/bootleg/ faq wip


                                            A quick cheatsheet for recommended reading


                                            | The best of the /boot/ cheat sheet | |

                                            | ----------- | ----------- |

                                            | Emotional | Rare, Missie Pie, Twibot, Twill Shorts, Midnight, Angel Cake's Quest, Rambo Fast, Carpathia

                                            | Lighthearted | Minky, Jacky, Zooma, Apuljiyak, Patches, House of boots, Punkfire Xmas, Cherry Bubble, Flutterlime, Stompy

                                            | Wild takes | Photo Finished, Tinny the tinfoil pony, Nightmare Rare, De-Meaning The Six |


                                            Welcome to /bootleg/ now with our own FAQ! Where we try to explain the in's and outs of the general


                                            <How did /bootleg/ start?

                                            >A short of a Russian bootleg from the Rarity threads, (Rare) drove feels straight into our souls and set the tone for many to come, IE sad stories. It's still considered an initiation to get the soul of bootleg, but after the pain what stuck around for good is their inherent nature makes Anons want to cherish them making us the anti-fluffies.

                                            >It wasn't long before we talked about what other bootlegs would be like such as the Mane 6 which started the ball rolling. (Twibot) was among the first that hit just as hard as Rare, between some silly pointless stuff the thread clearly struck a chord with people and kept going with new greens flowing, feels, cheapo shitty ponies and getting ripped off was the trend.


                                            Why is this a general?

                                            >It's not new, but boots have always been close to the fandom since early days. A rip-off spike in a Chinese menu (Dim Sum), the ugly-cute mistake plushie (Thun). Toying with hue sliders (Ayrl). MADtv's skit (Maplejack) and this isnt even accounting for what the general has come up with itself. /bootleg/ brings a home to these old abandoned ideas together along with many new faces and stories.

                                            >If you ask us there's still a vast amount of untapped potential just waiting to be played with, something like old /mlp/ when a whole OC might be made off 1 single picture of a fakie like (Stompy) was born. We can't rely on reposts since it's so niche, which is a challenge and why it's so slow but there's still Anons willing to carry the torch for them to have a home and be remembered.


                                            Is there an agreed on autistic-enforced canon?

                                            >No infact the opposite is encouraged to break the mold! You can have fun with connecting the dots from different ideas though. From the beginning we welcomed a wide variety of ideas including Bots, Plushies, and Hassenfelds. Many of which might seem impossible to co-exist in the same universe, but if you wanted to do it anyways no ones stopping you.

                                            >Instead of restricting everything down to one narrow idea with laser focus we encourage the freedom to play, to make what you want provided it sticks to the basic core concepts. Bootlegs offer such a broad spectrum that instead of a single one canon it's better to think of it as a multiverse of possibilities on what-IFs going wrong each with their own universe internal logic


                                            What can pass for a bootleg?

                                            >Successfully bootlegged: Recolors, OCs, Robots/Androids), Aliens, GMO poni, Equestria, Inflatables, Bootlegs(Yup), Deer, Spirits/Demons, Golems, Goo... why contain it? You won't find something like an original species focus here, but they could potentially co-exist with the rest. There are of course, living bootlegs too.

                                            >If anything can be a bootleg, how can it be a general? Approaching it from a conceptual angle instead opens a different door. There's a multitude of offshoots is possible but people tend to stick with Canon, or OCs around the flaw of the bootleg. The real fun comes in how these changes affects them which can have drastic or subtle changes thats recognizable to the original and familiar... but different enough to stand as their own characters, not just species swaps.


                                            What are the core concepts of the boot?

                                            >Every thread needs one to have some coherence, for us it [flaws or quirks] and what counts as [fakes or knockoffs]. Even Stompy had these as core parts of her, as the first bootleg ever making her different than the rest. Bootlegs usually stand out noticeably from the others, but without being DA snowflakes. While everyone rejects and scoffs at the defects, we embrace it knowingly full well that these are the kind of ponies that are overlooked for the mainstream.

                                            >Bootleg excels at characters, usually in need and while many can drive feels-trains over you with insecurities, others have have a sort of feelgood pet-rescue air about them. It is despite their flaws that they can win you over and prove to be wonderful friends or waifus who are happy for their acceptance. For this reason abuse is either looked down on or rarely touched upon in the general, we aren't fluffies


                                            Any history of the general to know?

                                            >We had a few different phases and rough dry spells, sometimes with just a couple people carrying the whole thread. In the beginning there was a huge misconception that glazed over the fact she was a Hassenfeld knockoff and that lead to many people creating what they thought of when they first think 'defect' = bot to retread what has been done before.

                                            >This created some diminishing interest when more people were more interested in non-bot ponies than those who wanted bots, but even then as bootleg bots they still they carried on the general tone of sadness and darker compelling ideas such as 'The Ranch'. Eventually these types were spread apart between adventurous (Apujiyak) or more romantic themes (Twill, Patches) that drew more on the 'waifu' part of the '/bootleg/ waifu'

                                            >The thread was retired and the revival brought the some casual fun back that was injected back in bring to the the forefront with (Jacky). As the limitations of what a bootleg can be diminished more and more, there was more opening up which heralded in a new era of the boot as the wildwest of copyright infringements


                                            What is modern /boot/ like now?

