• Community Soapbox - Unexplored Equestria, New Fluttershy, RariPants, and More!


    As revealed a while ago, soapboxes will now happen once we get enough submissions for it. Send them whenever, but also expect them whenever!

    If you'd like to submit one, hit this post up.

    This time around, your headlines include:

    • Is RariPants the best Rarity ship?
    • What About the Rest of the World?
    • The Grand Equestria Pony Summit
    • Putting Your Hoof Down (and Never Backing Out) – The New Fluttershy

     Get the articles below!


    Is RariPants the best Rarity ship?



    Out of the Mane 6, Rarity has the largest collection of ships with Sparity being the most popular one. But many including me believe that it will never workout between them and Spike moves on with Gabby, Smolder, Sweetie Belle, or Applejack. While there are like dozens of options, RariPants in my opinion is the best one in the group. Fancy Pants is among my favorite male characters and seeing a relationship grow between the two would be interesting since they seem to enjoy each other’s company.

    Fancy Pants to me fits many of the qualities that Rarity had been looking for in a high class yet good-natured suitor. Fancy is much nice and respectful then Blueblood and stays on course without getting sidetrack then Trenderhoof. He must have had parents that taught him that a true gentleman and how to succeed in life is to treat others respectfully. Though he may act like a jerk on the outside but learned that there are some that are hard to reason with and being stern yet gentle is the best way to get through to them like with Twilight.

    The problem this ship would face is that fans have pointed out is that Fancy might be older then her. This might be true but since Fleur is seen as a student at Crystal Prep in Friendship Games, it's safe to say that he is as well but hasn’t yet made an appearance. So he might just be slightly older like two years older but it might be the mustache. Any form of facial hair does make a man look older but if he were to save it off it will make him look younger. The other is that he might be with Fleur de Lis since Jim Miller has been asked about it. I personally don’t like how she makes many clingy movements because she is more interested in his money and fame then personally knowing him. Well thank goodness she is only his bodyguard.

    Seeing a relationship between Rarity and Fancy Pants would help explore more about him and teach each other. While they are both sophisticated and down to earth, a thing they have in common is that we still don’t know more about their families like with Rarity’s parents and Fancy has a niece name Gilded Lily which means he isn’t an only child. It would be fun to see them to invite their families for a get together so they can get to know each other despite cultural differences. They will have many disagreements like with fashion designs and celebration setups but learn to see it from a different point of view and accept few changes. He can also help Rarity calm down before she gets into full on drama queen mode while she can teach Fancy self-defense moves so he can protect himself and his love ones from danger. They both will open up new boutique since it will be expansive to find a spot, set it up, and keeping it supplied.


    What About the Rest of the World?
    By Alexrioponylover95


    Hello everycreature!

    So looking at the map of the known lands of Equestria, I realized something very important… Where’s the rest of the world?

    Even after looking at the complete canonical map, (Kindly provided by Silver Rain) it’s really only a quarter of the planet, with undiscovered lands beyond and oceans surrounding the continents of the map. What exactly is out there that has yet to be explored? Are there other pony types out there? Other sorts of creatures? Maybe possibly a whole land of alicorns!?

    Now I guess one reason why the lands outside have not been explored yet (Besides the show staff not getting into that…) is that the ponies have yet to master means of long distance travel across oceans and in the skies. In the show we see the ponies still use steam locomotives, hot air balloons, and only small boats that aren’t designed to cross oceans, what we in the real world would have used to travel in the 1800s. In order for the ponies to cross the oceans and explore new lands would mean inventing zeppelins or huge ocean liners

    And what would happen if the ponies did in fact find the means to travel around the world? Of course if they did find other creatures or ponies, it could mean trade or diplomatic relations, connect the world more together. And I would imagine that during Twilight’s reign, she would be interested in finding out what lies beyond the known world to her. And if Luster Dawn will in fact be the next ruler of Equestria after Twilight, would improve upon that.

    Of course if it follows our history in real life, it could go in the opposite direction and be very messy… The age of exploration was marked with European explorers turning into conquerors and well stealing the riches of the natives and to put it lightly… Got rid of a lot of them by means of guns or disease. Now I do not believe this would ever happen in the world of Equestria under Twilight’s reign, but there may be in fact more evil forces beyond who aren’t interested in peace and well… Just like the European explorers decide to “explore” Equestria and the lands surrounding it.

