The Pony Clone That Got Away

bunnysunnymew asked: I'm not sure who joey is, or what his blog is about as I don't follow it. But if this is mostly about the benvield derpy vs dotty thing I still don't feel like you got THAT much backlash for it. Like most of the negative feedback you got was "I prefer derpy, but dotty is cool too and I plan on reading it eather way". I know this because I've been following the progress on the dotty blog bc it interests me and I've been reading the notes. Unless I missed something or you have unpunished anon hate

Derpibooru people are throwing a fucking fit, I’ve had people nag me in my inbox that I didn’t publish, lost 300+ followers in 2 days. I’m not getting it as bad as Joey is though, the higher percentage of comments is people being disappointed and doing things like posting pictures of his Diane character on a gravestone saying “RIP PONY DIANE” and it’s just overall a very unpleasant reaction. He also lost multiple patrons after the announcement.

joeywaggoner:

Sad but true.

I haven’t seen people on Derpibooru throw a fit over the announcement, but I have notice something that’s bugged me.

For some backstory, Derpibooru has posted the “Clone” updates in the past (which I don’t mind as long as I’m credited and there’s a link to the original post), and on all of these Diane wasn’t labeled as an OC, their reason being that she’s based on one of the clones from the “Too Many Pinkie Pies” episode.

Recently they’ve posted the images of the pig version of Diane, and even there not only have they not tagged her as an OC, but they continue to tag her as “Pinkie Clone”!

THEY’RE NOT EVEN THE SAME SPECIES ANYMORE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Dear Bronies

joeywaggoner:

jitterbugjive:

the-green-anon:

jitterbugjive:

Stop treating artists like shit when they decide they want to do something original instead of ponies. Every fucking time a brony artist has done this, there’s a mass whiny reaction where they act like the artist has betrayed them.

They have been toiling away giving you free pony content for fucking years, and it can feel really empty after a while because we question “do people even give a shit about me, or do they only care about ponies?” You’ve had years of this stuff, you can look back at it, the content turning original doesn’t suddenly erase everything the artist put in to the original in fact it takes all of that effort and forms it in to something NEW and UNIQUE. This is a perfect opportunity for people to start up in a brand new potential fandom.

But it’s a sad slap of reality that yes, a huge chunk of these bronies are so far stuck up the pony assholes that they can’t accept any other variants, even if the characters and stories are the same it doesn’t matter to them.

All of you who keep doing this, who keep telling artists you’re “disappointed” in them for wanting to do something that will feel special and personal to them, all of you who turn away the moment you hear it won’t be ponies any more without even giving it a semblance of a chance because “WAAH IT’S NOT PONIES”? Those of you who think ‘if it’s not ponies, it’s complete crap’….

Do me a favor:

image

You’re nothing but shallow, childish assholes.

I can’t help but feel this was partly promented by my ask to @joeywaggoner​ for some reason… If not, then the timing just was too random to make me think otherwise.

Honestly I know of two blogs that were pony rebooting to become nonpony. And well, one of them I like the idea of it, the Dotty Blog that you’re working on that seems very neato given that at it’s core it seemed to be a very nonpony project that just started off with pony characters yet now is being retooled into something fresh & original.

While the other blog that I know of doing this Joey’s @theclonethatgotaway‘s retool, just for me felt wrong. Like it’s story felt very Pony at it’s core, making me wonder “why” this change is happening, and still feel like that i’m the only one that dislikes this change, just not understanding it despite my best efforts.

I hope i’m not to blame for this post, but either way, felt very attacked by it. 

It took Joey a long time to actually build up the courage to do this and the majority of reactions have been negative even though no one knows anything about the world he’s had in development for a REALLY long time now.

That kind of thing builds up and really stings over time because all it says is “people only cared because this was a pinkie pie clone, not about the character, art, or story concept”

Me and other friends have been working with him for a while now to figure how to rework the story because he’s been really bothered by people constantly mistaking Diane for just ‘another Pinkie Pie’ and he was so attached to the character and concept that he wanted to do something original with it rather than dedicate all his time to a fan project. He’s older now, leisurely time isn’t as easy to come by and he’s been doing pony fan content for half a decade now.


The idea of clones is not pony exclusive, the idea of a clone escaping a terrible fate doesn’t need ponies to make it work. At the story’s core, THAT is what it is, it’s not “Pinkie Pie’s Clone”, it’s “A terrified clone who’s in hiding and trying to find their own identity separate from where they originated from”

Which is exactly what the story itself is doing now, branching away from the show it was copied from and becoming an entirely new but still familiar thing.


You can literally replace the characters in the story with non-ponies and it wouldn’t change anything that much at all, so I don’t see why it needs ponies to be good.

I do want to point out that @the-green-anon has since apologized for that ask he sent me earlier saying that he was a bit too harsh earlier and that he does “hope the best” when the reboot/retool comes out (though even if he didn’t apologize I would never want people to go attack him).

But still, the overall reaction the announcement of “Clone” becoming original has been rather discouraging for the reasons Jitters mentioned above. I did expect some backlash from the announcement, I just didn’t think the negative comments would outweigh the positive ones.

