and following the conventions of “babyspeak lisp being cute” and/or “limited intelligence being somewhat endearing”, this was how fluffies came to be viewed.
A final thing to mention is that one MLP character that /co/ noticed that got popular in the MLP fandom was Derpy Hooves. Back in those times, there was a lot of people roleplaying in the threads as derpy hooves, somehow finding her limited mental acuity to be endearing. Considering the depiction of derpy hooves as a fluffy in some early pics, this may be another influence.
- Misc early canon
I’ll round off this write-up by touching on some other canons that was introduced in the early fluffy pony fandom.
Fluffy pony drowns was a joke.
Keep in mind that this was way before the Hasbio or genetically-engineered setting was introduced, and Mixxermike saw the idea as funny.
Fluffies loving spaghetti was another joke canon. Spaghetti stories is an old meme were a person who emberasses him falls down and “loses his spaghetti”, the joke being that the storyteller was so emberassed spaghetti magically came out of his pocket. (think Eminem and mom’s spaghetti).
Art-anon started pushing the idea of said man having fluffy foals in his pocket eating the spaghetti to save him from embarrassment. Over time, this led to the adoption of spaghetti as the natural fluffy addiction.
~
With that in mind, I’ll state a line that I will repeat in future write-ups –
There is no official fluffy canon.
There are influential works, as well as popular artists, but fluffies is not MLP in the sense that it is not a franchise with a definite show bible. If you want your fluffies to love water and eat sushi, you CAN do so.
And no one should tell you otherwise.
~
I had previously posted this write-up on the reddit, but I will post it here as well in the hopes that it will help facilitate discussion.
