I recently posted a story heavily inspired by the controversial Red Thrush Private School. People were being negative, and saying mods will take it down for not being pony enough though I worked to make a humanized Equestria. In other words, too human. But where would you all make a cut off? At humanized Equestria with an occasional pun to bring in earth items? Or is it straight up earth with pony names?

804170 In my story I literally changed absolutely nothing and just made everyone human. I did have to sort out a few things like wings and horns and pony strength but that was about it.

804170 The way I see it, it should be equestria, Only humanized. Magic instead of technology. A good example would be the "Journey of Graves" series.

Ponyville Days

This one is a nice example of humanized pony society and it doesn't strike me as being anything like a copy of Equestria. Everything's been revamped and the ponies are completely mundane. Rainbow Dash works at an airstrip and the only relationship she has to the skies is when she presumably gets in a plane.

I think the main point is to have a focus on the ponies, capturing their characters so as to leave no doubt that it's the Mane 6 we're dealing with. In other words, I don't think a story like Ponyville Days would be 'pony enough' if it was about anyone but the Mane 6.

I think the problem with Red Thrush was that it basically copy-pasted the FiM characters over into a new world. That's an issue because the characters aren't self-defining--you'll find characters that fit the same tropes in many other genres, too; thus making it not exclusively FiM.
For me personally, it's close to the line if there's no distinction between pony types. They're there for a reason, dang it.
I think what you have to strive for in a humanized story is magical realism, as opposed to fantasy. Fantasy you know can't happen. Magical realism is normal stuff with just enough craziness (for lack of a better word) to make you question if it could really happen.

804197 I agree. The characters are more important than the things they are living around or their form.

804193 in Equestria.

I was not aware that there was a "too human" I would say keep magic, but work in SOME technology. give any pegasus wings, but unicorns should use their hands in my opinion because I don't really like the idea of a horn sticking out of someone's head. That's really it for me.

804225 I knew I wasn't the only person bothered by the idea of a human with a horn jutting out of their head!

804285 Oh good, I thought I was alone on that one.

804170
Don't sweat it dude. There are much worse stories that are humanized on this site

And when I mean worse, I mean worse as in too human.

804170
There's no such thing as too human. Humanized is designed with one goal: Making the characters more empathetic and relatable to readers. You do that, you keep your characterization spot-on with every character you use, and your job is done. It doesn't matter if they're astronauts, schoolkids, knights or thieves. Keep them in-character, and anything goes, amigo. Too human is nothing but a wimpy excuse for when people can't nail the protagonists.

Edit: I mean, hell, two of my humanized works don't even have magic, and they're more pony than half the pony fics on this site, you know? All about keeping dem kids and their actions related to their pony selves.

I've written in a few changes here and there when it comes to my vision of a Humanized Equestria, the changes aren't that big but they are certainly noticeable. The odd one or two TV sets lying around and the mention of college doesn't seem to hurt the people who read my Humanized stories.

In my opinion, the cutting-off point is when the character/setting/actions that are adapted from the show no longer bear a reasonable resemblance of- or passing recognition to- the original from the show. But for the most part, humanized writers have been successful in abiding by this. We do fairly well with adapting characters (including their personalities, occupations, appearances), settings, and even storylines to humanized universes, and I have yet to come across a story that has yet to break that. Even if ponies, magic, and Equestria itself are removed completely, everything can still work because there's more that we can adapt.

I think humanized gets a bad rep because we're breaking a species barrier than most hard-core fans find sacred to the show (for some reason). In truth, I've read full-pony fics that were less connected to the show than most humanized fics were (namely characters acting completely out of character), yet we get flak over Red Thrush Private School (which, I would argue, had barely-decent-enough characterizations of the mane six that it'd be passable). It's just not fair.

I'm actually writing a humanized story, and was wondering if I was making the characters a bit too human. Here's a list of things I did in order to help the characters keep some ties to their pony selves. For earth ponies, jobs like metalsmithing and obviously farming would be more up their alley, with their strength attributed to working without the aid of magic their entire lives. Unicorns, as I've read in some of the posts here already, use their hands to cast spells. Only thing I added was that all unicorns at least know levitation (as their pony selves obviously know already), but in order to hone their true magical potential, they go into seperate schools of magic (combat spells, healing, etc.), or in the case of Rarity, have unique uses for it. Ponies like Twilight Sparkle are those who extend their studies, going into all kinds of magic. Pegasi were a bit tricky, but I think this may work (I want to see what you guys think). Humanized pegasi would have an innate form of magic within themselves that allows them to do what their pony selves would do. One major difference I included was the appearance of wings. The longer a human pegasus flies about, the better their skill at controlling that innate ability becomes, and eventually they have a slight shimmering effect that resembles wings (so in this case, human pegasi like Fluttershy would have a weak shimmer effect, while ones like Rainbow Dash would be more prominent). If this seems a bit too much, I can always change it to what the rest of you suggest and just give them wings as usual. I apologize for the long post, by the way.

