• Pony Community Soapbox #108 - Alicorn Immortality, Bad OC Ponies, Season 7 Cheating, and More!


    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 for the week:

    • What if Garble was Smolder and Spike's brother?
    • Alicorn Immortality- Merely Wishful Thinking?
    • Pinkie Pie's character in Yakity-Sax
    • Season 7 Cheated
    • Bad OC's Are Getting Out of Control
    And get your soapboxes below!


    What if Garble was Smolder and Spike's brother?
    By: MegaSean45


    This post is a sequel to my soapbox about Spike and Smolder being long-lost siblings! Remember when Smolder said she had a brother that she was glad to get rid of when he went through his molt phase? If Smolder was still around during that, then she has an older brother, and me, along with many others were thinking, what if Garble is Smolder's brother? And since I think Spike is Smolder's long-lost brother, that would extent that Garble would be Spike's brother too! DUN DUN DUN! :O

    I think this would work fantastic! Know why? Cause Spike and Garble have been arch-nemeses since Dragon Quest, and how would the two of them feel if they were actually siblings this whole time? Smolder would play as the neutral party in this regard to try to get them to get along, but Garble just won't accept a "pony dragon" as a brother! But then some kind of phenomena happens that would persuade Spike and Garble to finally get along! What kind of phenomena would that be? Well that's up to the writers to decide! My friend EMosite made a cool comic about this! I suggest you check it out on her Deviantart!

    Now I'm NOT asking you how likely would this be, I'm asking you what would you think about this scenario? ;)


    Alicorn Immortality- Merely Wishful Thinking?
    By: Nightmare Muffin

    Through the years, many fans have made claims that Luna and Celestia are immortal goddess. However, there is little evidence in any canon medium to support such a claim. There is evidence given in the Journal of the Two Sisters that gives explanation to a alicorn’s elongated lifespan- showing that they simply age more slowly than ponies who aren’t alicorns, but by no means does this prove inability to die. It could be assumed that because Celestia has a pet phoenix that she is immortal, and her pet symbolizes that, but even phoenix’s must die at a point in their lives, so that doesn’t hold water. In “Daring Do and the Eternal Flower”, there is mention of a flower that is able to grant eternal life, which is the only such lead to immortality, but the book never mentions Celestia or Luna having once obtained it for themselves. It is also started by Daring Do’s uncle that nopony should be able to live forever, as it is more of a curse than a blessing. There is no evidence that supports alicorns being immortal goddesses.


    Pinkie Pie's character in Yakity-Sax
    By: Briabun

    I will be the first to admit, this may not be the best Pinkie episode but does it misrepresent her character? Plenty of reviewers such as Dr. Wolf, Misanthro Pony, and others have deduced that Pinkie's actions in Yakety Sax were against her character. Those traits being she is outgoing, likes to have fun, and wants others to be happy. This is all well and good but we have examples of Pinkie doing extreme actions that have a selfish aspect to them. We get our first look at Pinkie's dark side in "Party of One"; where her insecurity poisoned her judgement. In "A Friend in Deed", Pinkie is practically harassing Cranky to be her friend and destryong precious memories. In "Pinkie Pride", Pinkie loses to Cheese Sandwich and forgoes being a "party pony", which she looks for a new job. This isn't even the first time she left Ponyville, in "The Maud Couple", she runs back to the rock farm to escape her problems. Was leaving everyone behind to move to Yakyakistan extreme? Yes. Although, is that not another trait we can tack onto Pinkie's personality? Its not how I would have wrote this episode, but it does fit.


    Season 7 Cheated
    By: Suntrix

    I feel like people give Season 7 far more credit than it really deserves because they are so excited by the ideas that are put forward and the animation that comes with it that they tend to ignore the execution. Sure some episodes do stand up decently (Perfect Pear, Discordant Harmony, To Change a Changeling), but most tend to fall short after a first watch when placed under more scrutiny (Shadow Play, A Royal Problem, Campfire Tales, Fame and Misfortune, etc).


    I feel like most don’t really, say, see Shadow Play as the repeat of the series pilot it is (complete with a second Nightmare Moon) because “HEY! The Pony of Shadows and Starswirl are finally here!” Same situation with other episodes: Celestia and Luna finally get an episode, Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s parents finally show up, Evil Celestia, the origins of the Elements, Meta commentary, etc. It’s less the best season and more the season that paid off the most on all the episode ideas we wanted to see, so much so the series could have ended at 7 and it’d be none the worse for wear.


    Bad OC's Are Getting Out of Control
    By: Alizor


    I don't know if anyone has noticed, but OC ponies are starting to outnumber canon ponies in a lot of places. This would be alright if the art was good, but it's usually terrible. MSPaint level terrible. It used to be a joke that if you googled your name followed by "The hedgehog" you'd get an awful sonic character. Well... this has happened for pony now. We have become the sonic fandom. Couple that with the already large stigma against us with foalcon and clop and it's really looking bad.

    Obviously OC's won't ever end and they shouldn't, but do yourself a favor and commission a fandom artist if you decide to create an OC and can't draw. Lets try to improve our OC pony image.