Soapbox time! We've got some interesting opinions this week, so hopefully you all can find something fun to discuss with these. As always, we are open for submissions on these. If you'd like to submit your own soapbox, hit up this post for infos.
As always, these are the opinions of fandom members, not us here at EQD.
Have some headlines:
- Is Princess Cadance the Almighty alicorn?
- 10th Anniversary of MLP Equestria Girls
- The Curious Childhood of Hitch
- Are Bronies Too Egotistical?
And go read them below!
Are Bronies Too Egotistical?
By IronYoshi
Oh no, another soapbox that criticizes the fandom! Haven't you done enough of that already? Oh believe me, we're only scratching the surface when it comes to this fandom's many, many flaws. But today, we are going to address whether or not bronies have an "ego problem". What do I mean by "ego problem"? Well basically meaning that this fandom is too self-centered, thinking that everything they do is better than any professional writer, artist, or toy maker, and being all "if it wasn't for us, MLP wouldn't have lasted as long as it did, so Hasbro better cater to us!"
Now, this isn't meant to discredit or undermine the incredible talent that this fandom has. We have some remarkable artists, writers, musicians, craftspeople, etc. The issue comes when bronies think that everything they do is better than anyone else. Newsflash: there's definitely a lot of trash underneath all that treasure. Not everything this fandom produces is gold. For every amazing piece of art, there's always a lazy edit done in MS Paint. For every great work of fanfiction, there's always a cringy self-insert crossover shipfic. For every well written and thoughtful analysis, there's always a "review" that boils down to throwing a tantrum and personally insulting the people involved in that episode. Sensing a pattern here?
Not only that, but Hasbro doesn't really owe bronies anything. Sure, the writers may throw a bone or two at them, but that doesn't mean MLP was made exclusively for YOU. I don't think I've seen any iteration of MLP where its fans are so self-centered and entitled. G1 fans, Pony Tale fans, G3 fans, hell, even some G5 fans, all seem really chill compared to G4 fans. Sure, brony influence may have helped G4 last a little longer than others, but that doesn't mean other iterations of the franchise and its fans are any less valid.
And fans saying that they can do everything better, I mean, do I even need to elaborate on what I talked about earlier? Sure, a few ideas and theories that fans come up with are good and a bit plausible, but again, not every idea fans come up with lands. It is a bit annoying seeing bronies say all their ideas are better than anything the show can come up with when a lot of the time some of them don't even make sense or are just flat-out awful.
So in short, bronies should really get off their high horse and deflate their own egos. Again, this isn't meant to undermine the incredible talent in the fandom, but parading around that this fandom can do no wrong and turns everything into gold, and that they're the reason this franchise is still afloat, is just ridiculous. Fan content is important, yes, but don't go about acting like you deserve something in return, and don't act like every piece fan content is this sacred text. I think that's an important lesson for this fandom.
The Curious Childhood of Hitch
By: Glistening Dawn
I asked the fine folks at the EQD Discord server what topic they’d like me to cover, and they requested I look into the childhood of Hitch Trailblazer.
Hitch’s past is certainly an intriguing one. Like all the other ponies of Generation 5, Hitch grew up with the ideas that the other groups were antagonistic and violent. And yet despite the fact that Hitch still stuck to his duties as sheriff, thus making him an opponent to Sunny’s breaches of Canterlogic, he still maintained a more open mind than the rest of Maretime Bay on the topic and was the first Earth Pony to accept Sunny’s ideals. Even before that he was still her closest friend by a huge margin, so it makes one ponder what led to this.
Obviously Hitch grew up with many opposing perspectives trying to influence him. His school classes, most of the community, and of course Phyllis Cloverleaf all gave backing to the idea that Unicorns and Pegasi were not to be trusted. And yet Sunny and Argyle were also very pleasant with Hitch, even if they said the exact opposite.
We can automatically tell from this alone that Hitch was at least polite and kind to those he disagreed with, regardless of their mindset. His good status in Maretime Bay and the fact that Sunny straight up admits in the “Book of Adventure," that Hitch joining her shouldn’t have been a surprise to her because “Hitch has always done the right thing” paints a clear picture of his excellent morals and good character.
We also haven’t seen Hitch’s parents yet, so we can’t be certain if they were involved in his upbringing at the time. As such, it seems that Hitch spent a good amount of his time either playing at the Starscout residence or with his grandmother, Figgy. It makes one question how Figgy felt about the pony divide, she at the very least seems to have been a friend of Argyle. Sunny and Hitch spent at least 2 Wishdays together before magic returned, so there’s clearly some sort of tie between their families as well, stronger than the ties Hitch had with the Cloverleaf family for certain.