1000140
I have a similar construction concerning my humans, though mine has much influence from fantasy RPGs and The Lord of the Rings and the like.
I gave my personified Unicorns, the Starcrest, a mark on their brow (there also exists "mana theory" to explain why they have trouble casting spells when they've been out of the starlight--any natural light, actually--for too long, but the Starcrest are traditionalists and this theory has been met with much resistance, as it makes their magic seem synthetic). The Starcrest are the artists and craftsmen of the three primary races, and served to give them a sense of cultural unity which allowed for the foundation of the Equestrian Kingdom, which marked the start of the Third Age.
I also have the Seraphim as my personified Pegusai, name courtesy of The Orator on DeviantArt. They can mold clouds, which are tangible to them, into buildings and weapons, an ability known as "cloudforge." Cloud weapons are not very strong, but they easily bypass armor not of cloud. Culturally, the Seraphim are very primal, and beings of instinct. You'd be hard-pressed to find a winged scholar, though they are natural worriors and helped protect the others from Discord's onslaught of monsters in the Second Age.
The Earthbound, as I call them, retain most strongly the Blight (see below) and thus are the masters of their own destiny. This stems from the traditional fantasy-realm concept and my own Humanist philosophy. They are inventors. They think "outside the box." They don't find their way, they make it. They learn without limit, their fate is never set in stone. An Earthbound farmer may leave the sickle for the smith's hammer, an ability all the other races can only envy. They provided the food and engineering advancements fundamental to civilization.

(805352)
Also of note, I have it that the Unicorns and Pegusai did in fact exist at one point. Luna made them in the First Age, basing them off of Celestia's creation, the Horse, the first animal, except that Luna made hers immortal. (The horse is also deeply ingrained in the human culture once they come about.) But after a failed DiscordXCelestia thing--over his creation of the humans, no less--he releases his Blight upon the world, a curse of contradiction that can only kill that which cannot die (the Unicorns, the Pegusai, and all the "Alicorns" other than Celestia and Luna, who are protected by the necklaces through which they controll the Sun and Moon, respectively.)
Yes, I have Discord make the humans. This ties in with my more cynical philosophy. (A cynical humanist? Isn't that a contradiction? Yes it is. Discord and the humans are also heavily associated with contradictions.) The humans are born of this curse of contradiction in its most perfected form, which is what gives them their liberty of destiny (and gives them the ability to kill the Alicorns; yes, the Alicorn's first name for the human taint upon their perfect world was the "Blightborn").
When the Pegusai and the Unicorns faced extinction, they came to the humans for help. They gave them their wings and their magic so that their legacies may live on through them. These gifts took their toll, however, and they do not carry the Blight as strongly. Even the Starcrest specialize--they learn one trade, and to teach them another would mean going back every hour or so and re-instructing them (though as with all humans, there are always exceptions; it is their pattern to break patterns, after all).

Once the races had been established and Discord overthrown, the humans submitted themselves to Celestia as their savior and goddess. Celestia accepted her role as their guardian, and Luna was stuck with keeping on a leash all the creatures that would do them harm. From this, Luna earns a rather unflattering reputation. Luna gets no appreciation, you see, not even from the Starcrest and Seraphim that logically owe their gifts to her. Discord is therefore able to use this to his advantage, and taunts her night after night to use her to exact his vengeance over Celestia.

And thus rises the Empress Nightmare.
Yes, I involve Discord in the Nightmare incident, as well as Chrysalis and the changelings and the royal wedding. Everything is tied into one event. I even give a "Previous Six" and flesh out the story from when the Nightmare attacked the first time around, including the forging of the Elements. I make use of all the characters from the show I can, giving each alternate-interpretations to keep a darker tone.

The story is a contradiction in and of itself--it's Pony at its purest, but it hardly resembles the show at all! It's altogether far too human, yet far too pony.

So, yeah. That's the "Blightborn" world setting for you. In short.

As a writer, I tend to think in more logical terms. The first time I started formulating my boxing oriented story, it was really hard for me to see everything that goes into preparing for the squared circle fitting into the mold of the MLP body type; that's why I chose to go human, and will likely continue to, for as long as things like hands and human muscle types are needed to fully portray the story