The majority of the cast in the blog weren’t even characters from the show, just characters that happened to be ponies and suddenly everybody feels like I just killed all of them off when I’m just giving them a redesign. I can only imagine how Jan Animations and the mod of Flufflepuff feel cause as bad as I’ve gotten it they probably have it much worse due to their bigger audience.

elosoquelee asked: Looking forward to the new direction of the Clone that got away! What can you tell us about Diane as she is in this "new" incarnation? What will change?

Her overall personality will remain the same, her overall goal will still be to become real, she’ll still be naive when it comes to knowing how the world works, she’ll still love acting, she’ll still have a crush on Spotlight, and she’ll be horrified of the one who killed all her sisters.

Really the only major difference between the new version and the old version is that she’s not pony.

As for any differences besides that… Well she’ll also be afraid of the idea of someone trying to eat her (pigs are quite the popular animal), and she’ll have a slow growing interest in fashion and dancing.

theponyclonethatgotaway:

image

@reversalmushroom

That’s because during most of the blog’s run I was still in the middle of college, which took up a ton of my time, and I barely had any time to work on personal stuff. Thanks for the good luck message though.

image

@animeking7777

There’s really no need to worry. Pretty much everything I had planned for the pony blog will happen in the new reboot, just not as ponies and all with original characters.

Still there are a few ideas which won’t really translate over to the reboot, so at some point I will reveal those ideas in a future post.

Once again, thanks for the good luck.

((night reblog))

The Status of “The Clone That Got Away”

theponyclonethatgotaway:

Been wanting to announce this for awhile, now seems like as good a time as any.

image

The Clone That Got Away is going to be rebooted as it’s own original comic. It will now take place in a more cartoony universe (along the likes of ToonTown in Roger Rabbit, and it will also take place in the same universe as my other original project in the works Think Ink).

The url of the current blog will be changed to “theponyclonethatgotaway”, while the new blog will keep the original url.

Most of the original characters from the blog will transition into this new version, redesigned as anthro animals. Some various story elements are still being worked out such as who’s gonna play the “Twilight Sparkle” role in the origin, as well as how the rest of origin is going to play out, but it is being worked on.

So far the story is that Diane is the clone of a mascot pig actress for a meat packaging company, this pig also loves to eat meat. There are a few more details worked out but they’re a bit too long to go into here.

Some people not in the know might ask “Why are you doing this?” or “Why not leave it as an MLP blog?” While I still love MLP and the universe, I don’t exactly have a ton of free time to completely devote to ongoing fan projects (a one of comic page or maybe a short story sure, but not an ongoing thing). If I’m going to devote a ton of time to a project this big I want it to be something I can make money off of in the future without having to worry about Hasbro issuing a Cease and Desist. Not to mention I’ve been working on the character of Diane for so long that I consider her as original as the rest of my original characters, and I wanted her to be completely mine without a tie to something I don’t own the rights to.

As for when this new original version will come out. Don’t expect it anytime soon. If I had to take I guess I assume it will take no less than a year to get it ready, but there’s still a lot of factors to work out.

Anyways, I thank you all for your support and I hope you all look forward to the new original version of “The Clone That Got Away.”

((night reblog))

reversalmushroom asked: What was the event gonna be that was gonna make us say "we're definitely in season 4 now"?

Actually there were two moments technically. Since these moments are definitely not gonna happen in the reboot I might as well reveal them now.

The first was gonna involve the mirror in Diane’s room being revealed to be a magic mirror and she goes through it being transported to the Equestria Girls universe. She would first think she had become ugly, but she just didn’t know that what humans normally look like (“Oh my gosh! Everybody is ugly here!”).

She would wind up at the school and then Sunset Shimmer would trick her into trying to steal the crown from Vice Principal Luna while Sunset continued to try and sabotage Twilight’s chances of winning the Fall Formal. Diane would actually manage to find the crown via disguising herself as Celestia and convincing the janitor to give her his keys to the storage area, but she would choose not to take the crown. She would then break the news to Sunset who lashes out at her angrily and then Diane would get sad and go back through the magic mirror.

The second moment would come later, where at some point Diane and Spotlight’s apartment would have to be fumigated for termites, at which point they would have to temporarily stay in a hotel. Spotlight would have to go out to her job at which point Diane would peak out of the room and we would see Twilight and the mane six, basically revealing that this storyline was happening the same time as the episode “Rarity Takes Manehattan.”

image

There were some funny jokes planned for these such as Diane’s Celestia’s disguise involving her stuffing a pillow in her chest, the janitor complaining about how miserable his job is, Sunset telling Diane not to put the crown on her head cause “It will give you the mumps,” Diane being frightened about Twilight having “feathered bags”, thinking that the mane six were trying to attack her when in reality they were just lazing around, but overall I’m not too sad about loosing these jokes. I might find a way to work them in somehow or perhaps put them in a completely different project.

image

@reversalmushroom

That’s because during most of the blog’s run I was still in the middle of college, which took up a ton of my time, and I barely had any time to work on personal stuff. Thanks for the good luck message though.

image

@animeking7777

There’s really no need to worry. Pretty much everything I had planned for the pony blog will happen in the new reboot, just not as ponies and all with original characters.

Still there are a few ideas which won’t really translate over to the reboot, so at some point I will reveal those ideas in a future post.

Once again, thanks for the good luck.