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:
- The Six Evils
- What Happened To the Hippogriff King?
- Celestia's Dark Secrets
- Rainbow Dash got the short end of the stick
- Could a Pony Lose a Cutie Mark?
Get the articles below!
What Happened To the Hippogriff King?
By: IronYoshi
So the Hippogriffs and SeaPonies are ruled by Queen Novo (and Princess Skystar), but for the longest time, I wondered if there was ever a Hippogriff King. We never got to know who Novo's husband/Skystar's father was, or if there even was a king of the Hippogriffs. If there was actually a Hippogriff king, and something did happen to him, the dots would certainly connect and it would really explain a lot about Novo's personality.
Strap yourselves in, because there's gonna be a lot of speculation and headcanon theories.
So I like to think that there was a Hippogriff king, emphasis on was. I like to believe that Novo and her husband were very close together, governing their kingdom together. While Novo handled diplomatic things like meetings and the like, the King would be more on defense and ensuring the safety of the kingdom. So on that fateful day, when the Storm King's army invaded, the Hippogriff King did everything he could to keep the army at bay, perhaps with Novo at his side. But it would be all for naught, as he would fall in battle.
Yes, I believe that the Hippogriff King died at the hands of the Storm King.
Now, back to Novo. I think her husband's death really impacted her on a personal level. Think about it this way. Why was Novo so overprotective of not only her daughter, but of her kind? Why did she not trust outsiders originally? It kinda makes sense (at least to me) why she was so rough around the edges. I think her husband's death changed her, and it may not have been for the best. Now after the Storm King's defeat, it seems that she's eased up greatly, with the Hippogriffs returning to their original home, but I feel that her husband's death really affected her. I'm sure Celestia and even Skystar helped her heal those emotional wounds from the past. As for Skystar, well I think she was too young to remember all that happened that day, but it seemed that she moved on from those traumatic events, whereas her mother took a little while longer to finally accept.
This was something I used to build upon the foundation of one of my fanfics and I accepted it as personal headcanon. Of course, it's all just my personal speculation, but I think it really adds more to Novo and her character, since the movie never really got to show us more of her personality. People would be quick to write her off as a cold, uncaring ruler, but I see her as someone who suffered a huge loss and didn't find a natural way of expressing her grief. Perhaps G5 will give the Hippogriffs another shot, and maybe Novo and Skystar won't be ruling alone.
The Six Evils
By Double C
Instead of being gems, they are actually demons that are the very essence of all that is evil in the world and would be called the Six Evils. I say that because many of the candidates that fans have wanted have been redeem themselves and frankly there aren’t enough low level villains out there in my opinion. These would be lord of lies, cruelty, despair, greed, treachery, and terror. I picked terror because it sounds more menacing then simply dark magic or power. Demons had played as threats in previews generations but would be fun to see news ones. While each one would be physically stronger, leaned powerful spells, and very intelligent then the other but the lord of terror has all of them. But like the previews villain group, these six also don’t get along with each other since they have their own ways to rule.
In my theory, these six demons either have existed since the dawn of time or were once living beings before being corrupted. Whichever one IDW will choose or make up their own, they terrorized the land before being imprisoned by early alicorns perhaps a possible backstory to Celestia and Luna’s parents. They would be imprisoned in the lower section of Tartarus which is all fire and lava. The geography of Tartarus in MLP is actually based on the underworld in Greek mythology where the dead walk aimlessly in a waste land full of rocks and mountains. Tartarus in Greek myths is a fire realm where both the Titans are imprisoned and the worst souls go to spend an eternity in torment much like out interpretation of hell. So it would be fun to see that Tartarus has two sections where one is where the worst goes while the other is where the worst of the worst goes.
When the Mane 6, the Stallion 6, and the Pillars face off against the 6 Evils, it would be interesting of how they are going to seal them back. They would have to team up in groups of three i.e. Twilight, Flash, and Starswirl and have to use their intellects and team work to outsmart them especially if they face them in the fire realm of Tartarus. The story would have a mix of both light hearted yet dark ton so it treats the readers like adults.
Celestia's Dark Secrets
By: FlareGun45
Celestia has been ruler of Equestria for a very very very very very very very long time, and she always came out as the perfect leader - almost a little too perfect. I wonder within that timespan between the present and when Celestia and Luna became the rulers, was there ever any corruption in Celestia? Is there anything about her past that we dunno about, maybe not having the full story of certain events?
No figurehead starts off perfect - they coulda made mistakes before ending up being the wonderful and wise leaders they became, makes ya think that maybe Celestia had some dark secrets that she keeps from everypony, even Twilight, maybe even Luna. Maybe some kinda hidden connection she has with Discord, cause he told to be a former ruler of Equestria before his first imprisonment, so maybe Celestia and him were close in some way and she gave him a ruler title, like Discord tricked her with hilarious chaos, unknowning how threatening he was to the population - kinda like an abusive boyfriend and the girl was oblivious to him, until Luna snapped her outta it.
