• Pony Community Soapbox #130 - Character Obsession, Underrated King Sombra, 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 this week:

    • Why are people obsessed with their favorite characters?
    • 5 Practical Uses for Plotholes
    • The need for a Hippogriff Navy at Mount Aris
    • Discord in “Forgotten Friendship”?
    • King Sombra is extremely underrated

    And get your soapboxes below!


    Why are people obsessed with their favorite characters?
    By: FlareGun45


    I know how people can get annoyed when someone is obsessed with their favorite character and wants the best for them - trust me, I see it all the time! Some of us are obsessed with Glimglam, some with Rainbow Dash, some with Twilight, SOME WITH TRIXIE,,,, and some like me who are obsessed with Spike! Now of course most of us aren't being annoying on purpose about it, but lemme explain why we're obsessed.

    We all have a good reason for really liking our favorite characters - it's either we can really relate to them, know someone that acts like them, or it's someone we really wanna be cause we respect them so much! I like Spike cause I feel for him - a nice guy that's always there, and gets less than what he deserves, kinda reminds me of my dad when I think about it, and I see a bit of myself in him too. I also feel for people in real life that seem to be getting the short end of the stick cause you see in the news that victims get treated unfairly by the law while the attackers have a second chance, and it seems very unfair. But hey, they call it "nice guys finish last" for a reason.

    So next time you see someone obsessing over their favorite character, try to think about WHY. Maybe it's a very personal reason and you just don't understand how they feel, much like how they might not understand why YOU like YOUR favorite character!

    So tell us! Why do you like your favorite character? ;)


    5 Practical Uses for Plotholes

    Are you sick and tired of all the plotholes in your favorite pony show? Well, these five incredibly easy and practical tips to repurpose your plotholes can help make the continuity more bearable!

    Use #1 is HEADCANON NICHES!! No need to create an alternate universe entirely for your masterpiece! Just worm it into some of the gaps in the show!

    Use #2 is CONVERSATION STARTERS!! You wanna have a debate about something? Or just a discussion? Well, plotholes provide a good bit of talking material if you use them properly!

    Use #3 is LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES!! Learn from their mistakes and improve the consistency of your own storytelling!

    Use #4 is CONVENIENT EMERGENCY CUPCAKE HOLDERS!! Are you running out of room in your big, pink floofy mane to store cupcakes? Just stick ‘em in a plothole instead! Yum!

    Use #5 is… um, well maybe I didn’t actually have five and it was just clickbait, oh… oh WAIT! THAT was a plothole! And a joke! Kinda! So I guess use #5 is JOKE FUEL!!


    Stepping out of the cheesy TV ad style, plotholes can be an opportunity, not just a nuisance. It’s up to you to use them as you may.


    The need for a Hippogriff Navy at Mount Aris
    By: Moonlit Stones

    In the episode "A Rockhoof and a Hard Place" we got to see a little bit of Mount Aris military with Queen Novo's Hippogriff navy. It does seem silly because hipoogriffs are also sea ponies as well, but I may have a solution for why the navy may be needed if necessary.

    First of all, a hippogriff is a flying creature, and like every other flyer, they can get tired from flapping their wings, so a naval ship can be used for anygriff to rest their wings.

    Another reason for the need for a navy may be to help travel to a distant territory somewhere, like Abyssinia, Black Skull Island, the southern shores of the Dragon lands, or under the Sea of Clouds heading to Klugetown where they can get very lost in if not careful while flying.

    My last reason is that the navy connects them to their original customs before the Storm King invaded giving the hippogriffs a sense of pride for their culture because hippogriffs LOVE being hippogriffs.

    These may or may not be adequate reasons for the navy's existence after the fallout of the movie, among other details not mentioned. Still hippogriffs need a good defense.


    Discord in “Forgotten Friendship”?
    By Astral Phoenix


    This thought has occurred to me for some time and I strongly believe that this may actually be true and could lead to something big for Equestria Girls as some point. Let me start at the scene where Sunset escapes the computer room, as we all know from the scene Sunset escapes the room was via Trixie’s “Magician’s Exit” trick and it appeared to have worked or so we may think (supposedly). But what if Trixie's magic wasn’t the cause for Sunset’s escape?
    What if this was the work of Discord himself!?

    I mean notice how Trixie’s spell kept only letting her and Sunset escape one by one but never together? Suppose this was Discord’s doing the entire time, just him having some fun.

    Now you’re probably saying that this is unlikely since Discord never appeared in the special, in any shape or form. And while that may be true there is one episode of FiM that may prove my theory on this to be correct. Remember the scene in “The Breakup Breakdown” where Sugar Belle was leaving Ponyville with her wagon. During that scene, the wheel of her wagon just suddenly broke off and Discord was never shown while it happened.

    What do you guys think? Could I be right and Discord helped Sunset Shimmer in “Forgotten Friendship”?


    King Sombra is extremely underrated
    By: PrincessOfPancakes

    I agree that King Sombra is disappointingly defeated before the fear and hype built up around him can have a satisfying payoff. And sure, his Sauron-esque design makes him not as theatrical or hammy as Discord or Nightmare Moon. But when you look past that, King Sombra was an excellent presentation of a villain waiting in the shadows for his prey to come to him. In fact, he trumps every MLP villain in terms of cunning: he pre-emptively hid away the Crystal Heart and erased the crystal ponies' memories of its existence, taking care of the thing needed to defeat him (whereas Discord and Nightmare Moon spent their premieres trying to stop the Elements needed to defeat them). He implicitly tore out the page from the history book that would've explained what the Crystal Heart was. He hid the Heart in his castle because he knew his subjects would be too terrified of him to try and look for it there. He hid the chamber's entrance in his throne room and made the only way to open to be using his dark magic. He set up that doorway trap at the bottom of the stairs that entrances you with an illusion of your worst fear. And he set up that anti-magic security system around the Crystal Heart that traps whoever got that far at the top of the tower, unable to use it, and spreads his dark crystals inside the castle. If Spike hadn't joined Twilight on her journey, she would've remained hypnotised by the doorway trap and Sombra would've WON. He came within an inch of winning and he didn't even have to lift a hoof. Bottom line: this guy deserves more credit.