What Is The 'My Little Pony Infection' Trend?

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

"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

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.

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 think "weird and/or gross my little pony" has been a genre since the first physicians of the Renaissance performed public dissections

"whats the point of making a whole new universe if you cant put your silly little guys in there" this is so real

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.

Shoutout to that one artist on Twitter whose infection AU is basically "the cartoon horses are turning into realistic horses". It was hilarious

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

This AU unironically goes so hard

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.

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

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 think its a mixture of nostalgia and the trauma of enduring COVID-19 that allows these infection AUs to gain traction

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.

Im so honored to have my art featured here omg!!! 3:12 !!

“Happy to see his baby girl” still haunts me. And I love it. Edit: I don’t have any headcannons but one of my favorite infection AUs is the Graveyard Plague, Annihilation, and the Cookie Virus. Also one where they turn into dragons

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 😭😭

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.

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.)