@Background Pony  
Babs Seed, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Apple Bytes (dark colored pony playing videogames in the cherilees’ stallion song), Coronet (AKA Ruby Pinch s’ earth pony version), Cyan Skies (AKA aqua-colored Tornado Bolt), Grace Lightning and Hot Wheels (roller derby ponies in Call of the Cutie), Key Lime (AKA inverted-color-scheme Half Note).

You have a really good point!

Background characters do things?

She’s Derpy’s daughter. Your argument is invalid.

-16, 74 comments…
 
Congrats, OP, for a job well done!
 
10/10!

@DAWKNESS: Bon Bon in the show is actually a lot more entertaining than she is in almost any of the fan works I’ve seen with her. As you said, most fans can’t seem to character her beyond either being the straightman to Lyra’s antics or her plaything.
 
If you actually observe Bon Bon in the show though, she does have a bit of a visible personality across her appearances, and there’s also the funny quirk of her voice constantly changing. Oddly enough, Bon Bon’s quirks barely get exploited by the fandom at all, and certainly not to the degree that they exploited Lyra sitting or Derpy mouthing “muffins.” They are mostly content to just make her be a submissive housewife, and as you said she’s little more than an accessory for Lyra.
 
Dinky has the same problem, except that unlike Bon Bon whose personality the fans simply don’t care about, Dinky doesn’t even have a defined personality because she is defined by Derpy. If she had purple hair or blue eyes, I doubt there would even be fan art of her,

She hops around with bunnies and reads newspapers before Diamond Tiara grabs them…eh, that’s about it. She’s in the class and mainly there to fill a seat and make the town look populated.

Personally, I think that every background pony “characterization” (or lack thereof) is awful. They’re all the same flanderized jokes and catchphrases repeated ad nauseum.
 
Dinky herself is just an accessory for Derpy. I don’t see any other characterization given other than “Derpy’s daughter”, similar to how Bon-Bon is nothing more than “Lyra’s girlfriend”.
 
I’ll stop here before I just list off every reason I loathe background ponies.

I guess what’s important for everyone to remember is that when it comes background ponies, we should never make the mistake of thinking that everyone has the same headcanon, because that’s not true.
 
Ultimately, the background characters have very little influence on what happens to the “foreground” characters in the show, and I get the feeling that the only reason why arguing about background pony fanon gets so heated is because we have nothing better to talk about while we wait for the next episode.
 
We can can all play in the same sandbox, even if we have different ideas. One fan might see Derpy Hooves as being a mailmare who is married to Doctor Whooves and Dinky is their daughter, and someone else might see Derpy as being just a lovable goofball who can’t hold down a job. That doesn’t mean we have to get into fights over which one is “right,” because ultimately background ponies are very small part of the show and there’s plenty of room for different ideas.
 
I think as we’ve seen in this very thread, it’s not until people start having disagreements about actual main characters that things start getting hairy. Those are actual issues regarding the show’s writing, and I think they are much more important to the show’s fans than squabbles about how the way a layout artist chose to position several ponies has impacted their headcanon.

She’s a Background pony and like all other background ponies people wanted to make a personality for her just for kicks.
 
I’m a supporter of the Derpy Dinky because the art it produces is absolutely heartwarming.
 
 
Calling her the most overrated pony in the show would be a misnomer. Even calling her overrated in regards to being a backgrounder would be a mistake. Because she hardly gets any attention compared to the likes of Lyra,Derpy,Octavia,Vinyl,Bon Bon.
 
Personally I’d say Lyra is the most overrated BGP.
 
T

How can you call somepony who doesn’t even have an official story “overrated?”

@gg666
 
Inb4 mods delete it.

I mean
 

 
would you say he is well adjusted?

Luna and Trixie, definitely more over rated than Dinky

@Background Pony
 
If it doesn’t jive with you, fine, but it makes absolute sense to me. Having a good family relationship is, hopefully, comforting and unconditional; it’s like the training wheels of socializing, but it doesn’t fix everything. And babysitters? Their JOB is to take care of you, so that’s a relationship that’s handed to you.  
Being friends with people who have no familiar connection is a WHOLE other ballpark. For some, just downright scary.