How about the story with Nightmare Moon? It made it seem like Luna was jealous of Celestia because of the ponies loving her daylight - but what if Luna actually tried talking to her, and Celestia just ignored her, causing Luna to be enraged and become Nightmare Moon, making it mostly Celestia to blame rather than Luna? Not only that, but Tia used the Elements on her to banish her to the moon when she really coulda just wiped the dark magic from her like the Mane 6 did.
A thousand years is a long time, Celestia mighta not always been the kind ruler she turned out to be. Losing Luna coulda made her bitter and angry all the time. The Royal Canterlot Voice used to be a thing, remember? Daybreaker coulda been a rule thing within those years. Ruling the nation alone mighta made her make alota mistakes that put her subjects in jeopardy. With all that she did, however, she learns from it all, and by nearing the present, she became the bold and kind leader she wanted to be.
It woulda been nice havin' some flashback stories of Celestia at her worst that Twilight finds out, teaching a moral about her mentor not always being the pony she turned out to be, but she became it, and the past is in the past. Wouldn't that be something for her character?
Rainbow Dash got the short end of the stick
By: indiana
First of all, I want to clarify that this is not a hate post on RD. It's not exactly about her but about her element, the element of loyalty. If AJ would have been the element of loyalty instead, I would have been talking about her in the same way. So what's wrong with loyalty? A few things but first I also have to clarify that in many situations it is still a valuable trait to have. Being loyal to friends and family is very admirable and desirable...but not all the time. What I am getting at is that this particular element has a fatal flaw built in it that makes people do the wrong thing unlike any of the other elements if taken too literally. The flaw of tribalism or blind allegiance to someone's cause. Remember when RD said she would always be loyal to the princess? Well, that is nice and all but what if the princess suddenly became a warlord? What if this particular war was going on and on exactly because of the undying loyalty for the leaders of both sides from their subjects? For anyone who doesn't remember the show, I was talking about one particular bad future from the season 5 finale where Celestia was at war with King Sombra. RD was right down smack in the middle of it with a torn wing which was replaced by a metal one. In the face of all the political bullshit that led to one wrong decision after another, she keeps it up with her loyalty to the princess and the war cause. RD herself could have stopped the war if she spoke against her own element both to her allies and her opponents on the battlefield. The next example of loyalty going horribly wrong is in the very same episode where we see RD again with a military costume and weird looking mane style loyally serving none other than the dictator herself. RD is once again true to her element and yet she is supposedly very wrong in keeping that loyalty for a ruler that supposedly causes a lot of pain and suffering and fear. Or is it the case that Nightmare Moon was a nice princess but she never showed it?...Yea, sure...and Hitler never did anything wrong. Speaking of Hitler, did you know that his war went on for so long exactly because of this element instilled in his troops? This is also true for most armed conflicts but in his case it was particularly effective given how well they were using propaganda. Maybe we should start calling it Loyalty - the element of blind submission and sometimes evil?
Sometimes people find themselves in abusive relationships of all kinds. If you can't do anything about it to change the other party, the answer in those cases is not more loyalty. It is saying "fk it! I'm out!"
This subject is far more complicated than this but unfortunately I can't go on for 30 pages.
Could a Pony Lose a Cutie Mark?
By Alexrioponylover95
Hello everycreature!
So this has been an idea that has been going on and off in my mind and well could a pony in fact lose a cutie mark?
Now when I say this, I do not mean by magical intervention, like how Starlight did when she was evil with her equal town. I mean any pony, wether earth, unicorn, pegasus, heck maybe even an alicorn, can lost a cutie mark on his or her own making.
Now I first thought of this idea after seeing adult Sunburst, who I know got his cutie mark, but well when he grew up into an adult and lived in the Crystal Empire, we discover he wears a cape, covering his whole body. And well I thought he was hiding the fact he lost his cutie mark or decided to get rid of it altogether by his own magical means. Of course that theory turned out to be false and well he just wears a cape because of a certain insecurity…
However, the idea of a pony losing a cutie mark came back to me in Marks and Recreation with Rumble and such lines like “Actually, I don't need your help. Because I don't want to get my cutie mark!” Or “Because cutie marks are silly, and... a-and they just force you into one thing your whole life!”. I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but well I think Rumble implies that a pony could in fact decide to lose the mark altogether.
Now the question remains what exactly would need to happen in order for a pony to lose his or her mark?
One option could be if a pony fails at what his or her mark means, for example if a pony’s mark symbolized that he or she a baker, but ends up failing and well maybe not lose the mark visually but reject it outright. Heck, maybe it could be even possible for the mark to just vanish like how it appeared and the pony goes back to being a blank flank.
Another could be, what if a pony got bored with his or her mark and well decided to be good at something else, could in fact a pony change cutie marks in this example? I think less likely, this would probably go into more of the pony biology of which I have no clue on how the pony body works in the FiM universe.
Now of course a unicorn or alicorn is an exception here because they could most likely alter his or her own body magically to lose a cutie mark or change it, but it would have to be at the power level that Starlight or Twilight has in order to do so, but probably more likely in this case.
But what do you all think? Could a pony in fact lose or change a cutie mark if he or she so desired?
