Soapbox time, where the fandom expresses its opinions! 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:
- Good reasons why Discovery Family can't renew their contract with Hasbro in 2025
- Your Cutiemark is Your CAREER!
- We Never Got a Zebra Episode Because Hasbro Was Scared of Zebras
- Cross-Cultural Relationships in Equestria
Your Cutiemark is Your CAREER!
By: Reggi
Does anyone else think cutie marks can be a bit... limiting when it comes to career choices? Like, the idea is great—your special talent magically revealed, destiny sealed, hooray! But what if a pony’s real passion doesn’t match their mark? What if a pony like Applejack wanted to leave the farm and become a writer or an artist, but her mark is all about apples? Does Equestria have room for career changes, or do ponies feel stuck living up to their cutie mark expectations?
It's like the system assumes you’ll love whatever talent your mark represents forever. But real life doesn’t work like that! Ponies grow, change, and discover new interests, right? It’s not hard to imagine a pony feeling frustrated, like they’re stuck in a box just because their flank says so.
And what about marks that are too vague or super specific? Like, if you have a mark for “making ponies smile,” that’s pretty broad. But if you get something super niche, like “designing antique clocks,” does that mean you’re doomed to only ever work with clocks?
Equestria is supposed to be a land of friendship and harmony, but I wonder how well it handles ponies who want to break free from their “destiny.” Maybe cutie marks should be more like guidelines, not rules. Let ponies explore what they love, even if it doesn’t match their mark!
What do you think? Are cutie marks a magical blessing or kind of a cursed tattoo of expectation?
We Never Got a Zebra Episode Because Hasbro Was Scared of Zebras
By: Timzotch
Is anyone else frustrated by how little we got in terms of zebra representation in Friendship is Magic? Like, Zecora is such a cool character—mystical, wise, lives in the Everfree Forest—and yet, she was barely more than a background pony most of the time. No backstory, no lore about her homeland, and definitely no episodes that explore zebras as a culture.
It feels like Hasbro was just terrified of touching the subject. Like, were they worried people would accuse them of messing it up? Or worse, were they just avoiding it because zebras could be seen as a stand-in for Black characters and they didn’t want to take any risks? It’s so disappointing that instead of trying, they just... didn’t.
We could’ve had amazing episodes about Zecora’s past, her homeland, or even her perspective on Equestrian society. Imagine a journey to Zebrica where the Mane Six get to experience a whole new culture—learning about their traditions, their own forms of magic, and how they view harmony. There’s so much potential for world-building, but nope, let’s just keep Zecora in her hut, speaking in rhymes and brewing potions.
It feels like Hasbro thought, “Better safe than sorry,” but that’s such a cop-out. Representation matters, and it’s not that hard to hire consultants or writers from diverse backgrounds to do it right. The show was all about understanding others and celebrating differences, yet they completely dropped the ball here.
Cross-Cultural Relationships in Equestria
By: Vandii
It's seriously a shame that we never got some cross culture relationships going in season 8 and 9. Ponies, griffons, changelings, dragons, yaks, hippogriffs, and more living together (or at least visiting each other’s lands), but the show barely scratched the surface of how these different species could form meaningful bonds.
Sure, we saw some friendships, but what about romantic relationships? How would a pony and a griffon navigate cultural differences? What happens when a dragon falls for a hippogriff? Does the Dragon Lord approve, or is that seen as some kind of taboo? And let’s not even get started on what a changeling-pony relationship might look like—imagine the trust issues alone!
It’s such an interesting topic, but the show seemed too focused on surface-level “everycreature is friends now!” vibes to dig into the real complexities. Like, how would families react? Would society accept these pairings, or would there be biases? What happens if a pony and a yak want to get married—do they have a yak-style wedding, a pony-style one, or both? There’s so much potential for world-building here. Cross-cultural relationships could have been a perfect way to explore themes of understanding, compromise, and the beauty of blending traditions. Instead, we got the occasional cute moment, but not much else.
Good reasons why Discovery Family can't renew their contract with Hasbro in 2025
By: FirePuppy (Tadashi Satoru)
Even though this doesn't really have a lot to do with the My Little Pony franchise's marketing health, it still can make a big impact on it. Right now, there's not much time left before Warner Bros. Discovery and Hasbro's current joint ownership of Discovery Family is up. In case you were wondering, two years ago, Hasbro had the right to sell its 40% interest in Discovery Family to WBD at any time. But they did not do it. Instead, the two companies signed this weird contract to the previous agreement extending the 40% ownership to any time throughout February and March 2025. And of course, the outcome of that contract being signed turned out to be a disaster.
As explained in one of the October 22, 2023 news articles from Equestria Daily, based on licensing and usage, Discovery Family still owns part of Friendship is Magic's show content, which lets them charge fees whenever a G4 pony appears in anything from G5. Unfortunately, the lack of the G4 characters, as well as the executive meddling towards all G5 media, has caused the whole franchise's marketing health to decline, as well as the cancellations of both Make Your Mark and Tell Your Tale in 2023 and 2024, respectively. I can also tell you that this year, only 137 minutes of animated content were delivered, compared to at least 4 hours every year from 2010 to 2023. And in that Hasbro Entertainment logo from Transformers One, it didn't show any My Little Pony characters.
Now on to the subject of linear television. There shouldn't be any excuses as to why Discovery Family should just strike a new deal to keep on airing Friendship is Magic or Equestria Girls any longer. Despite only airing on weekdays, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic has a whopping six time slots per weekday, or 15 hours per week! That's just more than the #2 and #3 shows on the channel combined -- The Smurfs and Summer Camp Island, each with 7 hours per week. Unfortunately for MLP, the show's only broadcasting within school hours for the show's target audience -- 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Not only that, according to Variety, many cable networks all know that kids aren't watching linear TV, not even in primetime. To make matters worse, cable providers are getting rid of Discovery Family for good, like Fubo and FiOS TV (only the Extreme HD and Custom TV Kids & Pop packages), making My Little Pony even more inaccessible. Now, I do know there are many rural areas in the United States (at least according to someone named "Gianluca" on Twitter), but I'm positive that more than 99% of those rural areas won't even afford Discovery Family anyways, which is another massive disadvantage for MLP.
In conclusion, if that contract between Discovery and Hasbro ever dare gets renewed again, My Little Pony could eventually become completely unmarketable, thus resulting in no Generation 6. Therefore, if we want a Generation 6, the decision is clear: Discovery Family must give up their My Little Pony license, or else. After all, Generation 4 belongs with where all the other generations are now, not where it originally was in the first place.