    Either way, finding out what lies beyond the known world would be very interesting to see, hundreds of other kinds of creatures that have yet to be seen from the show just across the seas if the ponies or other known creatures had the means to do so! Who knows… There might even be a whole continent filled with bat ponies! (To which Seth would just go nuts over!)

    But what do you think lies beyond and what will the future hold for the world Equestria is on?


    The Grand Equestria Pony Summit

    The G(rand) E(questria) P(ony) S(ummit) was prominently featured in the Season 5 episode of Friendship is Magic, "Princess Spike". It is probably like the Parliament of pre-U.K. England, the Estates-General of France's Ancient Regime, the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Zemsky Sobor of Czarist Russia.

    The GEPS probably originated during the first century of Equestria's existence, when Celestia and Luna had their first co-rulership. The members of the Pony Summit were appointed by the local governments of communities and cities, or perhaps by direct elections.

    At first, the city, town, and village delegates to the Pony Summit probably had only advisory powers and the right to petition the Equestrian royal rulers on behalf of their local constituents.

    During the thousand years when Luna was banished to the Moon, and Celestia was sold Alicorn ruler, the GEPS gradually gained more powers, and Celestia as Equestrian ruler saw her right to legislate by royal decree somewhat limited as she evolved away from being an absolute monarch. Most Pony Summit delegates were of course ponies with most being Earth ponies with some Pegasus and Unicorn delegates, too. On rare occasions, an Equestrian city or community would have a donkey or mule or even griffon as it's Pony Summit delegate.

    Princess Celestia probably needed the approval of the Pony Summit to appoint certain officials such as judges, the Chancellor of the Equestrian Educational Authority, and officials in charge of Equestria's mail service, railroads, and national treasury.

    By the time of Celestia and Luna's second co-rulership, the GEPS had gained considerable governmental authority. The Pony Summit remained important in the governing of Equestria during Twilight Sparkle's ridership of Equestria along with Spike, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash in the Council of Friendship.


    Putting Your Hoof Down (and Never Backing Out) – The New Fluttershy
    By: Eclipse_12

    One of the episodes from “Friendship is Magic” which usually gets little love from the community is “Putting Your Hoof Down”, in which Fluttershy, trying to learn how to be more assertive, ends up confusing assertiveness and aggressiveness due to Iron Will’s terrible advice, and becomes a monster, being unnecessarily violent with everypony and getting to the point of hurting her own friends before realizing what she had turned into and feeling true regret for her actions.

    The flaws in Fluttershy’s characterization from this episode once again make an appearance in Pony Life, but this time it could be argued that it is even worse, as while in “Putting Your Hoof Down” Fluttershy’s innocence has her blindly following Iron Will, believing in his teachings and only realizing her mistake once she has hurt her friends, in Pony Life she just seems to be mean, controlling and selfish, maybe even psychopathic, with no apparent reason, and never backs out from her actions sincerely, not even when she upsets the ponies around her.

    The first example of this appears in “Cute-Pocalypse Meow”, when she totally ignores the actions of Bubbles against her own friends and other ponies and defends him almost till the end, despite the annoyance he had become and the hurt he was causing. However, the most blatant example of the new Fluttershy and her terrible character appears in “Death of a Sales-Pony, which shows her at her worst and makes it difficult to trust in her going into future episodes. In this episode, Fluttershy just decides to use her friends by overworking them to make sure that she was the pony who sold the most cookies to fulfil her selfish desire to get to know famous dolphin Finntastic and intimidates them using her superpower of changing sizes. Once she finally is confronted by her friends, Fluttershy acts repentant and apologizes, but goes back to her old ways immediately after, showing that she hasn’t learned anything and that she just apologized because she had to do it in order to have her own way. Finally, in “Discord’s Peak” we can see another clear example of how Fluttershy is absolutely willing to use her friends and even put them in danger for her own gain, as she intentionally makes a volcano erupt to put them all in peril, hoping that Discord will come to their rescue just to be able to spent some time with him, and surprisingly, this time nopony seems to have a problem with what she did.

    My theory for how Fluttershy’s character became this is that originally, the writers wanted to have Fluttershy become bigger when she was being assertive and smaller when she was in fear, but instead ended up making the same mistake Fluttershy did with Iron Will, confusing assertiveness with aggressiveness, which turned Fluttershy into the selfish monster we have currently in the show. Sadly, this means that, as Fluttershy herself said in “Putting Your Hoof Down”, “old Fluttershy is gone”. However, this time she is not coming back.