• Community Soapbox - Denying Ships, G5 Expectations Vs. G4, Chinese Pony Fandom, and More!

    Soapbox time! We've got some interesting opinions this week, so hopefully you all can find something fun to discuss with these. 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:

    • Characters Who Could Be Ship Deniers By Double C
    • The Ignored Chinese Fandom
    • Why G5 Doesn't Need to Live Up to the Expectations of G4

    And go read them below! 

    Characters Who Could Be Ship Deniers 

    By: Double C


    As a lot of you all know romance is the most popular subject that fans have made in both fan art and fanfiction. While not important to the show but there have been on some occasions where few characters have found love. But there some characters who don’t approve it like Grand Pear who disowned his daughter Pear Butter for marrying Bright Mac from the Apple family. Having a character(s) who is against romance would play a role in A New Generation while could have been in FIM.

    One character in FIM that I would have like to see a ship denier is Shining Armor. To me Shining could have represented of the fandoms view on Twilight and Flash being a couple. I’ve read many fanfictions and fan art that Shining at the beginning did not like the idea of his sister dating one of his guards. In the comics, Cadance dated Buck Withers who was more interested in fame and money than loving her. So this would make Shining do overprotective things like tell Flash to break up with her or send guards to spy on them which ends with everyone including Cadance being made at him. This would have represented of how the fandom viewed Flash and his relationship with Twilight in the beginning but instead try to know him better that he is willing to help others.

    If there was one evil thing that Opaline would order Misty to divide the pony races is getting two as a couple. While Sunny and Hitch is a potential couple because of being childhood friends but Zipp and Hitch has gained momentum since the start of Make Your Mark. While all the pegasus and earth ponies would be against it especially Queen Haven wouldn’t appreciated for her daughter and heir to love an earth pony.

    Romance deniers are really no different from friendship deniers like when Twilight didn’t want Starlight being friends with Trixie. They can cause disharmony and distrust not just with the potential couple but also with others that support them. So it can fit in the My Little Pony narrative both in FIM and Make Your Mark with good writers. Besides Shining Armor and Queen Haven, what other character do you think would be a ship denier?

     



    Why G5 Doesn't Need to Live Up to the Expectations of G4
     
    By: Creed Analyist

    The fandom has been really trashing G5 lately, or at least the older fans. I was there since the beginning of G4 so I knowk how beloved everything was back then. It was an really cool experience to see so many people hyped for something so out-there. That first season of the show was just so well done with so many memorable moments and episodes that people loved. Some of the later seasons did kinda make people move on, but overall it was a wonderful experience for the whole 9.

    G5 was always going to struggle to live up to those promises, especially when a lot of people coming back for it were people that originally quit G4. It's people still looking at My Little Pony from that 2010 release time, when everything was fresh and new and the show was just completely unique. On the other hand you have die-hards who were always going to be hard to please. People that obsessively follow the lore Lauren Faust started us out with and would never be satisfied with anything execpt a perfect transition.

    We forget that this is still a cartoon made with kids in mind, and they are limited in what all they can draw from. Opaline needs to be a silly villain, and problems can't be universe shattering nightmares all the time. For what it is,  I feel like it's still an enjoyable show, especially if you have kids. I wouldn't compare it to g4 though. Nothing will ever come close. 


    The Ignored Chinese Fandom
    By: Korian

    I want to start this off by saying I'm not chinese, but I do follow their culture a lot. Particularly the media. Outside of the usual music and movie scene, they tend to parrot our own fandoms around games and cultures. One specific one that has grown tremendously over the past few years is the Chinese brony fandom. They have hundreds of thousands of members from all age groups and conventions that rival even the USA ones these days. There are creators who aren't ever looked at on the USA side, making just as good plushies and art as the west. The video and animation scene in particular is vast over on the their bilibili Youtubee clone with hundreds of people making pony music videos and animations. I know some leak over to the US Youtube with channels like Cosmia's Stash reuploading them, but that barely scratches the surface. I highly recommend just exploring that site some time and seeing what people are coming up with. You'd be surprised at how well they create things and the level of quality some of them put out. It's a shame people are averse to going there.

    Anyway thanks for reading. Hopefully some of you decide to give it a shot.