As such, Hitch seems to have spent a very conflicting childhood. He would have constantly had two vastly different ideologies flying at him at all times, also growing into his future position as the town’s sheriff and protector on top of that. It’s honestly not surprising that Hitch thus became the figure with any sort of opening for Sunny to reach in her initial quest, even if he called the stories a fairy tale, it still would have been something he heard his entire childhood as well. I’d like to see Hitch’s upbringing covered in more detail in the future, as this is a fascinating concept to explore the origins of Hitch, and who he chose to associate with or learn from. How these events led to his future actions would be nice to see.
10th Anniversary of MLP Equestria Girls
By Double C
The 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls will soon arrive when it first came out in limit theater time and hope we get a good one. Equestria Girls to me is how I got into the fandom especially one that I will talk about latter. While the first film was met with mix reviews primarily seeing human versions of each pony however the 3 sequels were all meet with positive. This would later spawn many music shorts, episodes, decide your ending, and specials. There was a planned season 3 but was canceled without a proper ending which left use disappointed.
The one question that the season 2 final could have answered is what ever happen to the human Sunset. It would have been the most anticipated special since the 3 part finally of FIM. It’s unknown how the story would have played out but many fans speculate that the human Sunset would be the villain. She would seek revenge on Sunset for stealing her life and honestly she would have a justifiable reason. But the main subject is the fate of the two Sunset’s since only one can exist in one realm or the balance is thrown off. As mention before, Sunset would return to Equestria while human Sunset would get with the human Mane 6. But some think Sunset would stay while human Sunset would have started over in Equestria. Now human Sunset in Equestria would be interesting for it will giver Twilight another student to teach and another friend for Starlight to teach her to fit in.
If you all know from previous soapbox is I’m a hug FlashLight fan. Even to this day, he is both my most favorite and the reason I got into the fandom. Flash Sentry both his human and pony versions have got nothing but criticisms from the fandom all because he was meant to be Twilight’s love interest. Even though they couldn’t be together, but both Twilight and Flash would thank human Flash for bring them together. Human Flash would also be happy knowing that his pony version would keep Twilight happy and safe as he would do.
So hopefully IDW will come up with a series of stories for the 10th anniversary that could finally conclude it. Hasbro has started making Gen 5 Equestria Girls dolls of Sunny, Izzy, Zipp and Pipp in their human forms but no Hitch yet. While unknown if Hasbro will go through with this or just making it since they have a history making toys of adding characters without putting them in the show like Princess Gold Lily, Princess Sterling, and Princess Skyla. If they do, they should end Gen 4 first before Gen 5 otherwise it could create more questions.
What you like to see in the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls?
Is Princess Cadance the Almighty alicorn?
By: ManaMinori
The MLP fandom, and quite frequently the MLP official canon itself seem to take Princess Celestia and Luna as all mighty supreme goddesses. For instance, we even see frequent instances of Twilight where she uses Celestia's name in place of "God", such as in the episode "Celestial Advice", where Twilight speaks and says "I can't just sent her off to Celestia (God) knows where without thinking it through", to which Celestia herself responds that she was not aware that she was an expression. Rarity twice uses Celestias name as a replacement for God, such as in the episode "Sisterhooves Social" where she states: "as Celestia (God) as my witness, I shall never be sisterless again!" Or in the MLP movie where she is quoted as saying "Oh, for Celestia's (God's) sake!"
But one character that I never see around in these discussions of alicorns being gods or not is Cadance, oddly enough. Celestia and Luna are always held to the highest regards by both ponies and fandom. But why not Cadance? While it is pounded in our heads with a sledgehammer time and time again that Celestia and Luna are top tier- they raise the sun and moon, while at the same time being held in highest regards by their subjects (at least, Celestia is, moreso....), both are fallible and fall to villains, and Celestia herself is outclassed in magical power by Twilight, who creates a "new magic"- the magic of friendship, in Magical Mystery Cure, again, we often see Cadance shifted to the background....but why? Isn't the staple of any solid friendship the element of love? Cadance's element?
In the journal of the Two Sisters (which was canonized in "Scare Master"), a passage from Celestia herself states that “Alicorns stood for everything Equestria was founded upon: love, harmony, and friendship. Interesting how love is the first key element at play here.....Because you cant have a foundation for a relationship between anyone - familial, friendship, or romantic- without the element of love taken into consideration, and without that element, there is no harmony, and without harmony, there is no magic of friendship. While there are a multitude of religions and mythos with their own Gods that MLP takes inspiration and reference to across its episodes, if we were to look at this from a Christian viewpoint, (specifically in 1 John 4:8) the verse clarifies that "God is Love", which I'll reference in defense of this theory. What other love related alicorn do we know in this cute pastel pony series? None, that I know of....
And....if Cadance being the pony of Love, and God (who IS love) is true, then this could also explain why Flurry Heart herself was born an alicorn....not so much due to the perfect off chance, one in a gazillion blend of genetics, but due to the fact that Flurry is essentially "God's" offspring....basically pony Jesus.
