This is a list of characters from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, an animated television series based on the My Little Pony toyline created by American toy manufacturer and multimedia company Hasbro. The series features characters and settings developed by Lauren Faust, who sought to create more in-depth characters than the stereotypical "girly" icons used in previous iterations of the franchise. The series premiered on October 10, 2010, in the United States and concluded on October 12, 2019. The characters have been generally well-received by television critics and parental groups and are cited as one of the reasons the series' older fans, called "bronies", became attracted to the show. Friendship is Magic characters appear in numerous spin-off franchise media, including a comic book series, a Gameloft My Little Pony video game, a children's book series, a theatrical movie adaptation and the spin-offs My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, where several Friendship is Magic characters are re-envisioned as humans in a high school setting, and My Little Pony: Pony Life, a reboot focusing on more slice-of-life stories. Creation and conception Hasbro initially hired Faust to create a pitch bible for the show, allowing her to get additional help with conceptualization. Faust said she was "extremely skeptical" about taking the job at first because she had always found shows based on girls' toys to be boring and unrelatable. She was disappointed that what she thought of the toys at the time was nothing like the animated shows, in which the characters, according to her, "had endless tea parties, giggled over nothing and defeated villains by either sharing with them or crying". With the chance to work on My Little Pony, one of her favorite childhood toys, she hoped to prove that "cartoons for girls don't have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness". To do this, she incorporated many elements into the show that subverted stereotypes of girls, such as diverse personalities, character flaws and personality disorders, the message that friends can be different and can get into arguments but still be friends and the idea that girls should not be limited by what others say they can or cannot do. Elements of the characters' personalities and the show's settings were based on her childhood imagination of the ponies' adventures, in part inspired by the animated shows that her brothers would watch while growing up, such as Transformers and G.I. Joe.