Ixrec

When you buy Rainbow Dash slippers.

It really depends on what "similar to MLP" is. For any specific aspect of MLP, I'm sure we could find a ton of shows, but it's gonna be different ones for each. "Non-anthro animals" confuses me since MLP ponies are certainly somewhat anthropomorphized, but I suppose I should mention Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts since that's a great show with lots of talking animal characters (albeit higher on the anthro scale than MLP ponies), a similar idealistic tone and the power of friendship is in effect (although no rainbow lasers). If what you're after is an animated show with a similarly idealistic tone and younger target audience where the heroes often try to befriend even their villains (which is what I'd say made MLP:FiM appeal to me), then She-Ra and Steven Universe are also excellent.

Of all the pony fancomics I've tried so far, my favorite is dsana's "A Storm's Lullaby" But according to search, it's never been mentioned once in this entire forum, much less this fanclub. So let's fix that! Whole comic: https://www.deviantart.com/dsana/gallery/69364076/a-storm-s-lullaby Spoiler-free but representative example page: This is also a good time to binge it, since the latest strips are at a lull in the action after a few of the bigger conflicts got satisfyingly resolved.

The question is framed as if part of writing is making an explicit choice between "having flawed characters" and "having flawless characters", but that's not really how people work, and IMO not how the best stories work either. Most "character flaws" are also the flip side of a positive quality, and since no one is omniscient, characters cannot know every time they're about to do too much of a good thing. When does Twilight being "organized" and "prepared" turn into "paranoid" and "overprepared"? It depends on the situation she finds herself in. This is precisely why gaining years of practical experience is so indispensable in most fields, and one of the reasons why having a diverse group of friends with different personalities is so valuable. Usually when people complain about a character being flawless or a Mary Sue, what they really mean is that the fictional universe seems to conspire in her favor such that she is never wrong about anything, despite her lack of omniscience/omnipotence. If the writers only ever put Twilight (for example) in situations where she is exactly the right amount of prepared, no more and no less, then she might be a Mary Sue, but obviously MLP:FiM never came close to that. Semi-unrelated: This is actually becoming a bit of a trend in western animation lately. Off the top of my head, Steven Universe, She-Ra and Kipo all consistently spend quite a lot of effort trying to befriend and reform their villains. Personally, I like this trend.

It's a neat idea, and makes a lot more sense than I thought it would, but it doesn't seem likely. Cozy Glow is easy to explain away as her having a controlling personality, so chaos magic is just a bad fit for her (Discord nearly fading out of existence just by acting "normal" lends some credibility to this). IMO the actual problems that prevent me from believing this theory are: Cheese Sandwich and Maud Pie have a little too much in common with Pinkie Pie, and this theory is specific to Pinkie. For those who don't remember: Maud has explicitly claimed to have a "Maud Sense" in one episode allowing her to track down Pinkie's party cannon, and Cheese's very first scene shows him suffering a Pinkie Sense-like spasm which somehow tells him he needs to go to Ponyville. if Discord can sense Tirek absorbing pony magic anywhere in Equestria, he can probably sense his own time-displaced chaos magic being used day-in day-out by another pony right in front of him, and it seems like he would've mentioned it or exploited it for a gag at some point in the 7+ seasons he was reformed. The boring point: The video also talks about many of Pinkie's other quirky physics-defying behaviors, but a lot of them aren't actually unique to her, she just does them the most often. For example, nearly everyone seems to pull stuff out of thin air once in a while: Rarity with her fainting couch, Applejack with her lasso, Spike with a quill and parchment, etc. Come to think of it, Applejack's lasso twirling is often done with her tail, so having a prehensile tail not Pinkie-specific either.

I also think some variation on "bubbly personality" makes far more sense than literal bubbles. Interestingly, one of the fanfics EQD featured recently (A Charmed Life) was partially about someone helping Derpy realize this.

The TTG comparisons always make me It's an incredibly superficial knee-jerk reaction that's honestly just insulting to both shows at this point. I actually like both TTG and Pony Life. Yes, TTG's biggest flaw is leaning too hard into that kind of cringe humor sometimes. But when it's not doing that I usually find it pretty hilarious. And honestly, that exact assessment applies to a LOT of other popular animated comedies like South Park or Family Guy. Plus, the total absence of continuity (or more precisely, "Negative Continuity") has been standard in sitcoms for my whole lifetime, at least as far back as The Simpsons, so that seems like a weird thing to complain about, but it's fair to not like it. In contrast, Pony Life has a completely different setting, completely different characters, completely different art style, and takes itself significantly more seriously (not as much as FiM of course), by which I mean there clearly is continuity and it has much more consistent characterizations (both with itself and with FiM) which are also the sole driving force for most of its comedy. Watching PL just doesn't feel anything like watching TTG for me; what it actually feels like is watching MLP:FiM at 2x speed. </rant> Right, now I need more ponies to wash away those negative vibes.