i saw one au where when the ponies get infected they turn into anatomically correct horses, and another one where they are actually little plastic toys and getting infected by plastic-eating worms that twilight made lmao
@@random_dragon i believe the one where they’re plastic is called “friendship is dangerous” by crow_prince_, and i think there’s a couple where they turn into real horses so im not sure which one i saw
For Swamp Fever AUs, I’d love the idea of “counting trees” being a common practice. The infected would resemble normal trees but still be able to move. Ponies would have to remember how many trees were in an area incase a new one suddenly appeared overnight.
This kinda reminds me of the fanfic "Scent". That was probably my favorite darkfic at the time, I would re-listen to Scribbler's narrations of it over and over...
*Survivor 1:* Hey, was that tree there before? *Survivor 2:* I don't know, but let's turn away and continue this conversation even though the tree is clearly moving towards us
I saw an au where their cutie marks infect them and make them sort of possesed by their cutie marks, hyperfocusing on their elements to a very dangerous extent around them. I think this is such a fun version of this au because it adds that magic part that equestria has. Might try to make my own version of this
I like how grimdark MLP:FiM fiction is one of the few constants on the Internet. Times change, trends rise and fall, eras come to an end, but there will always be fanart of Pinkie Pie covered in blood
I was a teen when FiM was new and it's honestly really cool and inspiring and exciting that a lot of the kids who grew up with the show are now old enough to be able to enjoy the grimdark side of the fandom! There was a lot of cool stuff back then, and there's a lot of cool stuff now!
One thing I really love about the infection aus is how so many of them have a direct breakdown of how the various diseases progress/present, I've always been more interested in the virus aspect of zombie virus horror but a lot of times the format doesn't give an opportunity to really study the virus, so I appreciate people giving me the chance to play make believe scientist lol
Honestly, same, that's my favorite part. I've honestly been thinking of making an infection AU for a different fandom (Undertale/Undertale AUs) and have been thinking up the stages and trying to figure out how everything would work and it's so fun!
So many fandoms die out soon after new content stops being made for the media they’re centered around, so it brings me so much joy that mlp still has a pretty large fandom, despite the series ending 5 years ago.
My guess is because they've been making their own content that essentially has nothing to do with the source material since the very beginning of the fandom. Mlp is just a lot of people's creative outlets.
I mean, it's almost like Star Wars. Star Wars had every nerdy writer wanting their own Glup Shitto (look it up,), FiM was similar I that it also had a habit of tossing tons of background characters in and making itself feel like a world someone was actually going about their daily life in. So the Fandom adopted them all. That's what fueled the attitude towards fannon and fan-fiction in general, imo
On Tumblr I saw one younger poster say something along the lines of "I think the MLP infection AU is a reflection of how fucked up the pandemic has made us. Like, I fully believed it would be like a zombie apocalypse at first. I had dreams about my family's faces rotting off while everyone died around us, and I'm not the only one because my friends all had some version of this nightmare. Adults were forced to go to work and carry on as they all keep dying and getting sick around each other, but I think teens and below have the blinders off and we can still see the damage and feel the fear." I think that was just a really interesting thing to hear, because I think they might be right, at least for some people/younger/new fans-- The appeal of the Infection AU might be working through ongoing pandemic trauma.
I had just turned 17 in march of 2020 right after the schools were closed. 4 years later, I just turned 21, but I still feel like I was emotionally stunted by the 2 years of lockdown, so I dont doubt that people even younger than I am were hit a lot harder by the trauma.
@@Barnacl3_BoiNot just kids. I'm in my mid to late twenties and I've had an incredibly hard time going outside ever since the pandemic didn't allow us to go outside for anything other than emergencies for weeks at a time here. It's not because I'm scared of getting sick or anything, but because it's so overwhelming to me now. I could handle it all decently well before the pandemic, but now it's super hard for me to deal with all the noise and the people. I'm slowly getting better at handling it again, but the keyword here is *slowly*. There were times where I couldn't bring myself to even just go outside to check the mailbox for like 2-3 weeks straight. And this is fairly common for a lot of people. It's not this extreme for everyone of course, I think in my case it's amplified by my autism and struggles with change in environment and structure, but a lot of neurotypical people I used to work with that I'm still in contact with, all adults, feel the same way.
I actually have one called Pony Wasting Disease. Its an infection that mainly only affects ponies (more on that in a sec) and the symptoms will make them loopy and unpredictable, sometimes writhing around and sometimes attacking others. But the thing its that its a very new infection, so everyone is learning in real time the stages and symptoms of the infection, as it only started half a week ago in the story. The mane 6 are all held in Celestia's castle in a bunker to help research a cure, and Twilight gives out radio updates to the outside world. But, by name, this only affects PONIES, earth ponies pegasi and unicorns. Other species of creatures in equestria do not know if they would be affected by it or not. A zebra, hidden changeling, and hippogriff are searching for safety. A batpony joins them, but they are unsure if she could carry the disease or not. I did this because i love exploring the potential of the other species in the show.
@baroom._ aaa ty but I don't really have an actual story planned out yet, I'm just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks lmao. I don't know how to edit either but I could learn lol. Still ty!!!
YESYESYESYES OMG I came up with something similar, once I found out about prion diseases and found CWD back in 2023 !! It's genuinely so interesting, and I love trying to plan out things related to ponies with it !!!
@@fern_g0rl eh not really, it's like how there was a generation of people who became very obsessed with 9/11 who were young adults, teens or kids when it happened. It's just patterns
I feel like the popularity of analog horror might of helped too, i learned about the swamp infection one through analog horror at least. I think people just enjoy horror and love turning innocence things into something horrifying
I believe AUs where there are infections, trauma etc are just a healthy way of exploring difficult emotions by yourself or with others. And if you have this old series with an established lore, world and characters that others know of already, you have a melting pot of creative ways to share ideas with a broad net of like minded people. The allure of "what if..." is palpable. And we have a recent global infection trauma we are still working through, so safely expressing those emotions creatively with others through fandom is really, really healthy. Yes, even through Ponies. One of the darkest, stressful times of my life years ago I went full first into a fandom with AUs and discussions all day every day. It got goofy, it got edgy and at one point really gorey but.. we all drew mad stuff together. I am so grateful to have been so sincerely supported and encouraged to create at the time when I needed it most. I recommend to anyone to find your mad fandom people. Make weird TV programme stories, rewrite the world of a movie, idk make walter white have long black hair with red highlights - DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO
in my infection au, a disease contracted from the smooze covers and grows on ponies like a mold that slowly devours a pony. it feeds on not just the flesh but the magic as well. discord didn't realize the smooze could be dangerous as he is unnafected by it.
I’ve been following the Everfree Infection au by mrsgendered. The simplicity of their infected ponies are more creepy to me than the other grandiose ones I’ve seen /lh. The posts are not in chronological order, so it’s fun watching people connect the dots. Edit: the father himself appears omgg 😭😭
It's interesting how these MLP Infection AUs have gotten so big that they're being made in other fandoms too. Like I've seen a few Trolls infection AUs around. People just love making messed up art of the most lighthearted colorful kids' franchises huh 😭
@@ender_voide9344 tbf, WC zombie AUs came back around mainly due to the Mr Fear MAP. But I have also seen an AU specifically inspired by the MLP Infection stuff, the one where Bramble is patient zero. What are the other AUs you've seen??
Long ago I saw an artist named PoorYorickDA(they seem to have abandoned their projects) who created one of the most interesting AUs I've seen in the fandom, it's called "Equestria Divided" Equestria fell into chaos after the princesses disappeared, and the Mane Six tried to keep everyone together at first just to turn on each other eventually. By the time the story takes place the whole continent is divided and controlled by different factions in a constant etate of war. Very Grimdark, very extensive, felt like a fresh take at the moment it was created. A shame they abandoned the project It did inspire me to create my own AU that currently it's going to be turned into a DnD campaign( outside of the MLP universe tho cuz my friends ain't bronies like I)
Who invited you here? 😂 lol I know I've said it a lot, but its still crazy to me how much impact our stories have had on people.. ❤ and there's no one i rather would've shared my stories and characters with than you, Chan! (And everyone else who contributed of course, like Shay) Love you girl! Keep being amazing 👏
Being the creator of something so influential and well-known in the MLP fandom is genuinely so impressive. It’s like being the creator of the fan made Cosmos or Galaxia. For so many people, your OC is canon to them
The Everfree Infection by MrsGendered and The Sleepwalker Infection by Sunny_Synopsis are definitely my favourites and I keep track of them 24/7 for updates, the art syles and stories are just so cool, the sleepwalker one is especially unique to me- and the everfree infection just lives rent free in my mind at this point.
mrsgendered's will always be my favorite Infection AU tbh, ice never seen an episode on MLP but their au popped up on my Instagram one day and have been hooked ever since!
