Characters in MLP and their roles in Fanfiction (A.K.A How/Why the pony fandom is dying/dead)

Oops I let my clickbait show. Anyways on with the character study.

Emotional investment is one of the key to character enjoyment. If I am an athlete, I am more likely to sympathize with Rainbow Dash. If I am shy, I am more likely to associate with Fluttershy. Blah blah the list goes on. Now that brings us to background character. While I won't say that it was a bad thing that the mane 6 "got outside their clique" and met more side characters, I don't think that it did very well for the fandom, although most reviewers enjoy them. My basic point is that it is easy to emotionally invest(or "project' as some would say) onto the new side/background characters. This makes them very very malleable for the community, in turning them from anything to a hero, villain, or something in between. it allowed for a large amount of fan work to be made about them. Let me just run down some of the ones in season 1/2/3 and how they helped the fandom.

Zecora, who tf is she, seriously who tf is she, spooky powers, fandom run wild.
Trixie, haughty villain one of the first side charactars, had an inkling of a personality with chance of redemption, "knows the main characters already" and had conflicts with them, allowing for exploration into actions backstories and other things.
Gilda ^^ see above.
Iron Will, although I have seen admittedly few stories and works about him, basically had his arc finished by the episode end, interacted with the mc, small conflicts with him.
Cherry Jubilee, not really a character, nice, plot device
Shining Armor/Cadance, more explanation into Twilight's past, which allows for stories set in her childhood with them as characters in it. People in Canterlot allowing for a more complex web of relationships between preestablished charactars like Celestia, Luna, Blueblood.
Discord, do I even need to say it...
Chrysalis, Villain, evil, new race with interesting powers, little information so fanfics go nuts.
Cmc/Diamond Tiara, to an extent, as they reoccur in more than 1 or 2 episodes. However, with their frequent appearance and little information the fandom can speculate/invent things such as... Orphan Scootaloo, Rarity being Sweetie's mom, Applebloom's parents, their cutie markes(keep in mind I am talking about season 2 days.
Luna, dark past, fun personality, stays up all night, GAMER?!?!?! but yeah fandoms have a lot of fun with this character simply because of the role she played in the story, even before we saw her in Luna Eclipsed.
Celestia, Seemingly smart, ruler, trollestia Tyrantlestia, **lestia, Lot of rooms to go speculate
Now as for season 3
Babs seed, Same with cmc
Lightning Dust, Rival, unresolved conflicts, haughty, is that you Gilda???(jk they have differences please don't kill me)
Sombra, Villain, spooky past, kind of died but major character who caused a bunch of things to happen so a back story we shall go(with some minor possession, resurrection stories thrown in)
Now it's time for me to terribly and attempt to break down these characters and why they work with my terrible descriptions and character explanations.
The villains/antagonist(Pre Season 3/Season 3)
Trixie, Lightning Dust, and Gilda basically ran away, Discord was put back into stone(but it had been shown that he can break free which allowed for more potential), and Chrysalis, and her changelings, got blown to who knows where. All of these unresolved arcs allowed for people to go wild with what happens nexts and backstories, which was great. The previously mentioned Chess Game Of the Gods had a habit of scooping up these characters. Once Trixie's arc finished, people generally stopped writing about her, unless they previously had her in a story or something. Discord, well he is a much more developed character so people had more fun. The others, we had no clue what happened to them(until later of course) One quick thing to note though, is that people didn't care as much about lightning dust in terms of fanfictions. Maybe cause Gilda was already taking the spot as Rainbow's rival or the timing, as I will get to later.

Iron Will and Sombra though, had their arcs completed just about. Not a lot of people seemed to care about the Minotaurs and Iron Will's backstory, even if he was used for a lot of comedy stories due to his over the top attitude. Sombra had magic potential so gooooooo at it fanfic writers with your posession and stuff. And his background had plenty to talk about.

The CMC generally had their own world with bullies, politics, and other things. Their episodes focused mainly on them with not as much interaction with the main 6. I think this was reflected in their fanfiction, which generally focused on the foals' world.

Celestia, Luna, BlueBlood, Cadance, and Shining Armor. These all(except Blueblood and Luna) gave opportunity to talk and write about Twilight's past.

Cherry Jubilee: Who? But seriously she didn't make much of an impression

And now for everyone's favorite, background characters. Background characters are fanfic writer's greatest tools. You could make a villain, hero, or something in between of all of them. While most of them are grounded in something, it doesn't matter how feasible it is. The four main ones I can think of are:
Octavia: Played music at canterlot. Music cutie mark
Vinyl, DjPon3, whatever: ALSO played music at canterlot. Music cutie mark.
Lyra: Uhhhhh sat like a human, lyre for cutie mark
Derpy: .... Muffins, Klutzy.
Now would be a good time to bring up two of a fairly popular Brony reviewer's videos, Silverquill. Derp of the Author and Amazing Archetypes.
Derp of the Author goes over the idea that the author is dead. Not there anymore. Zip Nada. Therefore anything s/he say about the work doesn't matter, and that their words are basically moot. Silver's video basically went over how the character evolved in the fandom, as fans were given more freedom with her. I believe his video, to a certain extent, can apply to the rest of those mlp background characters in the first couple seasons. The freedom to take the mundane and whatever we want, and turn it into our own headcanon is one of the bigger feeling to permeate the fandom.
Amazing archetypes, and his whole archetypes series, seems to support my ideas of investment. Archetypes are basic templates of characters with a certain pattern of personality that can be found spanning different cultures. This could also explain why we invest into characters in MLP so well. We see them in other shows, although not exactly the same. For example, does a tomboyish athleticism character ring a bell with you? This investment can span different mediums and allow us to sympathize and empathize with characters better, creating more enjoyment. However I digress.

And now for the discussion of the title. How did Hasbro kill the fandom? Well to paraphrase a seemingly unrelated "quote", "Being in the MLP community for the fandom is like going to a movie theater for the stale popcorn"- while I forget the exact youtuber who said this, I disagree with this sentiment. I enjoy this fandom immensely because of the creativity the fans had. In the old days, there was a spark of creative freedom, adventure in doing something "taboo", and just plain inspiration from the community. However, I think that the influx of new side characters in the show is good from a narrative setting, as so many reviewers like to say, but is bad for the creative fandom. Yes, it would be better for fans to create good original characters, but there is a reason they are writing in the MLP fandom. It's because they are cheating(see my first blog post). With the closing of all these arcs, looking at you Trixie, the fandom can no longer explore them without putting something like (pre season x ep x) That is something I don't see a lot of people do. The new side characters that MLP introduces to get Aesops are just there to fulfill a role. Then they learn their lesson. I believe Silver Quill said it best, although I don't remember for what character so I am paraphrasing(maybe the cakes???)," They're too established to allow for creative freedom for fanfic writers, but they don't have enough development yet." I believe this quote can apply to the new characters Hasbro introduces. I remember in previous season, after seeing a new character, I look in the feature box and barely see any stories about them. It could be argued that because mlp fandom is "dying" already, that's the reason I am not seeing as much in the feature box of the new characters, but I don't think so. I think that it is mainly because of the lack of freedom. Sure these characters are fun to discuss and nice to watch, but to write about? Nah.

So in conclusion, MLP fandom is dying because Hasbro keeps killing off avenues for more creative freedoms for characters, which isn't their fault and is by far not the main reason mlp is dying, the title is just exaggeration.