Derpy Hooves

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Character
Name: Derpy Hooves (original fan name), Ditzy Doo, Muffins (official alternative names)
Occupation: Delivery Pony
Relationships: Doctor Whooves (friend)
Fandom: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
Other:
"Fanart of Derpy Hooves by SyrupyyyArt. Source here."
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Derpy Hooves, also known by the alternate names Ditzy Doo and Muffins, is a grey pegasus that served as a recurring My Little Pony background character, and ended up becoming a Breakout Character of the show, with a lot of headcanons and fanon created about her.

Origins

Derpy was originally only a random background character that was used frequently during the first few episodes. However, some viewers from 4chan realized that in a specific scene in the first episode, she appeared on the background with her eyes crossed; according to the staff, she wasn't supposed to be visible in that scene, but a layout change caused the error. This led her to be nicknamed "Derpy Hooves", in reference to the Derp Meme.

After that, a lot of fanart, Fanfiction and memes with her were created, in a way turning her into the official mascot of the My Little Pony fandom in general. This was also the trend starter of creating Fanon about the background characters that appeared in the show, with other notable examples being Lyra, Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch/DJ P0N-3 and Doctor Whooves.

She was also well-accepted by the show's staff, that began to make her cross-eyed in pretty much every other time that she showed up, and also made her more important in some future episodes, though this would lead to the Save Derpy controversy.

Fandom

Common Tropes & Fanon

Many of Derpy’s commonly seen fanon character traits were inspired by small things that happened in season 1:

  • In the episode "Applebuck Season", she is seen in a crowd of ponies trying to get free muffin samples, which inspired fans to portray muffins as her favorite food. Also, a line of dialogue of someone saying “Muffins” was attributed to her, leading many to believe that was her canon voice.
  • She is seen on the episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen" working as a delivery pony or mailpony, and this was accepted as her canon job.
  • A purple unicorn filly with mane very similar to hers was seen frequently in these first episodes, and was believed to be her daughter, with many fanworks naming her Dinky Doo and showing Derpy taking care of her, usually being a very good single mother. Some people also had the headcanon that she is the mother of another background pony called Amethyst Star, since the episode "Sisterhooves Social" shows that she is Dinky’s sister.
  • Also, both this episode and "Winter Wrap Up" (where she is identified as Ditzy Doo) show her being very clumsy and… well ditzy, leading that to become one of her known character traits. Sometimes in fanworks she is shown being very incompetent in everything, and other times she is very capable even while messing things up.
  • Relating to the last point, with her crossed eyes and her clumsiness, some fanworks showed her having some type of disability or mental disorder. This ended up being phased out over the years, since some people found some portraits of her to be ableist, very inaccurate on occasions where it tried to give her a specific diagnosis, or to fall under the trope of being inspirationally disadvantaged. Later fanworks usually just show her as being clumsy, but still having her crossed eyes.

Pairings

She is most often paired with fellow background character Doctor Whooves, but is also commonly shipped with Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle. She is also often seen in fanworks being good friends with some other popular background characters, like Carrot Top and the previously mentioned Doctor Whooves.

Fanworks

Fanart

Gallery

Meta

Links & Resources


References

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