I’m going to disagree with you here @OtherCoraline. To be a bit of a pedant, all fluffy content is original content. Aside from fluffy works that try to connect to the MLP roots, all fluffy content is original content based off original designs. There are some people who try to base their work off ideas by lordanubis, mayclore, carpdime and so on, but the idea of fluffies was that each person usually worked with their own idea of fluffies, just with many recurring ideas. And because fluffies tried to distinguish itself (mostly) from MLP, it is original content, or OC
Second, I consider Marble overrated. Don’t get me wrong. I do appreciate that RQ gave Marble a hugbox ending, and I do detest what GWN did to RQ and Marble, as it was out-of-bounds and schadenfreude but, if I have to give a critique of Marble, her story was a bit ‘too’ focused on the abuse, and the hugbox mainly kept to a final page. This is just a critique though. I do acknowledge that Marble has a fans, and a lot of fans, but, I feel that, as a hugbox character, there are other options I like to draw on.
And yes, I do speak as somebody from a fanclub. More than one in fact. I say that because, if you’re going to say “I don’t care for anyone other than Marble”, I’d be tempted to say “I don’t care for Marble and prefer other OCs”. Because there’s a lot of other fluffy OCs to choose from, from many other artists and writers. Sometimes, the better way to tell a fluffy story is to come up with a fluffy character, and build the world around said character, Thats what worldbuilding is - one way is to add characters to a world, sure, but some people find it easier, or even better, to craft the world around the character. To give a contrast, Tolkien created a world to populate characters in, but Herge created a world that Tintin lived in. Both still created great work. And I don’t think there should be any penalties to such an approach. Doing so would be the same as penalizing approaches to fluffies, which itself is a form of gatekeeping.
And again, regarding OCs - I am still working on an entire series looking at other hugbox and neutralbox series in the history of fluffybooru and the fluffy pony fandom. To give an example, Marble to me, isn’t as interesting as Squeakyfriend’s Doctor Crazystein. Or Mutagen’s Greg from his famous Postfluff. Heck, even for a “poopie-coloured” fluffy who had a hard time, I actually prefer FierceDeityLynx’s Plum a bit more, unfinished as her story was. And I’m certain you’ll disagree with me regarding my examples but, that’s my point. And I haven’t even mentioned Carpdime’s Avocado. It’s all subjective opinion regarding preference on OCs, and why I want to emphasize not have this apathetic attitude towards fluffy OCs.
tl;dr all fluffy content is OC, or original content, and I think there’s a lot of interesting fluffy OCs out ther,e if people take the time to look through.