I’m glad someone mentioned his AU! His was the only one I was familiar with before this video and I’m kinda disappointed it didn’t get mentioned in this vid, but there’s so many cool ones out there, one vid wouldn’t be enough to show them all 💕
I’m so obsessed w the the trope ive seen in a lot of aus where fluttershy is infected and discord knows something more abt what’s going and is using his magic to keep fluttershys condition from getting worse
If you haven't already seen it you'll love the Everfree Infection. Discord accidentally gives a fungal disease that only affects insects the ability to infect mamals after fluttershy mistakes the branch like fungus for nettles and uses it for a poultice to treat a mouse with discords help. He finds out what they've done shortly after fluttershy gets infected and upon realizing he can't just magically cure it instead starts using his magic to basically transfer the infection to himself in order to slow its progress in fluttershy.
My absolute favourite au at the moment is MrsGendered au, his lore about Discord accidently forcing the infection into mammals, the horror side stories like the ocean races and the asymptomatic pony stuck in an infected city, and just the vibe of all his comics UGh its so good PLEASE go read them all
I like that your AU maintains a lot of core characterization despite the new context. I struggle to like AUs a lot of the time cause I see them as sort of using the designs but not the personalities, typically distorting them for grimdark value instead of being in conversation with who the characters actually are.
An idea that I had for an Infection AU was sort of a detective-story where Twilight arrives back in Ponyville after a short trip away (reason pending) only to find it infected and she has to find the clues as to how the disease began and how it works in order to find a cure. I especially liked the idea of Derring Do contracting the disease during one of her expeditions and accidentally bringing it to Ponyville during a meet-and-greet.
I actually remember seeing a lot of MLP AU art when the show was all the rage as a kid. I saw a lot of creepypasta art, apocalypse AU art, and even some Fallout themed AU art.
Honestly I think the collective experience of the pandemic is a major reason all of the "infection AU" stuff going on. To me it seems like a lot of fellow artists have some Covid trauma to work thru still
Ok but a deep dive into TOH/ the TOH fandom would be so cool from Izzzyzzz. The leaks, the og theories, the canceling, moringmark, the LORE i jus think it would be neat :]
My favourite horror au that spawned from this is “friendship makes magic!” The idea that celestia was only pushing twilight and her friends on their journey so they could harvest the magic from their friendship to power equestria is horrifying!🤩
Honestly I find it more impressive whenever I hear about an MLP AU that's not a) horror, b) tragic, c) a crossover, or d) some combination of the above because that's like 95% of them.
The Mlp infection trend really brought me back to when I was 10 or so and was obessively drawing both canon and my own pony characters having Hanahaki-disease. SOOoooo...I had this small idea recently for my own Infection Au, which I call the Rainbow-Bloom infection. In this au, an invasive species of flowers/weeds were plauquing the land of equestria. While they were harmless for ponies and the like, they were making both plant life and smaller critters really sick, so a group of botanists in Canterlot were working on a potion to get rid of those flowers. The potion at first was thought to be working, but in reality it really only made the flowers adapt and mutate, now making it possible for them to infect sapient lifeforms. The name comes from the fact, that the flowers, in full bloom, have a rainbow-y shimmer to their petals and also that it recolors infected ponies's blood. (That's all I have for now.)
my friend is the one who makes the "happy to see his babygirl" au and genuinely seeing so many staples of the horse fandom post about her fills me with so much pride. I LOVE HER PLEASE CONTINUE SUPPORTING HER ART YOU GUYS❤❤❤❤
I need WAY more of your personal AUs/stories/ideas/characters, etc! I really loved that little segment! I hope you share more of your creativity with us ❤
A really interesting infection au is Cutie Mark Wasting Diesease. I don’t think it’s much outside of some art of the main 6, but I really like it! It’s here on youtube as well. It’s similar to swamp fever in the sense that this disease is based off of the show’s canon cutie pox. So the ponies’ cutie marks essentially start taking them over with these tendrils, and forces them to perform their specific talents with no way to stop, often until it destroys them. It’s a cool idea and has some really good art with it!
the name is also very similar to a real life disease deer can get called chronic wasting disease, which i thought was really interesting. it's horrible but interesting
The partially cured Twilight Sparkle from the first AU is so wonderfully creepy. Still sentient but... very much not herself, and it's hard to tell if it's just the brain damage or if there's.... something else in her head. Though damn, yours ramps up the sadness many times over. T_T
Great video, as usual. "I remember being absolutely obsessed with her as a kid"? Oh. Don't mind me, I'll be searching for a crypt suitable for the ancient wraith that I apparently am...
I haven't finished the video yet but it sounds like this all spun out from the creepy pasta "the cough" from way back, strange you don't mention it in the setup section
I found out about the infection aus on my birthday and spent like an hour scrolling through them with my friends, honestly one the best birthday gifts of my life ngl
4:30 I read a fanfic for a completely unrelated fandom with an unrelated ship that had that exact premise 😭😭 I didn't know it came from my little pony!
Aw, this reminds me of the Danny Phantom fandom a decade ago, we had Angst Day, a day to post angsty and often gorey fic created to fight the flood of shippy fluffy mary sue fic that was to be expected of a kids show fandom, many AUS on da and tumblr and even a whole genre, Dissection Fic, which were fics about Danny being captured by his parents and experimented on. The biggest classic was Lab Rat.
You should check out Ponytown. It's a MLP fan game where you can make a pony avatar and RP or just hang out. I see people roleplaying the Infection AU all the time
I enjoy seeing all the other game characters that have been Ponified XD Mostly Sonic or Sans or Welcome Home. I did see Link/BEN recently though. Didn't react at all to the known quotes. None of mine but Amalthea have been recognised and I made Luke Trotten, I thought Layton was popular? Ashley Robins I can understand despite the recent remake but...!
I've got a next gen AU where the everfree forest is growing out of control and taking over Equestria. Strong unicorn/alicorn shields are the other things holding it back. The forest has trouble growing into cold lands like the Crystal Empire and the Yaks' home; the same goes for the desert where the forest has trouble with the heat, lack of water, and taking root in sand. I wrote a whole overview of it and was going to write a story on it lol
I like your AU because there's a glimmer of hope. Please share your "I'm sorry jon" artwork/fanfic because *gestures to the garfields in the background*
I'm not (and have never been) a big MLP person, but can I just say... I appreciate you highlighting these niche fandom/AU/character and world building projects people have. I feel like they are often "looked down upon," and I just love that someone is willing to go out and explain it in a straightforward way. Like "hey, this is neat. It makes me happy." Idk, it just makes me smile.
That crossover (with other pony musicals, mainly Jekyll and Hyde) changed my life and I am not even joking, because I found musicals and the joys of classic literature through it and those became a big part of my life. I also remember the tiny ponyfied musicals community with it's own creators and fanart that surrounded the thing.
I'm from the hispanic community and the AUs also got really popular around here. One of the most famous was "My little worms" were the ponys got infected by other animals and the story developed quite rapidly, the art was edited realiy well and even the story itself was quite interesting, getting extremely popular in just a few weeks. Unfortunately the user (thinnk4) got a lot of backlash for wanting to write other stories and bullied them to the point that they abandoned the entire account letting the story unfinished. After this a few people strates to inpersonate the original user spreading awful rumors about them which made the situation more comolicated. Now that the hyoe for these stories calmed down the original user used their Instagram to explain everything and post more art. I don't know if they continued with the AU but a lot of people got mad at how the audience treated the creator of the story (I'm also mad) and I wish the story finish in the future.
I'm not a fan of My Little Worms (too edgelord for my liking) but what happened to the writer ticks me off. I wish there was something that could be done about these kinds of people... but I can't think of anything that could be considered "legal".
Your story sounds cool and in the very spirit of MLP:FIM because it seems like the power of friendship may end up being the key to curing the outbreak if they could get it together. Love it.
From the ones I've seen, I really like Kitkat212's infection AU. It has a much different vibe from most other infection AUs since it puts pretty much all of the emphasis on the survivors and their journey as opposed to body horror and gore. It's really interesting and I honestly love how everyone is characterized. I'll admit I'm not the biggest fan of the origins of the virus in the story, but I can overlook my issues with it since I love literally everything else about the AU
I have a Warrior cats AU called Ashcough AU!! Before Ashfur went down and stole Bramblestars body, he got a cold from the dark forest and took it with him. "Bramblestar" loses his nine lives to the illness and it begins to spread, driving other cats to insanity, to the point where they no longer look after themselves. The only thing they know what to do is kill and hurt others, and soon enough the clans fall. I'm gonna start posting about it once I finish designs but yeah I'm super proud of it so far
In terms of mlp alternative universes a very interesting grouping is "Equestria at War", it has quite a few fics to say the least. And funnily enough it is based off of a Hearts of Iron 4 mod.