*not trying

so uh, why does my mom complain about me trying socilaizing more if I talk with her alot? Clearly I’m just fine

Socialising within your own peer group and socialising with your older guardians is not quite the same thing, I know, but the relationship she is portrayed as having with those two is a pretty clear example of what friendship can be like and yet Twilight is presented as having no social experience whatsoever. You can try and justify it with arguments like those, but it still doesn’t jive.

@EQUINE_excite
 
What Equine said. If your only friend is your Big Brother then you would be considered socially awkward and bad at making friends.

@Background Pony
 
The BBBFF song itself should already tell you enough.  
Trust me, getting along with your sibling and babysitter are very different from befriending and keeping friends your own age.  
Very different.

@EQUINE_excite  
It’s not really the same thing. Sweetie Belle being Rarity’s sister didn’t contradict anything previously established about Rarity. Fluttershy and Dash’s parents may not have been shown but the fact that they have parents is implicit and it’s never been denied that they do.
 
In Twilight’s case, though, it’s explicitly stated that she didn’t have any friends back in Canterlot and she was hugely socially awkward and didn’t even know what having friends was supposed to be like. That stood for like fifty episodes, right up until the end when SUDDENLY, ACTUALLY, she was bffs with her big brother and also her babysitter who played with her all the time and they got on really well. It’s inconsistent and contradictory and that’s what the problem is, not the fact that new characters are introduced. It’d be like Fluttershy saying she doesn’t look after any dogs in one episode, and then in a later episode introducing her pet dog who she’s actually had for a billion years, or something.

Bitching about SA’s and Cadance’s “sudden appearance” is like bitching about Sweetie Belle suddenly being Rarity’s sister, or Fluttershy/Rainbow Dash suddenly having parents when they appear.  
Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re watching? You’re not watching a centuries-wide epic where character have a need for exhaustive backgrounds; you’re watching a lighthearted fantasy with a structure where episodes have to stand alone In fact, if you’re about to tell me all the interconnected relationships a person has up front, that’s shitty writing.  
Not everything is written in stone because flexibility is a valuable trait for this series. There are openings left for content, and having a problem with writers using those openings is stupid.

The very first thing she does in the show is sing and dance with bunnies. Its adorable.

I cannot say Dinky is an unique or special pony in the show itself, that’s true. And I don’t need to.
 
Because of all the pictures, fanfics and whatever else about her and her relation to Derpy, or Sparkler, or Doctor Whooves or whoever work for me. I love seeing families work through difficulty, and it works just so well with her. And exactly can be said about Derpy, Lyra and Bon-Bon and every other background pony there is. There is a picture floating around somewhere which says “the animators gave her odd eyes, but the fans gave her a family”. That sums it up perfectly (despite being about Derpy. Mind you, it was made long before The Last Roundup and stuff).
 
Every little thing we read or see about any pony adds in some way to our respective headcanons, be it official or fanmade. And it doesn’t matter what you find is more “right” or “wrong” about any version.
 
I am a Derpy + Dinky = heartwarming supporter, and this was my opinion.
 
OP, thanks for starting a civilized discussion instead of raging about.

@InfinityWeird
 
Some people also got creeper vibes from Written Script (is that what you call him?) in that self-same scene. Are the people who rejected the headcanon born out of that perception wrong, too? Should we all accept that Written Script could be a creepy pony because some people believe it so? Should we accept that CT and Written Script are meant to be Dinky’s parents for the same reason? Should we all accept that Dinky is Derpy’s daughter because a number of people say so?
 
The point is, everyone will always have their own opinions, and sometimes, there will be people who won’t change their headcanon because they find it more entertaining to them personally than other fanon and EVEN canon. It’s all a matter of personal taste, and nobody should be permitted to control someone else’s personal tastes.
 
Just respect that people have different and conflicting theories, and focus on having fun with them all!