As revealed a while ago, soapboxes will now happen once we get enough submissions for it. Send them whenever, but also expect them whenever!
If you'd like to submit one, hit this post up.
This time around, your headlines include:
- Is Li'l Cheese a Transgender Pony?
- Ending wars
- Why are Ponies Magical?
- Is Scootaloo actually a chicken?
- My point of view on discord's mind-set was
Get the articles below!
Is Li'l Cheese a Transgender Pony?
by Alexrioponylover95
Hello everycreature!
So with this topic, I hope I’m not offending anyone, it is not my intention to mock those who identity as transgender or those with transgender friends or family.
Now with The Last Problem, we get to see what the future led to for the Mane 6 and with Pinkie we discover she got married to Cheese Sandwich and had a kid, a very interesting kid I might add… Let me explain…
So when I first watched the episode, I thought Li’l Cheese was a filly, what with the little one’s body type, mane very much like her mother’s, and eyelashes as well. (Trust me, that kid did in fact have eyelashes!) However as Big Jim afterwards a few days later stated that Li’l Cheese is a colt, I was a little baffled, because Li’l Cheese is very filly like.
So this led me to believe that Li’l Cheese is in fact a transgender kid, wanting to identity as a girl rather than a boy. Much like how some girls are tomboys, wanting to act like boys, Li’l Cheese decided to embrace his more feminine side, hence “his” behavior and similar characteristics to his mother. And well owning to Li’l Cheese’s parents and upbringing, I’m not surprised he ended up like a filly and it seems both Pinkie and Cheese Sandwich are pretty okay if their “son” was a transgender pony, Pinkie seems to love her “son” no matter what.
And to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if Li’l Cheese was in fact a transgender pony, what with the final season giving us our first lesbian canon couple in Holiday and Lofty and the writers of The Last Crusade openly saying that it was their intention to give more LGBTQ representation, it would make sense for the writers to sneak in a transgender pony before the show ends.
However I might just be very wrong about all of this and maybe the Season 10 comics will totally prove me incorrect, only time will tell on Li’l Cheese’s exact identity!
Ending wars
By: indiana
Remember the episode The Hooffields and McColts from season 5? I recently watched that episode again thanks to a certain Raven and it got me thinking really hard because when I previously saw this episode, I did not realize how important the message actually was. The whole episode is a giant allegory for wars. The two families represent the armed forces of different countries, the heads of the families represent the heads of states, Twilight represents the impartial third party, Fluttershy represents the diplomat while the animals in the valley represent the civilians that always get affected by war.
Now, what if we could actually apply that episode to the real world? Imagine a world where there are exactly 0 nukes left, where there are no more military armies(and I know what some of you are thinking: what about about criminals? There is still police left and it would be more effective than ever), where all the economies of all of the countries unite to form one world economy that works better than it ever did in the whole history of the world and a world where every single person on Earth can at least understand others because they all learned to speak a common language. English. I will have to admit here that I am not a native English speaking person. My native language is Romanian but I somehow managed to learn both Italian and English at a native level...I think. You be the judges of that. Anyway the point here was that almost every person on Earth is easily capable of learning any language they want beyond their own native language if they get exposed to these languages from a very young age. Even starting from the age of 3. If we expand on this learning ability, we find out that everyone can also learn kindness and be a diplomat like Fluttershy, or learn empathy and critical thinking skills that would drive someone to become an extremely good impartial judge like Twilight. Twilight is a very well rounded character that also picked up good amounts of kindness, honesty and generosity from her friends. I mention only these because these are the additional attributes beyond high intelligence and empathy that are most needed for the kind of leader that the whole world needs. We now know that Twilight does manage to become that leader in the end.
Back to our war topic. What if this was actually possible in our world too? What if the seemingly fictional setting that I talked about before with 0 nukes and no wars is actually possible in real life too? It is possible. Steven Pinker's ideal Leviathan as he likes to call it is possible in our world but humanity as a whole(not you as individual thinkers) is simply not mentally evolved enough to apply that kind of massive problem solving techniques to the entire planet. I wrote this soapbox because I am writing a book that will explain exactly how we can get to that ideal society. When it's done, I will let you know but for now what do you think? Is a world without wars actually possible in the future?
Why are Ponies Magical?
By: FlareGun45
Ayright, let's get very complicated with this, brahs!