I would love to see where your infection au leads!! To me, it feels like its gonna go in the direction of like as more of the mane 6 abandon their element, the worse the infection becomes But I'd love to hear what's actually going on!! The whole plot point with Rainbow Dash has me so curious!
yippee i’m glad you talked about this! i love the mlp resurgence through fan content like this i ended up coming up with a concept of a post-infection au where the zombie-like virus was defeated using the elements, like most major conflicts in the show, but it managed to kill a lot of ponies and destroy their society. so in this post-infection era, the mane 6 are separated and trying to rebuild society. meanwhile sweetie bell and scootaloo (now grown up) have become mail couriers that travel across the lands to different settlements, and are still trying to heal from the trauma of what they lived through during that year of infection. i started outlining a whole big fanfic for it but who knows if it will ever actually get done OTL
i created a pegasi desease called alicorn syndrome, when their bones start to create something on a shape of the horn but getting bigger and bigger and spreading the bine tissue through the whole face, damaging the eyes and making them blind. Also their bodies begin to create much more feathers all around them and espesially wings which are getting to fluffy and heavy to fly. And because of the bone tissue getting slightly thicker by the time they struggle more and more with moving which causes slow and painful death.
as a kid my fav mlp fandom things was absolutely rainbow factory but specifically the song. i found it on the website scratch, which was a kid-friendly coding language for flash-like content, but also had a website for hosting creations. i heard the song there for the first time when i was about 10, and i think there was also a slideshow talking about the AU, and i wanted to make a game where you played as rainbowdash sabotaging the factory from the inside that ended with a self-destruct sequence like star wars or metroid. i never ended up making it but if i did it now she'd be saving pinkie pie :))) the other one i was obsessed with, which i didnt find until i was about 13 and using youtube more, was the rainbowdash "you're gonna go far kid" amv. so badass i never actually watched mlp growing up, but i bet u can tell who my fav was as a kid xP i started watching the show earlier this year actually, i was high as hell abd started it and was like "wait... yea theyre so right this show is so cool" abd now my fav of the mane 6 is pinky pie. she's just so silly!!! she just like me
Never been an MLP fan, but the Swamp Infection AU is actually one of the coolest fanworks I've seen in a while, the art and concept are both so creative!
I have a concept based on the Plunderseeds from the season 4 opener, basically the victim is infected with vines that grow inside them until they become empty shells controlled by twisting, thorny vines. I want to do more, but i'm having trouble figuring out what happens to who. Plus, I can't help but feel bad for the poor characters I'm mangling...
Tbh I feel like you could make a whole video going over the different genres of AUs out there for all kinds of fandoms. AUs, despite their prevalence in fandom, tend to not be as well documented or researched as other fandom phenomena like shipping. At least to me. Could be a neat topic to look into.
I fully believe us going through a global pandemic has also played into the infection AU popularity. I mean think about it: MLP is a comfort series for many, especially G4 due to it releasing at the very beginning on the 2010s (us original target audience kids are now adults in our 20s), and during the beginning on the pandemic a lot of us engaged in nostalgic/comforting media to help us get through it. There’s a reason so many of the early symptoms of these assorted infections all share traits similar to colds
I don’t usually like dark AUs, but seeing the resurgence of cool MLP fanart makes me happy :) and I love LOVE the ambiguity you left with rainbow dash in your AU! settings like these need that mystery
Wow.. 3:00 - in regards to Nova, she was actually a part of my Next Gen universe. I am "iPandacakes", or I was. Life got the better of me and I had to retire from my stories and characters. Nova herself was a character I initially designed for a NG contest, and a friend of mine won her from me. We decided after a while her character would fit very well into my stories and so we decided to include her in my Next Gen universe as sister to my OC, Crescendo. We have been best friends from then on and created and shared all of Nova's stories and art. ❤ along with the rest of the NG cast we created together. Its crazy that even after all these years, Nova as a character and the stories we created still have impact on people.. and im not gonna lie.. hearing you say "I was obsessed with her as a kid" made me feel OLD AS HELL 😂 (I'm 31 lol but still) I know it was only a short mention, but I wanted to say thank you so much for loving Nova Star Sparkle and the stories we wrote for her and her family/friends. Her owner, Chantel, is still one of my best friends and actually officially owns the rights to every character in that universe now - and is even revamping Nova and her stories. (With my help of course) ❤ so even after all this time, Nova as a character is still thriving! And I will never stop being honored to see how many people loved our take on the Next Gen universe. ❤
I’m not a brony anymore but I really REALLY appreciate the artistry and community behind this trend. MrsGendered’s take on this trend gave me nightmares but in every single one of her comment sections of her infection AU videos all you can see is positivity towards her hard work, concern for the ponies and people asking a lot of really cool questions about her AU to a point I don’t think even she thought about it that deep!! That’s the brony community I fell in love with, and it’s the brony community that died out in 2015 and replaced it with pedos grooming me at 15-17, people unironically sexualising my horse at the time and just straight up nasty pieces of shit who had no hobbies other than to spread toxicity…. I miss that positive feeling and I’m glad this AU gave even just a piece of it back!
I'm sorry that you got groomed. I have been thinking a lot about that stuff since the AU came out. I remember proudly being a brony as a young teen and then seeing gross fan art and adults sexualizing the ponies. I felt sooo much shame for years until I finally told a friend and realized that I was just a kid. I wasn't even engaging in the sexualization and adult imagery of the ponies. I was there for the show and the fanart. This AU brought me back to the good old days I even watched the first episode again I hope you're doing better and I feel comfort seeing someone else express what I have been thinking about
mrs gendered's work is SO fucking good. the new 12 min audio story he wrote is so well made too 😭 absolutely gripping and immersive to the world and lore and the psyche of the infected he's built up these past months. everfree infection is def up there with classics like rainbow factory, cupcake, and fallout equestria, for me !
An infection-esque AU I would like to see is one where Pegasi and Unicorns suddenly lose their flying and magic abilities, becoming basically earth ponies as their wings and horns fall of for some reason. It wouldn't really affect anyone's health but imagine how they would have to change their entire life styles, way of living, and may not be able to go home again if they are Pegasi that lived in the clouds. And think of the turmoil and the paranoia. How some would think it's a sign of the doomsday, some would see it as evolution be it backwards or forwards, how some would blame the princesses of even other simple earth ponies, or think it was a calculated attack by some foreign kingdoms. Would ponies still be the dominant species? Would they get invaded by other species? How would they compensate for what 2/3 of their population lost? Another infection-esque thing I would like to see would involve the crystal kingdom and effects of crystallization, like crystal ponies becoming actual crystals upon death and how such is actually being utilized for profits. But one crystal ponies that had died and was harvested for crystals had some sort of illness and it becomes and infection that turns other ponies into crystal forms, being used for aesthetics, but then it progresses into that pony becoming full on a crystal corpse and its usually the rich that had died initially and it slowed down for a while but because there will always be greed a group out for profits start kidnapping other ponies to infect with the crystal virus to farm their bodies for more crystals which quickly leads to a full on infection that was all due to greed
Your AU actually makes so much sense! Ty for sharing and uploading. It's awesome to see MLP Horror AUs are still being shared and will live on for future internet generations
i had a small idea for an au :) fluttershy's animals are carrying a bacteria that only affects ponies, so fluttershy can't tell they're sick. she gets bit by one and becomes infected. the symptoms are fungal growth out of open wounds, foaming at the mouth, starvation, completely rolled back eyes, and disfiguration. twilight attacks fluttershy as a last resort, breaking her hoof and opening a wound in her head; now fluttershy limps around, unaware of her hoof, fungus growing from her head attacking her brain, eating anything she sees out of desperation, either fully eating and leaving massacred bodies or infecting others. doesn't help that being infected means she hasn't taken care of herself, so she's this smelly, disfigured creature with long, mangled hair and white eyes groaning and skulking around forests
these infection AUs got me back into MLP again ngl 😭 one of my favorites that i still keep up with is mrsgendered's everfree infection AU, i'm REALLY invested in it and i even recommended it to my non-MLP friends lol
I would LOVE to hear more from your AU. I love hearing everyone’s different ideas on the infection AU trend, and I love hearing you talk about things you’re interested in (hence why I subscribed in the first place). I’d definitely love to see a part 2 to this!! :D (but only if you want to haha) Love your stuff btw! It’s Always a joy seeing your content in my recommended
I’ve never even been into this au or MLP as a whole, but my take on it would be that the virus stems from their cutiemarks. Their cutiemarks take over their body and their previously good qualities turn sour (I.e. applejack becomes taken over by a rotted apple tree, Rarity has crystal spikes, etc)
0:38 We’re growing into a brand new age of pony fandom. Being a rather active member of the fandom convention side, we’ve been seeing more and more people get involved in ways we haven’t seen for awhile. - More pony content is being created by more and more content creators - More cons are coming up (Mare Fair being the most prominent example) - Many more newer fans are coming onto the scene Might not seem like much, but pony culture is nowhere near dying. Hell, if you look up MLP search trends, we are at the same level as Homestuck was back in its heyday…with our show having ended a little while ago and G5 not being nearly as beloved as G4 is. Things might not be the same as they were in the beginning, and there are indeed sad changes happening as well - BABS is now going the route of BronyCon after next year - but make no mistake, bronies are here to stay for the long-haul
my best friend and i have been super into infection AUs, but since i don't use tiktok we end up watching them together on calls. we ended up doing infection AU inspired edits, just matching profile pics of pinkie and rainbow dash, because they wanted to make a side tiktok just to watch infection au stuff on so it was easier to find and save. pretty proud of how mine turned out, channeled my old creepypasta obsessed self into it. i watched mlpfim a bit as a teen, but didn't get super into it until 2019 or so when i started putting it on and binge watching it from the beginning while i drew. never finished s9 (netflix didn't have it at the time), but shortly after i started working on my own AU that became a next gen. don't have a fic written for it, mostly a bunch of sporiadic documents i've gone back and forth with over the years and a TON of art. i spent a couple days last year or the year before? making a family tree for it and... well i'm queer and poly, so basically all the characters in it are too lol. makes things a little complicated! tons of cousins and half siblings! at this point i've had to put my foot down to myself about giving the mane 6 (+ their other partners) any more kids, it's a little outrageous. considering i myself don't want kids, it's kind of funny how many characters in my mlp au are parents compared to otherwise. i have a couple of crackships that have made me obsessed with it more than i already was- trenderhoof and big mac are husbands and zephyr breeze has malewifed discord. the inherent comedy of the latter paring keeps me coming back to it, even though i'm intentionally writing them as backgroud/side characters. i honestly might pick it up again! it's been a few months since i worked on it and i know the structure needs a rewrite since i wrote that back in 2021 without really thinking it through. sorry to ramble about this LMAO i really like mlp aus if you can't tell!
