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 this week:
- Mean Six? How about Mean Everypony Else?
- Bonnie Zacherle, the creator and history of MLP
- An Assumption of the Origins of Equestria's Summer Sun Celebration and Nightmare Night Holiday Celestia and Luna Are Not Useless
- In defense of equality.
And get your soapboxes below!
Mean Six? How about Mean Everypony Else?
By: FlareGun45
Mean Six? How about the complete opposite of that? What if we had an episode where everyone EXCEPT the Mane 6 were anti versions of themselves? Like a big baddie came and brainwashed everypony, but only the Mane Six remained unaffected? Wouldn't that create a huge amount of problems for the Mane Six? Like what if the baddies used the Mane Six's closest friends to protect his or herself, forcing the ponies to hafta face their friends? It would be VERY difficult for the Mane Six to do! Rainbow Dash is a tough gal, but she'd never lay a hoof on Scootaloo, brainwashed or not!
This kinda episode would be a great excuse to see Daybreaker again, that's for sure, but this time the actual Celestia being her! Nightmare Moon would return, chaotic Discord, equal Starlight, alicorn amulet Trixie, and for the first time, we'd have anti versions of each CMC, Student 6, Shining and Cadance, oh and even Spike! I know you might think big greedy Spike is anti-Spike, but really he isn't, that's just a dragon urge thing. The opposite of Spike, is the opposite of being an assistant: wanting control - like the Princess Spike Spike but in a less-cringeworthy scenario, maybe a bit more feelsy especially towards his interactions with Twilight! And how about Anti-Apple Bloom? Anti-destiny? Anti-Scoots, filled with lack of confidence? Anti-Sweetie Belle, wants to be left alone all the time, always angry?
What do you think of an episode like this? What sorta anti version of a good character do you really wanna see?
Bonnie Zacherle, the creator and history of MLP
BY: Nightmare Muffin
Everybrony seems to know the g4 MLP creator, Lauren Faust, but few have ever heard of her predecessor, Bonnie Zacherle. Bonnie is the matriarch of the entire MLP franchise in 1982 through 1992 and its predecessor “My Pretty Pony”- had it not been for her, g4 would not exist. Lauren Faust even makes this clear in a panel that she and Bonnie were invited to, in EQLA 2005; saying “I wouldn’t be here today, except thanks to you.” We know that Faust took inspiration from much of g1 and g4 wouldn’t exist if not for Bonnie and her gen 1 influence- but who is she? Bonnie’s toy designs initially didn’t impress Hasbro. They told her that her idea of brushable, 5 inch ponies with unique symbols would not succeed, and denied any further ideas related, but Zacherle kept pushing the idea for 3 years. She has contributed a very popular toy line that is still in existence today, and been the inspiration that Faust took from, playing with the same ponies (Firefly and Seashell) that Zacherle had made, growing up. Faust, gen4, and Bronies certainly wouldn’t be around today if not for the imagination and persistence of Bonnie Zacherle.
An Assumption of the Origins of Equestria's Summer Sun Celebration and Nightmare Night Holiday
By Moonlit Stones
I've thought about this for a while and decided to tell you my opinions on two big annual events we see on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. These are the Summer Sun celebration, held on the summer solstice, and Nightmare Night, Equestria's version of Halloween.
The Summer Sun celebration is what I believe was created to celebrate the day that Nightmare Moon was exiled for her millennium on the moon. In my mind the day of the exiling happened on the summer solstice, about one thousand years prior to the pilot episodes. The longest day of the year is a good time for Luna to be angry about her sister's role in the world as sun raiser.
Nightmare Night, on the other hand, might be based on the events of the IDW comic book "Fiendship is Magic" issue four, where Nightmare Moon uses the Nyx to invade pony dreams and get revenge on Celestia for her exile. In order to save face, Celestia must have told about the story of how Nightmare Moon would eat young ponies if they don't give candy offerings and don't dress up for the night.
This seems far fetched, but it may be legitimate.
In defense of equality
By: indiana
Oh boy. Where do I even begin?. First of all I owe some apologies to wackywert and zuche for my idiocy on the soapbox called "Was Starlight Glimmer a Communist?". I was wrong because I was arguing with them about the fact that my country was a Communist country and they tried to correct me saying that my county hasn't been actually communistic in practice but only in name. I am ashamed to admit so late but now I understand what they meant by that. I was an ignorant moron who couldn't accept the essence of what they were saying. For that I am sorry. I was wrong. Now, what does this have to do with equality? Well I am going to talk about villain Starlight's equality of course because I feel that this is also a subject that can be easily misunderstood just like in my case above. Her brand of equality was not true equality but only equality in name. It was equality of outcome witch is the wrong way of applying equality. We in the real world actually wish for equality but the brand of equality that we want is equality of opportunity. And as a matter of fact we don't really have that either because the real world is corrupt and broken to no end. Bottom line. Is equality actually bad? Yes and no. It depends. As a matter of fact this subject is way too complicated for me to shorten into a soapbox. I will only say this for now: We live in a world where hundreds of millions of people are forced to starve while thousands of people are allowed to own billions of dollars. That is wealth inequality and it is as horrible as it sounds and I would love to see some equality applied there.
Celestia and Luna Are Not Useless
By: nopony
It's a popular opinion that the princesses from Canterlot don't really
do anything useful, because they often get captured and don't contribute
to fighting against evil. I have a different point of view on this matter.
Celestia usually works behind the scenes, which is not directly visible
to the viewer, but in fact she is the mastermind behind lots of things
that happen. I think at some point she realized (probably due to her
prophetic visions) that the times are changing and Equestria needs two
new princesses to fulfill very important roles: rule the Crystal Empire
that would come back, and take care of the international relations of
Equestria. In both cases it suggests that an epic war is coming, and
Equestria needs allies. That's why she helped two ponies ascend to
alicornhood and guides them further. What she often does in case of
Twilight is pointing her in the right direction, but without telling her
everything, because it would ruin the outcome.
As for Luna, her strength lies mostly in the Dream Realm. There are
several episodes (and there should be more), where she helps ponies by
visiting their dreams. I think it's a pretty powerful and useful ability.