Ever look at the ponies in this show, and think about how to compare them with the ponies we have in real life? The ponies in real life, they're not unicorns or pegasi, all earth ponies! No rainbow colors either, just brown, black, white, beige, tan, yunno those shades. So why do the ponies in Equestria seem so different from the ponies in real life? Yes, I know it's a cartoon, but if we were to put some realism into the show, we can think about how these ponies turned out so magical.
I've always assumed that these ponies are colorful because of the magic inside them interfering with their DNA, and causing permanent mutation to the skin. The magic itself coulda became a permanent part of the pony's DNA due to early exposition to whatever caused these ponies to become magical in the first place. Where does magic come from anyway, and how does it work? What sort of chemical mixtures or radioactive exposure touched upon the ponies to give them these gifts?
For all we know though, these ponies could've been experiments - they started off as regular ponies like we have in real life, and some kind of alien species did experiments on them to give them the magical powers they have now. Thinking of this idea comes from the video game series I love to play known as BIOSHOCK - where plasmids and vigors are used to give people magical powers thanks to the DNA from a mysterious seaslug combined with little ADAM factories from the Little Sisters. How does that work? I cannot say.
But wherever the origins of the magic came from, as ponies started to evolve, they were able to control it and harness for their own benefits. Wherever the magic came from, it seems to be powered by positive energy (AKA: Friendship). I hear that positive energy helps a human last longer, so whatever molecules are used in us is probably the same molecules used in the magic which gives it it's power.
We can only guess how this process works - we'd hafta think of our own scientific explanation for magic, but I'm not a chemist. But whatever that magic is, it's so powerful that the local star and moon forgot how to use their gravitational pull abilities, since the princesses used them for so long.
Is Scootaloo actually a chicken?
A lot of people in the community tend to tease the little flightless pegasus, Scootaloo, which may have originated from Applebloom's short quip to teasing Scootaloo in the season 1 episode entitled "Stare Master". Many theories have been presented on why Scootaloo remains grounded, though she can at many times be seen hovering for a few seconds throughout several episodes. Mainly though, she uses her underdeveloped wings to propel herself while on her scooter. I have a theory that many might not have taken into consideration on why Scootaloo is a flightless Pegasus. Perhaps the teasing of her being a chicken is actually the truth. What I mean is that while Scootaloo may have the appearance of a Pegasus and have parents who are also of that race, maybe, just maybe there existed a family member ancestor who could've been a Hippalectryon- a Greek mythological creature that is half horse, half rooster (or chicken). They are almost exclusively displayed on vases from Attica, and could constitute an alternative representation of the Pegasus. The Pegasi race are already quite heavily influenced by Greek culture, so it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume. Interestingly enough, like Applebloom's mocking of Scootaloo in season 1, 5th century works from Aeschylus and Aristophanes use the Hippalectryon as an insult as well.
So could Scootaloo have a Hippalectryon gene within her that renders her incapable of flight? Who can really say? But it is always fun to speculate.
My point of view on discord's mind-set was
1: Me does care, have concern and feels remorse or regret when it comes to his friends and whatever wrong he did.
2: The problem to me is that since he has not have much episodes he did not learn ALL Friendship the lessons. he might feel empathy for his friends at one point but he still had a lot to learn and the show did not give him a chance to learn the lesson of showing empathy to others even if they are your enemies.
3: I think discord tried to be a good friend to twilight but he took it too far and in the wrong way, yes he did learn Friendship but he should of learned that sometimes you need to leave your friends alone and let them handle certain things them self's or learn them self's and I think that is what celestia was doing the whole time, letting twilight handle problems herself so she can learn from them and also celestia does not know everything of what is going on she is still a pony not really a God even though she is immortal.
In general, the problem is that he did not learn or did not get a chance to learn these lessons when they could have been good episode ideas, discord had good intentions but they did not work out but he did show regret and felt sorry for what he did but like every pony else he saw the villains at face value (evil, horrible creatures who would stop at nothing to get revenge) if he would have saw what we saw and how the villains almost changed maybe things would have been different same with the ponies it's a truly sad ending for the villains but who knows maybe discord could learn this lesson by now despite the show being over and if chrysalis and the others were to come back and explained what they did to get the bell discord would feel empathy when he hears they almost accepted Friendship.