OMG I LOVE UR AU!!!! ITS AWESOME I LOVE THE COMPLEX DETAIL IN THE PONIES RELATIONSHIPS ITS SO INTERESTING TO RLLY THINK like about how it would afffect their friendships!!
My favorite mlp au short I've seen is where twilights infected and is all scary. "I'm hungry" she says etc etc. Fluttershy takes her to mcdonalds and all is good 👍😊 In my silly little scary infection au twilight discovers a rare flower that hasn't been documented fully in a journal. The flowers pollen sticks to hair and skin then grows new flowers when the creature its on dies. (Preventitive measures: bath.)
i feel like the old equinox pony au from the early 2010s is a huge precursor to the infection aus we see today. the ponies became Weird after breathing in toxic gas, dimmed star (the equinox equivalent of twilight) is a mad scientist doing fucked up experiments like giving spiderlock (equinox fluttershy) parasprite features like legs and pincers… im just sad that no one seems to remember it 💔 the og tumblr ask blog is now gone i think but theres still dubs which was how i got into it! there was also motorloo (equinox scootaloo) as her own sort of standalone thing with Some equinox ties, but looking back motorloo was kinda weird and edgy. the equinox mane 6 were also edgy (PINKIE PIE IS LITERALLY ZALGO-IFIED AND HER NAME IS ZALGY CAKE.) but in a way that i still enjoy :-) also i LOVE your au, the thing with rarity and applejack being mortal enemies because of what happened to the cmc is SO HEART WRENCHING!! i hope they find rainbow dash eventually ..
Hello there! Sorry to pop in, but i just wanted to say.. I am iPandacakes. (Or I was). The only reason I found this video is because my friends sent me a link to it showing the mention of Nova lol But I am honored you enjoyed my/our characters and stories. I may have owned and created that specific Next Gen universe, but in the end it really was a group effort of me and my friends. Chantel, the owner of Nova's character, actually owns all rights to my NG universe now that I've retired from deviantart. Nova, Crescendo and the rest of the NG universe are actuallt being revamped and are still thriving! We have been having an amazing time revisiting all our old stories and characters, reviving them together. It still amazes me that so many people loved our stories and characters, even after all these years. It makes me feel so old 😂❤ but so so honored.
I like your AU! It's dark, but it has a glimmer of hope, and all the characters seem to have depthful relationships that are interesting to think about. Nice one!
Some of the first horror content I've seen in quite a while that has genuinely unnerved me - and it's cartoon ponies dying of the plague lmao. Anyways I've never been in the MLP fandom but all this Infection AU stuff is very cool and creative! I almost am tempted to try my own hand at one but I know next to nothing about modern MLP lmao. One interesting thing to note is that horror trends are often shaped by what's in the cultural consciousness and I feel like (as other commenters have mentioned) the residual trauma of living through the pandemic could be part of why this particular trend is so engaging to people. Very neat stuff
Can I just say your AU sounds genuinely super interesting and well thought-out so far?? Like I don’t even watch this show and never did, but you clearly kept the spirit of the original in mind and wanted to keep their characterization intact even in your super grim version of the kids’ story. I’d hella read more!! I wanna know what happened to Rainbow Dash! 😆
![Coheed and Cambria - Searching for Tomorrow [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hDsYGLbmadg/mqdefault.jpg)
Shoutout to that one artist on Twitter whose infection AU is basically "the cartoon horses are turning into realistic horses". It was hilarious
i saw one au where when the ponies get infected they turn into anatomically correct horses, and another one where they are actually little plastic toys and getting infected by plastic-eating worms that twilight made lmao
PFFT I love the worms one, it was such a funny reveal!
Ooooo that's really cool!!
Do you know/remember the name of either of them?
@@random_dragon i believe the one where they’re plastic is called “friendship is dangerous” by crow_prince_, and i think there’s a couple where they turn into real horses so im not sure which one i saw
@@reicse thank you!
I SAW THE REAL HORSES ONE IT WAS SO FUNNY SKSKSK
I think "weird and/or gross my little pony" has been a genre since the first physicians of the Renaissance performed public dissections
because bronies are pdf files
brony.pdf
@@j.2512do you have to censore the word? are you scared you're going to jail if you say the word pedophile properly?
@@krutyshikarandashi6463 What too much tiktok does to a mf
@@krutyshikarandashi6463wait they were trying to say pedophiles i was like "huh?"😭
For Swamp Fever AUs, I’d love the idea of “counting trees” being a common practice. The infected would resemble normal trees but still be able to move. Ponies would have to remember how many trees were in an area incase a new one suddenly appeared overnight.
That's nightmarish, it sounds like some morbid combination of The Last of Us and Annihilation...
This kinda reminds me of the fanfic "Scent". That was probably my favorite darkfic at the time, I would re-listen to Scribbler's narrations of it over and over...
Oh that's GOOD
Thats so cool omg
*Survivor 1:* Hey, was that tree there before?
*Survivor 2:* I don't know, but let's turn away and continue this conversation even though the tree is clearly moving towards us
I saw an au where their cutie marks infect them and make them sort of possesed by their cutie marks, hyperfocusing on their elements to a very dangerous extent around them. I think this is such a fun version of this au because it adds that magic part that equestria has. Might try to make my own version of this
Oh yeah! Cutie Mark Wasting Disease I think it was?
Cutie Mark Wasting Disease is so good
I love the cutie mark wasting disease au
"Happy to see his babygirl" Scared me to absolute death upon seeing it for the first time. Now I just see him as a silly guy with sick dance moves
the creators super chill too
FR my stomach just dropped (also love the pfp)
Ik this has nothing to do w the video but yttd fan spotted
have you seen the one where someone put "do the stanky leg" over it (i know thats not the name of the song, it's just the part that plays)
@@sleepyhinako another yttd fan out in the wild fr ⁉️⁉️⁉️
"whats the point of making a whole new universe if you cant put your silly little guys in there" this is so real
literally
I like how grimdark MLP:FiM fiction is one of the few constants on the Internet. Times change, trends rise and fall, eras come to an end, but there will always be fanart of Pinkie Pie covered in blood
This comment!!! Sums it up perfectly
Yep
I was a teen when FiM was new and it's honestly really cool and inspiring and exciting that a lot of the kids who grew up with the show are now old enough to be able to enjoy the grimdark side of the fandom! There was a lot of cool stuff back then, and there's a lot of cool stuff now!
When I was a kid I created an AU in my head where Flattershy died storming the beaches of Normandy
I cried so many nights out thinking about it😭
I’m sorry I’m laughing so hard right now omg😭😭
My Little Kampf 💀
LMAOOO U CRIED OVER IT???
@@aaroncruz9181mein little kampf💀
My Churchill pony OC has a cigar cutie mark. Do not steal.
One thing I really love about the infection aus is how so many of them have a direct breakdown of how the various diseases progress/present, I've always been more interested in the virus aspect of zombie virus horror but a lot of times the format doesn't give an opportunity to really study the virus, so I appreciate people giving me the chance to play make believe scientist lol
Honestly, same, that's my favorite part. I've honestly been thinking of making an infection AU for a different fandom (Undertale/Undertale AUs) and have been thinking up the stages and trying to figure out how everything would work and it's so fun!
It’s been so weird seeing these with no context. Just scrolling and seeing gore of pinkie pie. Sure brings me back to the good ol days of my childhood
I'm proud of the kids, they're going to make so many cool horror projects as they grow up
@@FuzBrain it's better than the heaps of untagged porn of the cartoon for children i guess.
*cupcakes theme intensifies *
It’s also reminded me of my childhood!! Kinda crazy that this isn’t a new thing. I love it more now as an adult.
History really do repeat itself
This AU unironically goes so hard
right?? like I've never been part of the mlp fandom but I've already watched two videos now on infection aus😂
Absolutely especially the art and concepts
Ikr? I especially love the swamp fever one, it’s such a cool and creative spin on something from the show!
Honestly! I love mrsgendered's take on it on Instagram, and I'm not even an MLP Fan
@@kestreldomann2787 I'm a longtime MLP fan, and I am OBSESSED with mrsgendered's AU. Both his art style and their storytelling is GRIPPING me
So many fandoms die out soon after new content stops being made for the media they’re centered around, so it brings me so much joy that mlp still has a pretty large fandom, despite the series ending 5 years ago.
