We need more soapboxes! Submit them ye foals.
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 PST. To submit your own, see this post.
Headlines this week:
- How G5 could benefit from being the Black Sheep of MLP
- Why this Fandom must (and will) Continue
- Pony Alt. Universes are Canon So Calm Down, Brain.
- Is Relatability All It's Cracked Up To Be?
- Why the Discord being Grogar twist works?
How G5 could benefit from being the Black Sheep of MLP
By: Marbi Z
By now we all know the Mane 6 inside and out but what if the next generation of MLP took a different approach? Let's say that the lead character is kinda like an Anti-Twilight taking much of who Twilight is and inverting it while still giving said lead Pony Leadership qualities. G5 Could also benifit by being a bit darker and even allowing minor characters to parish to prove a specific point. Personally I wouldn't mind G5 taking place in a Future Equestria abeit with a whole new set of characters with some possible guest appearances by old ones from G4. Who wouldn't want Discord saying oh come on! Twilight and her friends would've figured this out by now!?
Why this Fandom must (and will) Continue
By Quillfeather
With the end of Season 9 almost upon us, there is an air of finality that seems to be drifting across the internet. But, for me, it's become a sort of beginning. After attending BronyCon, I learned how large this fandom is and that it's because of us that this thing became so big in the first place. And to that end, we will be the ones to keep this thing alive and thriving.
While at Bronycon, I was absolutely extatic to see throngs of people wearing pony shirts,singing pony songs at the top of their lungs and knowing that I wasn't alone. The memories of that long weekend will stay with me forever. After the con, I realized how much I wanted to make contributions to this fandom; I want to leave my mark on the fandom! And why? Because we all love the ponies! Sure, cannon is ending, but that's why we need to keep writing fanfictions, making music, and other pony content! We can ensure that this fandom survives, and just like the mane six, we can do it together!
Pony Alt. Universes are Canon So Calm Down, Brain.
No matter how the series ends, and no matter how many head canons are thrown out the window for the love of Celestia please don’t be upset. Want a certain ship to be canon? There’s a mirror for that. Want a certain outcome for certain characters? Bam. Mirror.
I’m mostly typing this for my own brain because since the series is winding down I feel like I can’t be as much of a fan of certain aspects of the show because they are no longer ‘canon’.
If you’re as mentally finicky as I am I’m hoping the mirror deus ex machina can be a source of comfort. I’m trying reeeallllyyy hard to keep my brain in the line of thinking. Man, making this show a big part of my life for a near decade was a great experience but it sure can be stressful.
Is Relatability All It's Cracked Up To Be?
By: TRINARY
Relatability, the ability to understand and connect audience with character on a shared feeling or experience is a part of good character building—but it is only A part. This isn’t the only way we interact with characters.
There is something to be said for larger than life characters; ones who shake us from our stolid complacency in our belief that things, and people, are the way they are and can’t be any different. They make us aspire to be better than what we are.
We like to tell ourselves that some things are universal; e.g. no one likes X, but everyone feels Y. Except they aren’t universal. Humanity is so wide and diverse, even weird, that there are those exceptions.
It is absolutely important to have characters experience things the audience is going through, to let the audience know that they aren’t alone and aren’t ‘abnormal’ for what they’re thinking, feeling or going through. It’s why representation matters so much. At the same time, it’s also important to have characters who challenge the assumptions of the audience so that they can be inspired to consider ways of thinking and acting that they might have previously discounted as ‘unrealistic.’
Why the Discord being Grogar twist works?
By ShadowWriter45
When I first saw that moment when it was revealed that Discord was pretending to be Grogar, I was genuinely surprised by it and I was glad it was this why. While I've heard some complain about this twist as being a betrayal of Discord's character and it ruins what we could have gotten with Grogar, I was really glad about this twist and I think it is better than us getting the actual Grogar this time around.
The reason being the plot holes I noticed with Grogar as the season went on: "Why did he wait this long?", "How come he couldn't sense his own bell in the room", and it didn't undermine what Chyrsalis, Cozy Glow, and Tirek were planning in the slightest.
He said he was bidding his time and gathering power but the problem is he would have had enough power over a 1000 years. Plus, he would have started recruiting more villains into his group as time went on; even having multiple opportunities to recruit somepony like Starlight before her reformation.
If the bell had his magic in it you would think that he would know it was in the room. Discord wouldn't sense it since it's not his magic and that's why he believed them when they said they couldn't get it. Discord knew the "security" of the place to the point where he would have believed they couldn't get it.
Lastly, we've always been following the Evil Trio through season 9 that I would have preferred to see their plans come together rather than them getting overshadowed by "Grogar's" plan that we never really knew. While I would have wanted to see Grogar as the finale villain, the Evil Trio just did more than him to the point where I didn't care for him.
Lastly, as for Discord's character, him staging things to test Twilight is in this character since he's been doing that since season 4. This was just on a grander scheme that went out of control and he failed to take into account a lot of things. I'm sure he's going to get an earful from Fluttershy anyway about this.
