#i randomly stumbled on a several-part music anthology on youtube today depicting an AU where one of the little ponies was

[seventeendeer]

you're so right on that bronies post...like...thats such an interesting thing to think about but its so true

I know, right ?? sexism in fandom is so rampant, with the number 1 leading shitty trend currently being female characters being overlooked/sidelined/simply ignored in favor of male characters with the exact same traits - especially the unwillingness to develop under-utilized female characters the way under-utilized male ones are

meanwhile bronies in 2012 were not only INTENSELY invested in developing mlp's female main cast, they also extended that same hype to practically every other female character that got more than a second's screentime on the show. the common joke about bronies is that they were all a bunch of weirdo basement-dwelling perverts (and yeah, some of them were, in more or less harmless ways), but I dare say the MAJORITY of brony fandom content was like. massive genre-defying fanfictions. dozens upon dozens of entire albums' worth of songs of every genre. super-detailed crossovers with other media. character analysis! piles upon piles of femslash written with incredible detail and care! art, craft projects, a bunch of genuinely cool shit, all centered on girl characters who other fandoms wouldn't have given a shit about!

like, again, I'm not saying the brony fandom was Cool, Actually (I think the whole phenomenon was layered and complicated, and I don't think I'm the right person to decide if it was a net positive or not), but I AM saying that there was something really, really interesting going on gender-wise over there and I wish someone smarter than me would talk about it without either airbrushing out the issues or being demonstratively disdainful about it out of fear of being deemed a Pevert Apologist (bad) or Cringe (worse)