My guess is because they've been making their own content that essentially has nothing to do with the source material since the very beginning of the fandom. Mlp is just a lot of people's creative outlets.
tf2
off rpg?? idk
I mean, it's almost like Star Wars. Star Wars had every nerdy writer wanting their own Glup Shitto (look it up,), FiM was similar I that it also had a habit of tossing tons of background characters in and making itself feel like a world someone was actually going about their daily life in. So the Fandom adopted them all. That's what fueled the attitude towards fannon and fan-fiction in general, imo
Yea
On Tumblr I saw one younger poster say something along the lines of "I think the MLP infection AU is a reflection of how fucked up the pandemic has made us. Like, I fully believed it would be like a zombie apocalypse at first. I had dreams about my family's faces rotting off while everyone died around us, and I'm not the only one because my friends all had some version of this nightmare. Adults were forced to go to work and carry on as they all keep dying and getting sick around each other, but I think teens and below have the blinders off and we can still see the damage and feel the fear." I think that was just a really interesting thing to hear, because I think they might be right, at least for some people/younger/new fans-- The appeal of the Infection AU might be working through ongoing pandemic trauma.
I had just turned 17 in march of 2020 right after the schools were closed. 4 years later, I just turned 21, but I still feel like I was emotionally stunted by the 2 years of lockdown, so I dont doubt that people even younger than I am were hit a lot harder by the trauma.
@@LottieLaRats I have the exact same experience! I still feel like an emotionally stunted teen when I’m about to start my senior year of college.
Interesting, I had no idea kids felt this way during the pandemic
@@Barnacl3_Boi as a kid, i missed important social development because of the 2 years lockdown, so yeah.
@@Barnacl3_BoiNot just kids. I'm in my mid to late twenties and I've had an incredibly hard time going outside ever since the pandemic didn't allow us to go outside for anything other than emergencies for weeks at a time here. It's not because I'm scared of getting sick or anything, but because it's so overwhelming to me now. I could handle it all decently well before the pandemic, but now it's super hard for me to deal with all the noise and the people. I'm slowly getting better at handling it again, but the keyword here is *slowly*. There were times where I couldn't bring myself to even just go outside to check the mailbox for like 2-3 weeks straight. And this is fairly common for a lot of people. It's not this extreme for everyone of course, I think in my case it's amplified by my autism and struggles with change in environment and structure, but a lot of neurotypical people I used to work with that I'm still in contact with, all adults, feel the same way.
I actually have one called Pony Wasting Disease. Its an infection that mainly only affects ponies (more on that in a sec) and the symptoms will make them loopy and unpredictable, sometimes writhing around and sometimes attacking others. But the thing its that its a very new infection, so everyone is learning in real time the stages and symptoms of the infection, as it only started half a week ago in the story. The mane 6 are all held in Celestia's castle in a bunker to help research a cure, and Twilight gives out radio updates to the outside world.
But, by name, this only affects PONIES, earth ponies pegasi and unicorns. Other species of creatures in equestria do not know if they would be affected by it or not. A zebra, hidden changeling, and hippogriff are searching for safety. A batpony joins them, but they are unsure if she could carry the disease or not. I did this because i love exploring the potential of the other species in the show.
That sounds cool!
You should upload this! This is too cool for it to stay only here!
@baroom._ aaa ty but I don't really have an actual story planned out yet, I'm just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks lmao. I don't know how to edit either but I could learn lol. Still ty!!!
"The mane 6"
Nice pun.
YESYESYESYES OMG I came up with something similar, once I found out about prion diseases and found CWD back in 2023 !! It's genuinely so interesting, and I love trying to plan out things related to ponies with it !!!
I think its a mixture of nostalgia and the trauma of enduring COVID-19 that allows these infection AUs to gain traction
and the love of zombies!
@@kichikitsu This too
that’s such a fascinating take woah
@@fern_g0rl eh not really, it's like how there was a generation of people who became very obsessed with 9/11 who were young adults, teens or kids when it happened. It's just patterns
You talking about your own AU was the sweetest part of this, I just love how much heart you approach the topics you cover with
real
I feel like the popularity of analog horror might of helped too, i learned about the swamp infection one through analog horror at least. I think people just enjoy horror and love turning innocence things into something horrifying
I can definitely see that connection especially with the Smile Virus which is an analog horror in its own right
True
Happy tree friends?
I wouldn;t be surprised. Analog Horror has given Gmod another boost in popularity as well.
Lemme guess, The Last Swamp Fever?
I believe AUs where there are infections, trauma etc are just a healthy way of exploring difficult emotions by yourself or with others. And if you have this old series with an established lore, world and characters that others know of already, you have a melting pot of creative ways to share ideas with a broad net of like minded people. The allure of "what if..." is palpable.
And we have a recent global infection trauma we are still working through, so safely expressing those emotions creatively with others through fandom is really, really healthy. Yes, even through Ponies.
One of the darkest, stressful times of my life years ago I went full first into a fandom with AUs and discussions all day every day. It got goofy, it got edgy and at one point really gorey but.. we all drew mad stuff together. I am so grateful to have been so sincerely supported and encouraged to create at the time when I needed it most.
I recommend to anyone to find your mad fandom people. Make weird TV programme stories, rewrite the world of a movie, idk make walter white have long black hair with red highlights - DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO
in my infection au, a disease contracted from the smooze covers and grows on ponies like a mold that slowly devours a pony. it feeds on not just the flesh but the magic as well. discord didn't realize the smooze could be dangerous as he is unnafected by it.
I’ve been following the Everfree Infection au by mrsgendered. The simplicity of their infected ponies are more creepy to me than the other grandiose ones I’ve seen /lh. The posts are not in chronological order, so it’s fun watching people connect the dots.
Edit: the father himself appears omgg 😭😭
I’ve been watching that one too, it’s too entertaining
The Everfree Infection one is my favorite fr
Aw thank you!! ❤❤
Also the cure is canonically MordeTwi lmao
YES Auggie's so talented and nice! Definitely a favorite of mine
It's interesting how these MLP Infection AUs have gotten so big that they're being made in other fandoms too. Like I've seen a few Trolls infection AUs around. People just love making messed up art of the most lighthearted colorful kids' franchises huh 😭
I think I saw one for Genshin Impact
It's also infected the MCSM scene
I've seen quite a few for Warrior Cats, both Original clans and the Canon WC characters
@@ender_voide9344 tbf, WC zombie AUs came back around mainly due to the Mr Fear MAP. But I have also seen an AU specifically inspired by the MLP Infection stuff, the one where Bramble is patient zero. What are the other AUs you've seen??
ive seen a good chunk for the undertale multiverse community.
My favorite is definitely the Everfree Infection AU! I love how the creator incorporates OC commissions into the story somewhat
❤❤
I was gonna shout this one out!
@@mrsgenderedayyy mrsgendered love your AU, please keep going 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Rainbott also got their oc into one of the infection aus
YESSSS this one is definitely my favorite so far and the art is incredible
Im so honored to have my art featured here omg!!! 3:12 !!
u deserve it queen !!
Good work! Keep it up❤
Long ago I saw an artist named PoorYorickDA(they seem to have abandoned their projects) who created one of the most interesting AUs I've seen in the fandom, it's called "Equestria Divided"
Equestria fell into chaos after the princesses disappeared, and the Mane Six tried to keep everyone together at first just to turn on each other eventually. By the time the story takes place the whole continent is divided and controlled by different factions in a constant etate of war. Very Grimdark, very extensive, felt like a fresh take at the moment it was created. A shame they abandoned the project
It did inspire me to create my own AU that currently it's going to be turned into a DnD campaign( outside of the MLP universe tho cuz my friends ain't bronies like I)
Oh man, owner of Nova here. I feel honored for the mention of my girl, even if it was short!
Who invited you here? 😂 lol
I know I've said it a lot, but its still crazy to me how much impact our stories have had on people.. ❤ and there's no one i rather would've shared my stories and characters with than you, Chan! (And everyone else who contributed of course, like Shay)
Love you girl! Keep being amazing 👏
@@kaylaliberty184 I could say the same to you missy XD
You created an amazing world and I'm so glad I was able to have such a big part in it
@@TravelerAoii you literally invited me here since you and Shay both sideswiped me with this video lol
@@kaylaliberty184 But of course XD
Being the creator of something so influential and well-known in the MLP fandom is genuinely so impressive. It’s like being the creator of the fan made Cosmos or Galaxia. For so many people, your OC is canon to them
The Everfree Infection by MrsGendered and The Sleepwalker Infection by Sunny_Synopsis are definitely my favourites and I keep track of them 24/7 for updates, the art syles and stories are just so cool, the sleepwalker one is especially unique to me- and the everfree infection just lives rent free in my mind at this point.
Yesses, someone mentioned Mrsgendered! That one is my absolute favorite!!!
I've been keeping tabs on those two in particular because they're so good!
mrsgendered's will always be my favorite Infection AU tbh, ice never seen an episode on MLP but their au popped up on my Instagram one day and have been hooked ever since!
