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. To submit your own, see this post.
Headlines for the week:
- Imaginary Friends
- Lightning Dust, Wind Rider, and Depression
- I'm Not Enjoying Pinkie Pie's Episodes These Days
- A Valuable Lesson from “Mean 6”: It Shouldn’t Hurt to Apologize
- Trixie Was Vastly Mistreated, the Writers Have No Respect for This Character
And get your soapboxes below!
Lightning Dust, Wind Rider, and Depression
By: MegaSean45
I've got soooo many theories about Lightning Dust about what has happened to her after Wonderbolts Academy that it might not fit into one post! Well first off, we still dunno her fate after Wonderbolts Academy, whether it's that she lost her head-pony status or she got kicked out, but it's most likely the latter. We can assume that Lightning's dreams have been crushed that day by Rainbow and Spitfire. We haven't seen her since!
Alot of people think Wind Rider is her grandpa, which leads me to believe that he was targeting Rainbow on purpose as revenge for her granddaughter, and just used the 'flight record' thing as a cover-up! Until he eventually got kicked out too.
I don't see Lightning as the revenge type. I think this is the perfect opportunity for the show to teach us about 'depression'! Lightning loses all hope and would never be happy again, knowing her actions crushed her own dreams. And of course Rainbow would help her, cause I'm sure Rainbow would think Lightning getting kicked out by something she didn't know better about was overkill, and would try to persuade Spitfire to bringing her back in, but things don't go out so well, cause yunno how Spitfire is! This could probably cause Rainbow to lose alot of respect for Spitfire! What if it was their dreams that were crushed after making a mistake, Rainbow would say?
Depression is also a very heavy subject, so the writers doing something like this is something they need to be really careful about like in Perfect Pear! But it could work!
I'm Not Enjoying Pinkie Pie's Episodes These Days
By: Tadashi (a.k.a. FirePuppy)
Honestly, why couldn't these writers give us some more exciting Pinkie Pie episodes, like a Map episode with the Crusaders where they all solve a friendship problem together, or one with just Fluttershy and not any of the others? Far as I know it, there won't be another Pinkie Pie episode until next season, to make matters even worse. I just hope that as of next season, there will be NO MORE solo Pinkie episodes, like in Season 6!
A Valuable Lesson from “Mean 6”: It Shouldn’t Hurt to Apologize
By: EnergeticRider
If you’ve seen “The Mean 6” episode, you remember that in the end Mane Six have apologized to each other despite all the hurt and offense was in fact made by the evil doppelgangers. Of course, the main ponies didn’t know that, but they still knew that they themselves did nothing wrong. Still, they apologized and assured each other that if there was some harm done they were sorry about that.
And I think this particular example is very important since today many people consider an apology to be a sign of weakness or even outright admission of one’s fault. However, more often than not apology is made to show politeness, empathy, care, sometimes even respect. “Sorry to burst your bubble”, “I’m sorry that the things turned out this way”, “Road closed. We apologize for the inconvenience” — that just a few examples that clearly don’t mean admission of any guilt, but sooth any potential inconvenience. Yes, even the first one, because as sneer it may look, it still not “I’m happy to shatter all you believe in” or “I don’t care if your imaginary world is ruined”.
If someone is making an apology for something which one didn’t, or something which one had no choice but to do, or thought it is the right thing – that should be normal. And a person, who apologizes shouldn't be judged, punished and especially exploited. Such practice is only making people hesitant to show kindness and compassion, simply because they are wary of negative consequences. Imagine if M6 didn’t make peace, but tried to gain some advantage through others’ apology. That wouldn’t lead to anything good.
So don't make people who are saying "I'm sorry" to regret that. I don't know if episode writers were trying to make this message specifically, but it sure fits overall ideals of FiM.
Trixie Was Vastly Mistreated, the Writers Have No Respect for This Character
Body: Why does Trixie get stepped on after she lived through years of humiliation, why do Glimmer, Shimmer and Twilight get handed everything she never had on a silver platter. Why is Trixie treated with such disrespect by the writers. They flandeized her by taking away the little bit of courage and magic she had, and continue to belittle her. Her every appearance in the show is to used to make other character’s look better, she’s one of the very few characters in this show that is actually relatable as a "real person that could actually exist". For anyone that’s a fan of her for such reasons, that may even identify with her for any number of reasons, and not just waifu-ism nonsense, it’s crap that her every new appearance just makes her look worse or makes her reality more depressing. Twilight and Glimmer have no lasting consequences for their actions, they never had to live through hardships from her mistakes, and always had support from day one. Glimmer and Twilight are forgiven and supported for their flaws, Trixie gets dragged through crap for hers.
a
Imaginary Friends
By: Nightmare Muffin
For a show that bases itself on friendship and was founded on one woman’s creativity and imagination, it seems strange that the topic of imaginary friends has never really been touched on, when every other aspect of friendship has. We’ve had ponies like Twilight leaving one group of real-life friends in Canterlot for another, ponies like Starlight and Tempest who have abandoned friendship altogether after being hurt by their real childhood friend, but still no imaginary friends. "Party of One" very briefly touched on it, but it was played for laughs during Pinkie’s meltdown. She has her friends and many others in Ponyville as her friends, but we’ve never seen a pony who only has their imaginary friends as part of their ‘inner circle’, and how other ponies would feel about this use of their imagination. What if such a pony preferred their imaginary friends over real friends? What about an adult pony who still has their imaginary friends? There’s many avenues of this subject to cover.