                                            >More freedom than ever. It's taken years but things are maturing now that we can dig more into answer the questions around it, such as this FAQ. There's more interest being brought back to the threads, as well as a much wider variety of the kind of /bootlegs/ and their stories. They aren't just sad tales and neither are Anons overly prudish, finally having a healthy balance of everything to love about boots.

                                            >We didn't get things right in the beginning and again, and again but that's fitting for a bootleg general... Now that the dust has settled we won't be turning away the old ideas like the defecto bots which are part of our history, but it's also not just a limitation because there are many more ways to bootleg. They all happily co-exist together in the big pile of boots. Going forward the future looks brighter than ever with many more ways to play with the ideas of a mistake, intentional or not. We hope you join us in spreading the ways of the-


                                            >/bootleg/ waifu


                                            ---

                                            ###What the hell is a bootleg, and how is it different from other threads?

                                            While any given mare in FiM is the ideal, bootleg explores the what-IFs, and many times its IF there was something 'wrong' with them, either physically, mentally or both while separating them from the originals.


                                            You could say that Bootleg is about finding the appeal in the forgotten or the flawed it just happens to center around fakes or stories about look alikes. We're trying to recapture some of the early fandom creativity and charm when there would be whole riffed characters or worlds off a single piece where anons have fun making everything up on the fly


                                            ###How old is this thread?

                                            We are one the newest non-fetish general that still makes regular original content since it's such a niche concept we have to make it ourselves instead of relying on old art from boorus. Bootleg is barely over a couple years old since the general started in early 2018.


                                            But the the idea of bootlegs goes back to the earliest parts of the fandom, with OCs like Stompy or even the one off ideas spun around toying with recolors. Bootleg hasn't had the smoothest ride and has been shelved before a couple times, but Anons still find enough appeal to revisit the ideas as there's still an agreement there's much more we can explore with the core concepts of bootleg.


                                            ###What are the themes you guys do?

                                            Often times given the nature of the concept you'll find they tend to be more emotionally driven than other threads, IE feels and comfort. While you may get gut punches, a specialty often in bootleg is the pick-me-ups amidst a harsh reality.


                                            Some have settled into a bit of a mix of /nmp/ and /tim/ with defective robowaifus and a lot of heart. But that isn't to say that it's the only thing you'll find, bootlegs can also be very comfy, silly and completely unserious as well. We welcome wild off-the-wall ideas that would never occur in vanilla MLP too.


                                            ###I want to fuck them

                                            Thats not a question and boots are not for sexual!


                                            Real answer: Since we're not a fetish general lewds are often not a thing, but actually it's has been dipped into a good number of times.. We aren't prudes but we're not horny all the time either, boots typically align more on the charming side, as they are characters not clop material but that's not to say it cant be done... as long as it fits the original themes


                                            ###Is this an original species thread like plones and bats?

                                            Unlike other OC threads, we don't seek to make a standard that everyone has to adhere to, once you step into the world of bootleg you'll find that there's plenty of freedom when it's a knockoff. It's both a boon and curse to have so much freedom because people often like something more easily understood.


                                            Of course the majority is poni poni but a general thing to keep in mind is that if there's a knock off you can find or make up then there's free reign, for example the French deer-pones les fawnies. We aren't a completely OC driven thread either and half of the time you'll find a bootleg of a mane six or background pony from the show or some other cheap knockoff.


                                            ###Isn't this just strange waifu?

                                            While the streams can cross into strange waifus in bootleg, the typical trend of /swt/ was to push the absolute limits of what can be ponified and got spread too thin to really sustain itself.


                                            In /swt/ you'd often see it was dominated by Badumsquish or Thingpone leading to an overly dependant thread on OC and new content would barely be picked up with all attention being sucked up by Thingpone. Bootleg is a bit more familiar and comfortable with what we already know, just tweaking what we know and love about MLP ponies with seismic shifts, sometimes subtle and sometimes extreme.


                                            ###Why isn't this in /pie/?

                                            Bootleg IS very /pie/ like when it's about living with a pony, and may even dip into slave pony territory but it's not the ONLY thing you can find in bootleg.


                                            The earliest bootlegs fit more into /aie/ but then you have the gray middleground of bootleg equestrias. It's been floated a few times to merge threads but /pie/ has an obsession with their OCs and the cultures of the two are very different so we like our own little niche for now. We do have OCs as well that are not based on any one pony but just the general idea of bootlegs but there's a healthy balance.


                                            ###I want to make some bootleg content, is there a canon I have to follow like moth ponies?

                                            Nope! Some bootlegs just follow the same sort of logic on what they are, like bootleg ponybots are a very easy thing for people to wrap their head around.


                                            Most of the time there's no over-arching connection between the bootlegs and each take place in their own pocket universe. However there's no restriction and you'll find that there's plenty of room to break the mold too!  Aliens, Clones, Living toys, Robopones and GMO ponies and other fakies are abound too. There are no doubt fun coincidences and similarities but then there's crossovers with multiple bootlegs that are from different settings or greens so everything is open to be used if you like it.


                                            ###Do you have a discord or offsite group?

                                            Hell no! The only occasional group thing we do is watch movies together, but there's too many cases of discord killing threads so we're still stubborn about keeping it all on the board. That means that we're a slow thread but we like to hit a happy middleground of comfyiness that people come back to.