SAME AHHGG I LOVE THOSE COMICS
❤❤☺☺🙌🙌
Yes I love his stuff!
I came here to mention msgendered's AU!!
I’m glad someone mentioned his AU! His was the only one I was familiar with before this video and I’m kinda disappointed it didn’t get mentioned in this vid, but there’s so many cool ones out there, one vid wouldn’t be enough to show them all 💕
I’m so obsessed w the the trope ive seen in a lot of aus where fluttershy is infected and discord knows something more abt what’s going and is using his magic to keep fluttershys condition from getting worse
If you haven't already seen it you'll love the Everfree Infection. Discord accidentally gives a fungal disease that only affects insects the ability to infect mamals after fluttershy mistakes the branch like fungus for nettles and uses it for a poultice to treat a mouse with discords help. He finds out what they've done shortly after fluttershy gets infected and upon realizing he can't just magically cure it instead starts using his magic to basically transfer the infection to himself in order to slow its progress in fluttershy.
My absolute favourite au at the moment is MrsGendered au, his lore about Discord accidently forcing the infection into mammals, the horror side stories like the ocean races and the asymptomatic pony stuck in an infected city, and just the vibe of all his comics UGh its so good PLEASE go read them all
I like that your AU maintains a lot of core characterization despite the new context. I struggle to like AUs a lot of the time cause I see them as sort of using the designs but not the personalities, typically distorting them for grimdark value instead of being in conversation with who the characters actually are.
Same!! Some of the AUs she talked about, I felt like the personalities of the ponies were swapped :/
Same, I usually dislike them due to having not much left of the source.
An idea that I had for an Infection AU was sort of a detective-story where Twilight arrives back in Ponyville after a short trip away (reason pending) only to find it infected and she has to find the clues as to how the disease began and how it works in order to find a cure. I especially liked the idea of Derring Do contracting the disease during one of her expeditions and accidentally bringing it to Ponyville during a meet-and-greet.
That sounds like an awesome idea for an MLP fangame
I would play that .Sounds fun
I’d read it. Sounds cool.
I actually remember seeing a lot of MLP AU art when the show was all the rage as a kid. I saw a lot of creepypasta art, apocalypse AU art, and even some Fallout themed AU art.
someone came up with a homebrew d&d of ponies in the fallout setting, and that level of commitment will always be kind of awesome to me
Hell, Fallout:Equestria got so big it has a copy in the Library of Congress.
I’ve made my games of Fallout 3/NV/4 into one somewhat connected AU, and the main characters of MLP are part of it as well.
Honestly I think the collective experience of the pandemic is a major reason all of the "infection AU" stuff going on. To me it seems like a lot of fellow artists have some Covid trauma to work thru still
Ok but a deep dive into TOH/ the TOH fandom would be so cool from Izzzyzzz. The leaks, the og theories, the canceling, moringmark, the LORE
i jus think it would be neat :]
My favourite horror au that spawned from this is “friendship makes magic!” The idea that celestia was only pushing twilight and her friends on their journey so they could harvest the magic from their friendship to power equestria is horrifying!🤩
Honestly I find it more impressive whenever I hear about an MLP AU that's not a) horror, b) tragic, c) a crossover, or d) some combination of the above because that's like 95% of them.
What about Doctor Whooves then? Or nah because TV show crossover?
@@Roadent1241 Yeah, I amended my previous post. Because goddamn there are a lot of crossovers. Mostly videogames, but a lot in general.
@@esperderek5383 Crossovers are awesome XD I love the fact we're OK with doing that.
The Mlp infection trend really brought me back to when I was 10 or so and was obessively drawing both canon and my own pony characters having Hanahaki-disease.
SOOoooo...I had this small idea recently for my own Infection Au, which I call the Rainbow-Bloom infection.
In this au, an invasive species of flowers/weeds were plauquing the land of equestria. While they were harmless for ponies and the like, they were making both plant life and smaller critters really sick, so a group of botanists in Canterlot were working on a potion to get rid of those flowers. The potion at first was thought to be working, but in reality it really only made the flowers adapt and mutate, now making it possible for them to infect sapient lifeforms.
The name comes from the fact, that the flowers, in full bloom, have a rainbow-y shimmer to their petals and also that it recolors infected ponies's blood.
(That's all I have for now.)
my friend is the one who makes the "happy to see his babygirl" au and genuinely seeing so many staples of the horse fandom post about her fills me with so much pride. I LOVE HER PLEASE CONTINUE SUPPORTING HER ART YOU GUYS❤❤❤❤
I need WAY more of your personal AUs/stories/ideas/characters, etc! I really loved that little segment! I hope you share more of your creativity with us ❤
A really interesting infection au is Cutie Mark Wasting Diesease. I don’t think it’s much outside of some art of the main 6, but I really like it! It’s here on youtube as well. It’s similar to swamp fever in the sense that this disease is based off of the show’s canon cutie pox. So the ponies’ cutie marks essentially start taking them over with these tendrils, and forces them to perform their specific talents with no way to stop, often until it destroys them. It’s a cool idea and has some really good art with it!
Wait i saw that one! It was so creative and cool!
the name is also very similar to a real life disease deer can get called chronic wasting disease, which i thought was really interesting. it's horrible but interesting
@@Bonkpunktexe yes!! it’s a very creative au in general, i wish there was more for it!
Oh the person that made it was octoinkz, right? I saw those and I think it’s cool too! I’d love to see more designs for it
Despite the memes this is genuinely some of the best body horror art I’ve seen
The tree one actually made me uncomfortable, geez
This shit is genuinely terrifying lmao. These people need to make horror movie
@@cooliostarstache5474The tree one is just… too much. (but in a good way)
What are you guys seeing in the trees that I can't 😭
@@taylorkierpiec6879 Well you see, the swamp tree’s roots are actually the body of the pony and it’s nek is extended so far it looks like a tree.☝️🤓
4:23 thanks for reminding me of this soul-shattering fanfic, Lyra would have appreciated it.
The partially cured Twilight Sparkle from the first AU is so wonderfully creepy. Still sentient but... very much not herself, and it's hard to tell if it's just the brain damage or if there's.... something else in her head.
Though damn, yours ramps up the sadness many times over. T_T
Great video, as usual.
"I remember being absolutely obsessed with her as a kid"? Oh. Don't mind me, I'll be searching for a crypt suitable for the ancient wraith that I apparently am...
Im so glad the new generations are also getting a mlp inspired creepypasta. History is a flat circle
I haven't finished the video yet but it sounds like this all spun out from the creepy pasta "the cough" from way back, strange you don't mention it in the setup section
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this
I remember that lol, I didn't realize she'd left it out till this comment though.
You've awoken a memory I didn't know existed
I knew I had seen something like this before :0
Thanks for bringing back that memory
I was to comment about this. I'm suprised no one else mentioned it
I found out about the infection aus on my birthday and spent like an hour scrolling through them with my friends, honestly one the best birthday gifts of my life ngl
ughhh lucky!! Happy late birthday :D
@@fizzy_buzz Thank you!! :D I hope you have a very happy late/early birthday!!
4:30 I read a fanfic for a completely unrelated fandom with an unrelated ship that had that exact premise 😭😭 I didn't know it came from my little pony!
Aw, this reminds me of the Danny Phantom fandom a decade ago, we had Angst Day, a day to post angsty and often gorey fic created to fight the flood of shippy fluffy mary sue fic that was to be expected of a kids show fandom, many AUS on da and tumblr and even a whole genre, Dissection Fic, which were fics about Danny being captured by his parents and experimented on. The biggest classic was Lab Rat.
Here when it still says no views, no likes, no comments, I don't think I have ever been this early!
Caitlin Koi Jumpscare
@@emilyfloof728 lol I was about to comment that
Same lol
Splatoon
Oh god.
You should check out Ponytown. It's a MLP fan game where you can make a pony avatar and RP or just hang out. I see people roleplaying the Infection AU all the time
I enjoy seeing all the other game characters that have been Ponified XD Mostly Sonic or Sans or Welcome Home. I did see Link/BEN recently though. Didn't react at all to the known quotes.
None of mine but Amalthea have been recognised and I made Luke Trotten, I thought Layton was popular? Ashley Robins I can understand despite the recent remake but...!
OMG TY SM FOR THIS!!!
I've got a next gen AU where the everfree forest is growing out of control and taking over Equestria. Strong unicorn/alicorn shields are the other things holding it back. The forest has trouble growing into cold lands like the Crystal Empire and the Yaks' home; the same goes for the desert where the forest has trouble with the heat, lack of water, and taking root in sand. I wrote a whole overview of it and was going to write a story on it lol
I like your AU because there's a glimmer of hope. Please share your "I'm sorry jon" artwork/fanfic because *gestures to the garfields in the background*
I'm not (and have never been) a big MLP person, but can I just say... I appreciate you highlighting these niche fandom/AU/character and world building projects people have. I feel like they are often "looked down upon," and I just love that someone is willing to go out and explain it in a straightforward way. Like "hey, this is neat. It makes me happy." Idk, it just makes me smile.
Anyone remembers the brief moment of existence of an AU crossover between MLP and The Count of Monte Cristo? That was a thing.
God I love animatics
yes, the music was very good!
