Blog Approved: "Wars and Rumors of Wars" by xTSGx · 5:55pm Feb 12th, 2013

Wars and Rumors of Wars by xTSGx

With Twilicorn coming in under a week, a new set of unverified rumors is needed to occupy the forums and comment sections and the Fuck No My Little Pony Tumblr Blog has stepped up to the plate to deliver our offseason rumor.
Well, that certainly blows Twilicorn out of the water. It is almost every brony's worst nightmare: canon humans. The scourge of Fimfiction and many a fanart. But with a Soviet Russia twist: instead of a human being teleported to Ponyville, it's the ponies that go to Humansville. Before you start frothing at the mouth and convulsing, let's dive a little deeper.
Source
When checking for authenticity, looking at the source of the rumor is vitally important. In the case of Twilicorn, the sources of two of the major pieces of evidence were the European Brand Expo (for the Twilicorn poster) and Funrise (for the plushies), an officially licensed plushie manufacturer. Because these were both reputable and legitimate sources, fans had to rely on “errors” to explain the Purple Alicorn (the vector artist screwed up, they were just lazy, etc.). It's funny. No one ever gave a reasonable explaination for the plushies and as we now know, it wasn't just a vector artist's screw up.
For this rumor, the source is an anti-brony blog that tries to discredit the fandom by posting *gasp* Rule 34 and crappy anthro pictures. (Personally, for my lulz, I prefer Sane MLP, so I can laugh at Purple Tinker continue to egg the trolls on by screencapping every little insult that's made against her and than ranting about it [inb4 this gets sceencapped]. It also isn't as NSFW.) Because of the blog's purpose (show how “rabid” the bronies are), their credibility is in doubt. How do I know this isn't some trolling attempt to provoke the bronies into a response? I don't.
Please note in the blog post a lack of citation. He “found” this information. How? By who? When? If you're going to give me a rumor, I need something to back it up with. But, you say, he's got concept art! And it's good (as in, it's well made)! Where'd he get it from? No source, no credibility.
Enter the Editor-in-Chief of Derpy Hooves News, who claims that the picture is real and it is the mysterious Equestria Girls trandemark. This is the exact quote (emboldening added):
Edit: I also know a ton of people are saying it is fake. I have no solid evidence to say that it is real, outside of three sources, two which have this image in high resolution. I will not name these sources as they are under NDAs and would be fired from leaking it. I’m not sure where this picture appeared, but it is real, this is Equestria Girls.
He cites three undisclosed sources to confirm this. Good to know that even the brony news people pull the “anonymous sources” BS like all media. Still, it's vastly more legitimate than an NSFW troll blog. But also notice the doubt, “ I have no solid evidence to say that it is real”. Three sources would seem like more than enough to confirm this and yet there's still that added disclaimer-y point that it might not be.
What it boils down to is what those sources are. Are they DHX animators? Directors? Even some Hasbro exec? Why doesn't he just say “A DHX employee can confirm...” or something similar? Instead, he just says “sources”. That could be anyone from Goldner to some Best Buy employee who was given a laptop to fix and stumbled across the picture. The type of source is critical. After all, your source inside the Interior Department isn't very credible when he's giving information about Iran.
Even so, the Editor-in-Chief of DHN says it's real and that's quite concerning.
Hasbro Marketing
There was a time when I thought I knew what Hasbro would do. It's just common sense that a multi-billion dollar corporation wouldn't listen to a handful of emails and letters declaring a wall eyed pegasus is offensive, isn't it? They'd require a large, organized response to take action, wouldn't they? Yeah. I no longer think that I know what goes on inside the nondescript, two story brick building nestled between pine trees in Pawtucket that is Hasbro World Headquarters. I can still try though.
The name of the game is brand. It's why Fighting is Magic got murdered in a back alley outside of the Fox Theatre. It wasn't so much they were forced to kill it as they didn't want it to reflect badly on MLP. A beat em up fighter where you have ponies beat the crap out of each other? That would reflect badly on the brand.
Brand recognition is important—probably the most important part of a trademark. When someone looks at the MLP logo, Hasbro wants their mind to immediately go to something—hopefully something pleasant. It's one reason why this doesn't make much sense. It's My Little Pony. Making non-pony MLP toys would confuse the stupid consumers and would be a far worse trademark dilution than a fighting game.
Another important factor to consider is market share. Currently, Barbie, and Bratz reign supreme and make up most of the “girl doll” toy market right now. Chipping away at that share would be very difficult and cost money in marketing and brand expansion. Money Hasbro can ill afford to blow right now given the state of the toy market. Look at it this way. Every little girl that wants a girl doll already has one, so why would they buy an MLP one too? That's why MLP has succeeded. No other company has a pony toy line.
But again, I was wrong about their reaction to Derpy and toy companies haven't always made good decisions.
Comic Con
The instigator of all this was Hasbro's announcement of a new MLP movie and IP (intellectual property). Here's exactly what Brian Goldner, President and CEO of Hasbro, said:
Now as we look ahead to the fall of 2013, (unintelligible) We're launching a brand new pony brand expression in our top ten countries. We're gonna launch it with a made-for-tv-movie and full execution of this new IP across our blueprint. We did a tremendous amount of research and our consumer insights told us that girls want more ways to play with My Little Pony an—
Combine that, with this:
And things seem very worrisome. Goldner was vague about what it all could mean. The only thing we know for sure, is that this IP, with is probably the recently trademarked Equestria Girls, will be kicked off via the movie. We won't find out until July 18-21.
Fandom
Let's jump to Worst Case Scenario and say that it true. Ponies are being humanized in the movie. What does this mean for the fandom? Surprisingly, it isn't that bad. Everywhere that I've seen, there's caustic opposition to humanization. Unlike Twilicorn, the fandom seems united in it's stance against this. For the fandom, the impact will be firm rejection.
I know I will. I'll declare Fanon Discontinuity on this so fast, it'll make my ignorance of The Lion King 1 1/2 pale in comparision. I'm already thinking up ways I can retcon the shit out of it (dream, magic, Pinkie, Goldner eating some poisonous mushrooms and hallucinating the whole thing). As I'm not the only one who will reject it, we may see a full fandom revolt against canon.
The shitstorm this would raise would be universal. I don't even think TV Tropes—famous for it's coolheadness—would escape the smoldering inferno that the fandom would generate. What's important is not to give up. The Lion King has been done for a decade, yet awesome stories are still made every day (and sucky ones too). Just cause we have to ignore one part of canon doesn't mean we have to buck it all.
Summary
Unconfirmed rumors and reports suggest a “ponies are teleported to Earth” plot to the movie that will launch a toy line aimed at Mattel and MGA. These rumors are unverifiable although credible people believe they are true. Combined with vague statements made by Hasbro about new brand expansion, and an “Equestria Girls” trademark and you have a situation that could be very troublesome.

Not by any means am I saying that I like where Hasbro is going with this. In fact, I'm still not sure of my opinion towards it.
The reason I approve of this blog is that it's informative. It's giving a full and unbiased view of the news, with an added prediction on it's effects in the fandom, Comic Con, etc. And the sources he uses are reputable -- he even has a whole section just for finding credible sources.
xTSGx is an awesome dude, too. He writes very good episode reviews, and wrote the story "Ascend", which is still going. So follow him, too.

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