Community soapbox time, where opinions from around the fandom are dropped down below for you all to discuss and debate! Expect these posts normally when not late every Tuesday at 2:00 PM MST And now Saturday at 2:00 PM MST. To submit your own, see this post.
Note: These soapboxes do not at all reflect the ideas of EQD. They are an open forum for anyone to post whatever crazy theory they want. Even contrarian opinions everyone would consider bad are welcome as long as they are written with some form of clarity.
Headlines for the week:
Why shouldn’t the broken be heroes?
Characters who Could Outlive Others
Celesta Isn't Useless Nor A Damsel, Sometimes
Shippers: "Tease, don't please!"
Social Commentaries about FiM that don’t Make Sense: Teaching Tolerance
And get your soapboxes below!
Why shouldn’t the broken be heroes?
By: Nightmare Muffin
A certain show writer once said about the My Little Pony Villains: “nobody is evil, just broken”. Well, I wonder why it seems so unacceptable for heroes to be shown as “broken”. The series vehemently try to paint the main characters as something relatable, and there is this constant push across more and more fandoms for LGBT representation for the sake of inclusion. But what about those of us who are “broken”- who have to live with depression or autism, ‘derp eyes’, or other physical or mental handicaps? I understand that people would be afraid to tackle such sensitive subjects or even have their main characters show signs of these, themselves, out of fear of “being offensive” to some percentage of people, but the reality is- we’re all broken. We’re not flawless. Those who suffer from any “disability” want someone to relate to. Why NOT the main cast of a show that they love, if sexuality can have such a push for “rights”? FMA’s main character is a double amputee with no parents, and Inuyasha’s Sesshomaru is a skilled fighter with only one arm. What’s the excuse not to make the next gen of characters like this?
Characters who Could Outlive Others
By: MegaSean45
WARNING: Sad post!
Not everypony's gonna last forever, unfortunately. In a hundred years from now (Equestria time), almost all the characters we know and love will become immortalized into the afterlife. What's even sadder is, some of the characters are gonna outlive their friends! Princesses Celestia and Luna, for example. Unless they have successors, they're gonna continue raising the sun and the moon. But then again, they could move their talents to Twilight and someone else; however, Meghan McCarthy did say Twilight won't outlive her friends, so it's either the Mane Six will last a long time, or Twilight's princess magic doesn't work with her age.
Then there's Discord, he's forever immortal, and yunno how sad that it's gonna be if Discord loses the best friend he's ever had? Spike, he's gonna outlive most of his friends as well, since dragons outlive ponies. Torch has been around since Flash Magnus! What's Spike's purpose gonna be then? Protecting the Mane Six's descendants (including his own)? If natural-born alicorns are made to live over a thousand years, then Flurry Heart might outlive her family and friends too, since Cadance isn't a natural-born alicorn, but I'm not 100% sure how this works.
Hopefully we can get more into the alicorn lore as the show goes on, and maybe see, how the aging process works!
Celesta Isn't Useless Nor A Damsel, Sometimes
By Mariofan123
Ahh, one of my favorite criticism to deal with when it comes to the show and by favorite I mean absolutely hate with an passion. Look after seeing the comments for Sliverquil's MLP LOM Annual Comic review I decided to give a rebuttal. As a Mario fan myself, (heh) I'm well familiar with the damsel and distress trope and I agree it isn't exactly my favorite trope either but people act like this happens to Celestia all the time (to the point of it being a joke). As long as the story gives a valid reason for why she gets kidnapped, defeated, turned to stone, or loses her magic then why are people still complaining? This isn't Celstia's show last time I checked, besides the show has shown exsamples of Celestia being capable, not at just magic, but as a leader, (Anybody remember School Daze, ...just me ok). I won't deny the fact that she sometimes becomes a damsel if written poorly, but it doesn't all the time so don't say it's a consistent problem.
Shippers: "Tease, don't please!"
by Marik Azemus
I saw a meme image of people cheering for Startracker as a love interest for Twilight over Timber Spruce and Flash Sentry. This caused me to have a revelation.
In Equestria Girls, imagine if Flash Sentry and Princess Twilight’s interactions were platonic in nature. He would’ve played guitar, helped prove Twilight didn’t trash the gym, and helped with preparation for the dance. Imagine the same for Timber Spruce, with him doing his job around the camp and being his usual laid-back self, and his conflict with Gloriosa playing out as normal. Imagine if all of that happened without him and Sci-Twi flirting or hooking up at the end.
If Flash or Timber had no romantic interactions with Princess Twilight or Sci-Twi, fans would’ve been okay with shipping them.
Food for thought.
Social Commentaries about FiM that don’t Make Sense: Teaching Tolerance
By: EnergeticRider
MLP:FiM doesn’t teach tolerance. On the contrary, it’s about solving “friendship problems”.
See? It’s already in the terminology! If you are at odds with someone, if something makes you feel bad or outright hurts you, if differences lead to trouble – that is A PROBLEM. And it needs solving. Is issue in your perception or someone else's? Maybe you can find a common ground? Or a totally new approach is needed? Learn what is the root of the problem and find a way to fix it – that’s what you should do, not sit and just tolerate something that makes your life worse.
Did ponies tolerated changeling invasion and said: “they just want our love, so let them take it”? No, they fought. Only AFTER changelings changed their ways, ponies accepted them as friends. Tolerating, Royal Sisters only grew resentful towards each other apparent unequal positions and needed outside intervention to see errors in their judgment. And customers tolerating tasteless food only brought to Canterlot just more such restaurants, until two mares finally stood up against food critic.
Not saying that ponies can’t tolerate. In “Maud Couple” no one is triggered by Maud’s racist jokes. But it’s not tolerance for tolerance sake – race just not taboo for ponies. It’s the same as different eye-color or cutiemarks. Or M6 tolerates Rarity’s fits. Not due to some law, but because she is their friend and her generous personality outweighs that.
The only exception is Chancellor Neighsay. At least, for now, he doesn’t understand what friendship is for and sees Twilight’s initiative as a problem. Which he just tolerates.
268 words. Is it too much? I already abridged in every way I could. And most of the text took examples (with as short description as possible) to back up the point.