You've just unlocked my ancient memory
That crossover (with other pony musicals, mainly Jekyll and Hyde) changed my life and I am not even joking, because I found musicals and the joys of classic literature through it and those became a big part of my life.
I also remember the tiny ponyfied musicals community with it's own creators and fanart that surrounded the thing.
I think about that all the time
I'm from the hispanic community and the AUs also got really popular around here. One of the most famous was "My little worms" were the ponys got infected by other animals and the story developed quite rapidly, the art was edited realiy well and even the story itself was quite interesting, getting extremely popular in just a few weeks.
Unfortunately the user (thinnk4) got a lot of backlash for wanting to write other stories and bullied them to the point that they abandoned the entire account letting the story unfinished.
After this a few people strates to inpersonate the original user spreading awful rumors about them which made the situation more comolicated.
Now that the hyoe for these stories calmed down the original user used their Instagram to explain everything and post more art.
I don't know if they continued with the AU but a lot of people got mad at how the audience treated the creator of the story (I'm also mad) and I wish the story finish in the future.
I'm not a fan of My Little Worms (too edgelord for my liking) but what happened to the writer ticks me off.
I wish there was something that could be done about these kinds of people... but I can't think of anything that could be considered "legal".
ESOO, ARRIBA LATINO AMERICA, CARAJO
/s of course
ea venia a comentar sobre my little worms tmb, mi gente latino moment
justo venia a comentar de my little worms xd
Your story sounds cool and in the very spirit of MLP:FIM because it seems like the power of friendship may end up being the key to curing the outbreak if they could get it together. Love it.
Imagine wanting to watch mlp on yt as a little kid,and seeing something like that 😭 0:46
From the ones I've seen, I really like Kitkat212's infection AU. It has a much different vibe from most other infection AUs since it puts pretty much all of the emphasis on the survivors and their journey as opposed to body horror and gore. It's really interesting and I honestly love how everyone is characterized.
I'll admit I'm not the biggest fan of the origins of the virus in the story, but I can overlook my issues with it since I love literally everything else about the AU
My favorite is definitely the everfree infection. That artist pumps out so much art and story and it's soooo gooodd
I have a Warrior cats AU called Ashcough AU!!
Before Ashfur went down and stole Bramblestars body, he got a cold from the dark forest and took it with him.
"Bramblestar" loses his nine lives to the illness and it begins to spread, driving other cats to insanity, to the point where they no longer look after themselves. The only thing they know what to do is kill and hurt others, and soon enough the clans fall.
I'm gonna start posting about it once I finish designs but yeah I'm super proud of it so far
That sounds amazing and cool
That kinda just sounds like rabies ngl
@bonkorbebonked I think being alive after having all your skin torn and coughing up black blood off is a bit more extreme than rabies 🤔
Sounds like a MAP waiting to happen. I'll be looking out for it hope it finds it's way into my animation playlist one day.
In terms of mlp alternative universes a very interesting grouping is "Equestria at War", it has quite a few fics to say the least. And funnily enough it is based off of a Hearts of Iron 4 mod.
I would love to see where your infection au leads!! To me, it feels like its gonna go in the direction of like
as more of the mane 6 abandon their element, the worse the infection becomes
But I'd love to hear what's actually going on!! The whole plot point with Rainbow Dash has me so curious!
yippee i’m glad you talked about this! i love the mlp resurgence through fan content like this
i ended up coming up with a concept of a post-infection au where the zombie-like virus was defeated using the elements, like most major conflicts in the show, but it managed to kill a lot of ponies and destroy their society. so in this post-infection era, the mane 6 are separated and trying to rebuild society. meanwhile sweetie bell and scootaloo (now grown up) have become mail couriers that travel across the lands to different settlements, and are still trying to heal from the trauma of what they lived through during that year of infection. i started outlining a whole big fanfic for it but who knows if it will ever actually get done OTL
i created a pegasi desease called alicorn syndrome, when their bones start to create something on a shape of the horn but getting bigger and bigger and spreading the bine tissue through the whole face, damaging the eyes and making them blind. Also their bodies begin to create much more feathers all around them and espesially wings which are getting to fluffy and heavy to fly. And because of the bone tissue getting slightly thicker by the time they struggle more and more with moving which causes slow and painful death.
I've been seeing one called 'Cutie Mark wasting disease' floating around, and I thought that was pretty interesting.
as a kid my fav mlp fandom things was absolutely rainbow factory but specifically the song. i found it on the website scratch, which was a kid-friendly coding language for flash-like content, but also had a website for hosting creations. i heard the song there for the first time when i was about 10, and i think there was also a slideshow talking about the AU, and i wanted to make a game where you played as rainbowdash sabotaging the factory from the inside that ended with a self-destruct sequence like star wars or metroid. i never ended up making it but if i did it now she'd be saving pinkie pie :)))
the other one i was obsessed with, which i didnt find until i was about 13 and using youtube more, was the rainbowdash "you're gonna go far kid" amv. so badass
i never actually watched mlp growing up, but i bet u can tell who my fav was as a kid xP i started watching the show earlier this year actually, i was high as hell abd started it and was like "wait... yea theyre so right this show is so cool" abd now my fav of the mane 6 is pinky pie. she's just so silly!!! she just like me
Never been an MLP fan, but the Swamp Infection AU is actually one of the coolest fanworks I've seen in a while, the art and concept are both so creative!
I literally refreshed praying for something interesting to pop up thank you 🙏🏼
My fave is the everfree infection!!!! Super eerie and fantastic story so far
off topic but izzy is literally ramona flowers with how much they drastically change their appearance. which evil ex is your mans fighting now bbg?
I have a concept based on the Plunderseeds from the season 4 opener, basically the victim is infected with vines that grow inside them until they become empty shells controlled by twisting, thorny vines. I want to do more, but i'm having trouble figuring out what happens to who.
Plus, I can't help but feel bad for the poor characters I'm mangling...
These AUs have actually spread (ha) into other fandoms! Ones I’ve been seeing are TMNT infection AUs which are super cool :)
Tbh I feel like you could make a whole video going over the different genres of AUs out there for all kinds of fandoms. AUs, despite their prevalence in fandom, tend to not be as well documented or researched as other fandom phenomena like shipping. At least to me. Could be a neat topic to look into.
WOWOWOW i’ve been hoping you’d come out with an MLP infection video!! Thank you Izzzyzzz for blessing us with your content 😭🙏🏼
I fully believe us going through a global pandemic has also played into the infection AU popularity. I mean think about it: MLP is a comfort series for many, especially G4 due to it releasing at the very beginning on the 2010s (us original target audience kids are now adults in our 20s), and during the beginning on the pandemic a lot of us engaged in nostalgic/comforting media to help us get through it.
There’s a reason so many of the early symptoms of these assorted infections all share traits similar to colds
Literally love how this revived the fandom. It’s so fun! I’m 24 and writing fanfics on it loll😭
I don’t usually like dark AUs, but seeing the resurgence of cool MLP fanart makes me happy :)
and I love LOVE the ambiguity you left with rainbow dash in your AU! settings like these need that mystery
Wow..
3:00 - in regards to Nova, she was actually a part of my Next Gen universe. I am "iPandacakes", or I was. Life got the better of me and I had to retire from my stories and characters.
Nova herself was a character I initially designed for a NG contest, and a friend of mine won her from me.
We decided after a while her character would fit very well into my stories and so we decided to include her in my Next Gen universe as sister to my OC, Crescendo.
We have been best friends from then on and created and shared all of Nova's stories and art. ❤ along with the rest of the NG cast we created together.
Its crazy that even after all these years, Nova as a character and the stories we created still have impact on people.. and im not gonna lie.. hearing you say "I was obsessed with her as a kid" made me feel OLD AS HELL 😂 (I'm 31 lol but still)
I know it was only a short mention, but I wanted to say thank you so much for loving Nova Star Sparkle and the stories we wrote for her and her family/friends.
Her owner, Chantel, is still one of my best friends and actually officially owns the rights to every character in that universe now - and is even revamping Nova and her stories. (With my help of course) ❤ so even after all this time, Nova as a character is still thriving!
And I will never stop being honored to see how many people loved our take on the Next Gen universe. ❤
I’m not a brony anymore but I really REALLY appreciate the artistry and community behind this trend. MrsGendered’s take on this trend gave me nightmares but in every single one of her comment sections of her infection AU videos all you can see is positivity towards her hard work, concern for the ponies and people asking a lot of really cool questions about her AU to a point I don’t think even she thought about it that deep!! That’s the brony community I fell in love with, and it’s the brony community that died out in 2015 and replaced it with pedos grooming me at 15-17, people unironically sexualising my horse at the time and just straight up nasty pieces of shit who had no hobbies other than to spread toxicity…. I miss that positive feeling and I’m glad this AU gave even just a piece of it back!
