What is Sitting Lyra?

Sitting Lyra is an exploitable image of a background My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic unicorn sitting on a bench with a human-like posture, which fans built countless photoshops and comics around.

Where did Sitting Lyra come from?

The image is a screenshot from Season 1, Episode 7 "Dragonshy," and the fan pairing with Bon-Bon was cemented by a Valentine's Day 2011 fanfic on Equestria Daily titled "How Lyra met Bon-Bon".

What does Sitting Lyra mean?

It refers to fan interpretations of the background pony Lyra Heartstrings as an anthropomorphic character fascinated by humans, usually shown seated opposite her friend Bon-Bon, who reacts with confusion.

How do you use Sitting Lyra?

Fan artists typically place Lyra in the seated pose and pair her with Bon-Bon or humans for reaction comics, shipping art, and even papercraft builds like the one featured on Equestria Daily in September 2011.

Is Sitting Lyra still popular?

Sitting Lyra is a classic brony-era meme rooted in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom of 2010 to 2012, with Lyra Heartstrings still one of the better-known background ponies from that period.

Sitting Lyra

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Published August 1, 2026

Sitting Lyra is an exploitable image of a background unicorn from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic sitting upright on a bench with a human-like posture. First posted to 4chan on the November 2010 air date of the source episode, it became the default visual for the character in brony fan art, photoshops, and Lyra/Bon-Bon shipping comics.

mlp memes exploitable templates 4chan memes fan art memes fandom shipping memes

Overview

Sitting Lyra is an exploitable image of a background unicorn character from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, shown sitting on a bench with a distinctly human-like posture3. Fans nicknamed her Lyra Heartstrings because her cutie mark is shaped like a lyre, and the seated pose defined nearly every fan depiction of the character afterward.

The joke grew around Lyra's odd anthropomorphic body language, usually paired with her companion Bon-Bon reacting in confusion1. Fan artists ran with the idea that Lyra was secretly fascinated by humans, drawing comics where she tries to walk on two legs, fixates on hands, or begs to become one of them4.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic / 4chan /co/ (source), Equestria Daily and DeviantART (viral spread)

Date

2010

The source image comes from Season 1, Episode 7 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, titled "Dragonshy," which first aired on November 26, 2010, and that same day an anonymous user on 4chan's /co/ board posted a screenshot of the bench scene, credited as the earliest known reference to the meme3. Lyra had appeared as far back as the pilot episode, but fan interest only really started after this specific frame from Dragonshy circulated.

How It Spread

On February 14, 2011, a Lyra/Bon-Bon shipping fanfiction titled "How Lyra met Bon-Bon" was published on Equestria Daily, giving the pairing an early anchor text that fandom kept referring back to1. Later that year, fans built papercraft models of the sitting pose, and Equestria Daily featured one of them in September 2011, calling out Lyra's "infamous slouching posture"2.

Hasbro started noticing. In November 2011 the company released a blindbag toy using Lyra's color palette under the name "Heartstrings," the 2011 San Diego Comic Con poster placed Lyra and Bon-Bon next to each other looking at one another, and in March 2012 Hasbro made the fan name canon with a blindbag labeled "Lyra Heartstrings"3.

DeviantART also became a major hub for the format, with a dedicated Lyra fan group and hundreds of works tagged "sitting lyra" showing the pose across genres and settings4.

How to Use This Meme

The Sitting Lyra template typically pairs the seated unicorn with Bon-Bon or another pony reacting to her posture1. Common conventions include comics where Lyra fixates on human anatomy, tries to walk on two legs, or unsettles Bon-Bon with an unexplained obsession4. Humanized takes flip the joke, showing a human-form Lyra trying to act like a pony instead.