Anthro Ponies, Cutie Marks, and Pants

Imagine, if you will:

Twilight Sparkle and company come to Our Town at the behest of the map. They are met with a host of creepy ponies that definitely isn’t a cult with an insane leader. It’s very clearly sus right from the get-go.

But they’re anthro and they’re all wearing conservative body-concealing clothes, so how are the protagonists going to know that they all have conspicuous matching equality cutie marks? Unless they don’t have a problem baring their asses to show how equal they are.

Being set in a children’s show about cartoon horses, clothing is largely unnecessary, usually little more than a luxury reserved for formal occasions and the classiest of horses. Because nudity isn’t a problem, this means it’s easy to flaunt their flanks and the personalized marks they’ve got dyed into their fur. This starts becoming problematic, though, if you remove cartoon anatomy from the equation and make them anthro (heck, even without making them anthro). How are ponies going to show what their special talents are without going around bottomless in public? How are Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon going to shame Apple Bloom for not having a cutie mark without pantsing her at school and getting detention every day? How are the Mane Six going to lamentably look at their asses with their incorrect cutie marks during Magical Mystery Cure if they’re wearing pants and skirts at the time? Do they have to dramatically pull off their clothes to see that Starlight Glimmer has stolen their cutie marks and branded them with her cult insignia?

The way I see it, there are four possible rationalizations for this conundrum:

1) Pony fashion doesn’t perfectly mirror human sensibilities, with a leaning toward clothing designs that keep the hips exposed so the cutie mark can be visible.

2) (Possibly in tandem with the above) Anthro ponies don’t have to have cutie marks on their hips like canon ponies do. They might instead be located in places that are related to whatever the pony’s special talent is (e.g. Rainbow Dash might have her mark on her wings or the backs of her shoulders). This may still pose problems though if the mark is placed next to or on the genitals so there’s no feasible way to show it without being indecent.

3) Ponies have some form of clothing accessory that resembles the cutie mark so they can have it be easily known. Of course this still leaves the problem of being unable to know when something cutie mark-related happens in the plot and causes them to be removed or changed.

4) Ponies as a society just don’t care about nudity. This is something which applies even to non-anthro ponies, since it just gets confusing when they’re casually walking around without clothes and then suddenly they’re supposed to have genitalia for the sex scenes.

I think it can be difficult to avoid falling into the pitfalls of the societal norms we’re used to when working on fantasy, sometimes it’s necessary to consider that a fantasy culture might differ wildly on very basic matters, even those as simple as wearing pants.

This has been a mini-ramble that I felt like writing on the spur of the moment, possibly as a result of writing around a certain scene. I’m sure plenty of people have already thought about this kind of thing by now but meh.

I really need to get back to (re)writing the Sing ramble.

Comments

[Courage Fire]

While it comes to

4) Ponies as a society just don’t care about nudity. This is something that applies even to non-anthro ponies, since it just gets confusing when they’re casually walking around without clothes, and then suddenly they’re supposed to have genitalia for the sex scenes.

It could be a situation where nothing ... obvious is visible due to the amount of fur/fuzz all over the place. The accessories you mentioned in #3 are usually how most people like to portray them, or perhaps the QM on the hips they just put on the clothes or accessories or what-have-you. Again, an issue is when someone does something screwy to the marks, such as removing them or switching them or whatever as you mentioned.

However, there is also something I've seen by a particular artist, and one or two others, where they have their marks also in/under their hooves, or on the palms/back of their hands. Perhaps it's "really weird" that someone is wearing gloves, hoof-boots, and all that and more. Gives a little credence to the classic "mysterious stranger" with long hat, and shawl sort of look.