I'm sorry that you got groomed. I have been thinking a lot about that stuff since the AU came out. I remember proudly being a brony as a young teen and then seeing gross fan art and adults sexualizing the ponies. I felt sooo much shame for years until I finally told a friend and realized that I was just a kid. I wasn't even engaging in the sexualization and adult imagery of the ponies. I was there for the show and the fanart. This AU brought me back to the good old days
I even watched the first episode again
I hope you're doing better and I feel comfort seeing someone else express what I have been thinking about
mrs gendered's work is SO fucking good. the new 12 min audio story he wrote is so well made too 😭 absolutely gripping and immersive to the world and lore and the psyche of the infected he's built up these past months. everfree infection is def up there with classics like rainbow factory, cupcake, and fallout equestria, for me !
Everybody, go read the Everfree infection AU by Mrsgendered!! It’s so well done and the artist is awesome. We love you, Auggy!!
An infection-esque AU I would like to see is one where Pegasi and Unicorns suddenly lose their flying and magic abilities, becoming basically earth ponies as their wings and horns fall of for some reason.
It wouldn't really affect anyone's health but imagine how they would have to change their entire life styles, way of living, and may not be able to go home again if they are Pegasi that lived in the clouds.
And think of the turmoil and the paranoia. How some would think it's a sign of the doomsday, some would see it as evolution be it backwards or forwards, how some would blame the princesses of even other simple earth ponies, or think it was a calculated attack by some foreign kingdoms.
Would ponies still be the dominant species? Would they get invaded by other species? How would they compensate for what 2/3 of their population lost?
Another infection-esque thing I would like to see would involve the crystal kingdom and effects of crystallization, like crystal ponies becoming actual crystals upon death and how such is actually being utilized for profits. But one crystal ponies that had died and was harvested for crystals had some sort of illness and it becomes and infection that turns other ponies into crystal forms, being used for aesthetics, but then it progresses into that pony becoming full on a crystal corpse and its usually the rich that had died initially and it slowed down for a while but because there will always be greed a group out for profits start kidnapping other ponies to infect with the crystal virus to farm their bodies for more crystals which quickly leads to a full on infection that was all due to greed
Your AU actually makes so much sense! Ty for sharing and uploading. It's awesome to see MLP Horror AUs are still being shared and will live on for future internet generations
i had a small idea for an au :) fluttershy's animals are carrying a bacteria that only affects ponies, so fluttershy can't tell they're sick. she gets bit by one and becomes infected. the symptoms are fungal growth out of open wounds, foaming at the mouth, starvation, completely rolled back eyes, and disfiguration. twilight attacks fluttershy as a last resort, breaking her hoof and opening a wound in her head; now fluttershy limps around, unaware of her hoof, fungus growing from her head attacking her brain, eating anything she sees out of desperation, either fully eating and leaving massacred bodies or infecting others. doesn't help that being infected means she hasn't taken care of herself, so she's this smelly, disfigured creature with long, mangled hair and white eyes groaning and skulking around forests
these infection AUs got me back into MLP again ngl 😭 one of my favorites that i still keep up with is mrsgendered's everfree infection AU, i'm REALLY invested in it and i even recommended it to my non-MLP friends lol
I would LOVE to hear more from your AU. I love hearing everyone’s different ideas on the infection AU trend, and I love hearing you talk about things you’re interested in (hence why I subscribed in the first place). I’d definitely love to see a part 2 to this!! :D (but only if you want to haha)
Love your stuff btw! It’s Always a joy seeing your content in my recommended
I’ve never even been into this au or MLP as a whole, but my take on it would be that the virus stems from their cutiemarks. Their cutiemarks take over their body and their previously good qualities turn sour (I.e. applejack becomes taken over by a rotted apple tree, Rarity has crystal spikes, etc)
0:38
We’re growing into a brand new age of pony fandom. Being a rather active member of the fandom convention side, we’ve been seeing more and more people get involved in ways we haven’t seen for awhile.
- More pony content is being created by more and more content creators
- More cons are coming up (Mare Fair being the most prominent example)
- Many more newer fans are coming onto the scene
Might not seem like much, but pony culture is nowhere near dying. Hell, if you look up MLP search trends, we are at the same level as Homestuck was back in its heyday…with our show having ended a little while ago and G5 not being nearly as beloved as G4 is. Things might not be the same as they were in the beginning, and there are indeed sad changes happening as well - BABS is now going the route of BronyCon after next year - but make no mistake, bronies are here to stay for the long-haul
my best friend and i have been super into infection AUs, but since i don't use tiktok we end up watching them together on calls. we ended up doing infection AU inspired edits, just matching profile pics of pinkie and rainbow dash, because they wanted to make a side tiktok just to watch infection au stuff on so it was easier to find and save. pretty proud of how mine turned out, channeled my old creepypasta obsessed self into it.
i watched mlpfim a bit as a teen, but didn't get super into it until 2019 or so when i started putting it on and binge watching it from the beginning while i drew. never finished s9 (netflix didn't have it at the time), but shortly after i started working on my own AU that became a next gen. don't have a fic written for it, mostly a bunch of sporiadic documents i've gone back and forth with over the years and a TON of art. i spent a couple days last year or the year before? making a family tree for it and... well i'm queer and poly, so basically all the characters in it are too lol. makes things a little complicated! tons of cousins and half siblings! at this point i've had to put my foot down to myself about giving the mane 6 (+ their other partners) any more kids, it's a little outrageous. considering i myself don't want kids, it's kind of funny how many characters in my mlp au are parents compared to otherwise. i have a couple of crackships that have made me obsessed with it more than i already was- trenderhoof and big mac are husbands and zephyr breeze has malewifed discord. the inherent comedy of the latter paring keeps me coming back to it, even though i'm intentionally writing them as backgroud/side characters. i honestly might pick it up again! it's been a few months since i worked on it and i know the structure needs a rewrite since i wrote that back in 2021 without really thinking it through. sorry to ramble about this LMAO i really like mlp aus if you can't tell!
OMG I LOVE UR AU!!!! ITS AWESOME I LOVE THE COMPLEX DETAIL IN THE PONIES RELATIONSHIPS ITS SO INTERESTING TO RLLY THINK like about how it would afffect their friendships!!
My favorite mlp au short I've seen is where twilights infected and is all scary.
"I'm hungry" she says etc etc.
Fluttershy takes her to mcdonalds and all is good 👍😊
In my silly little scary infection au twilight discovers a rare flower that hasn't been documented fully in a journal.
The flowers pollen sticks to hair and skin then grows new flowers when the creature its on dies.
(Preventitive measures: bath.)
For your au it has such a great starter and i would absolutely love to hear more of it!
My faves so far were the Harmony Syndrome AU and that one joke AU someone made poking fun at common tropes where infected ponies became normal horses
i feel like the old equinox pony au from the early 2010s is a huge precursor to the infection aus we see today. the ponies became Weird after breathing in toxic gas, dimmed star (the equinox equivalent of twilight) is a mad scientist doing fucked up experiments like giving spiderlock (equinox fluttershy) parasprite features like legs and pincers… im just sad that no one seems to remember it 💔 the og tumblr ask blog is now gone i think but theres still dubs which was how i got into it! there was also motorloo (equinox scootaloo) as her own sort of standalone thing with Some equinox ties, but looking back motorloo was kinda weird and edgy. the equinox mane 6 were also edgy (PINKIE PIE IS LITERALLY ZALGO-IFIED AND HER NAME IS ZALGY CAKE.) but in a way that i still enjoy :-) also i LOVE your au, the thing with rarity and applejack being mortal enemies because of what happened to the cmc is SO HEART WRENCHING!! i hope they find rainbow dash eventually ..
Im glad we both loved iPandacakes next gen because she inspired me so much.
Also, I HIGHLY recommend the Hive Mind AU its so damn good.
Hello there! Sorry to pop in, but i just wanted to say.. I am iPandacakes. (Or I was).
The only reason I found this video is because my friends sent me a link to it showing the mention of Nova lol
But I am honored you enjoyed my/our characters and stories. I may have owned and created that specific Next Gen universe, but in the end it really was a group effort of me and my friends. Chantel, the owner of Nova's character, actually owns all rights to my NG universe now that I've retired from deviantart.
Nova, Crescendo and the rest of the NG universe are actuallt being revamped and are still thriving! We have been having an amazing time revisiting all our old stories and characters, reviving them together.
It still amazes me that so many people loved our stories and characters, even after all these years.
It makes me feel so old 😂❤ but so so honored.
I like your AU! It's dark, but it has a glimmer of hope, and all the characters seem to have depthful relationships that are interesting to think about. Nice one!
Some of the first horror content I've seen in quite a while that has genuinely unnerved me - and it's cartoon ponies dying of the plague lmao. Anyways I've never been in the MLP fandom but all this Infection AU stuff is very cool and creative! I almost am tempted to try my own hand at one but I know next to nothing about modern MLP lmao. One interesting thing to note is that horror trends are often shaped by what's in the cultural consciousness and I feel like (as other commenters have mentioned) the residual trauma of living through the pandemic could be part of why this particular trend is so engaging to people. Very neat stuff
Can I just say your AU sounds genuinely super interesting and well thought-out so far?? Like I don’t even watch this show and never did, but you clearly kept the spirit of the original in mind and wanted to keep their characterization intact even in your super grim version of the kids’ story. I’d hella read more!! I wanna know what happened to Rainbow Dash! 😆
finally i have context for that spongebob infection au i saw on twitter awhile back LOL