I was looking back at some of my old original MLP character designs from years ago, and for some reason, I got to thinking about the new craze. There are lots of people drawing lots of ponies. Many of them are their original fan characters.

Before this fad got off the ground and there was no Friendship is Magic, there was a little problem that sometimes popped up in the MLP fanbase. It didn't happen often, as the population of MLP fans wasn't nearly so large as it is right now, but it still came up, and it was still a huge mess when it did. Once in a while, someone would come up with a pony whose name was the same as someone else's, or whose symbol was very similar to someone else's pony. Ooooh, the drama bombs that went off when THAT crap happened. *shakes head* I remember once there was an issue over someone who had named her ponysona after one of the lesser known Hasbro ponies, and someone else had already done that, and the battle that went done there spanned months. Maybe years. I'm not sure. I don't remember. But, what it came down to was that the other girl was harassed about her pony's name constantly, and was told many times that she NEEDED to change the name and that she COULDN'T have a pony with that name because someone else already did. Even though that one happened to be an official pony in the first place...

Looking at the massive number of MLP fan characters out there now, this has got to have been an issue at least a few times. But, as I don't follow this stuff anymore, I wouldn't know what kind of reactions are had over it. Have we, as artists and fans, finally moved beyond being petty about these things and come to understand that naming and symbol similarities happen? Or, does the drama bombing still happen?