Thatâs the golden ticket question isnât it?
And the answer is a lot more complicated than youâd honestly think. Because the CMC got their cutie marks in season five.
Lauren Faust begun the process of leaving at the end of season one. Having completely left by season three.
People have long debated why she left but overlook that she was actually very clear about why in the announcement post.
The quote in question unveiling THAT answer being this one:
âVarious circumstances with the production made it increasingly impossible for me to keep up the level of personal creative involvement and control that I had at the start of the series.â
It was creative differences. The way she wanted to take the show and the way hasbro did started creating friction until she didnât feel like she had the control she wanted of her own story anymore.
She was very positive about the shows future at this point but would sour on it more and more as time went on and the gap between what she had intended and the shows now direction only got larger and larger. Culminating with her not even actively keeping up with the show anymore due to the changes. Wishing to at least mentally preserve her version of the story.
Which she was completely valid in choosing to do even without putting the woman on a pedestal. Having your original show pitch (which was milkyway and the galaxy girls) shot down, being moved onto an existing IP instead, deciding to give it all your love anyway, then getting creatively pushed out basically at the beginning and watching it morph into something completely different than you intended and in ways you wouldâve actively disliked?
Pardon my French but that⊠genuinely fucking sucks. No one deserves to go through that much bullshittery just because they wanted to make a cartoon. I donât blame her for just tuning out after awhile.
Most of us wouldâve done the same. And weâd be lying if we said we wouldnât.
But the reason that makes guesstimating what their cutie marks wouldâve been if she hadnât stopped working on it so hard?
Is that they got them so long production wise after she left. The show is basically a completely different show to the one she wanted to make by this point. In a million small ways that add up.
My little pony if Lauren Faust stayed involved would be a different show. The CMC would likely be different characters who had done different things up to that point. Threeish seasons of different things.
At that point weâre essentially headcanoning unless Lauren decides to release a massive document listing all her plans for the show that never happened.
Bronies talk a lot about how they want Lauren Faust to come back in and save my little pony. But even if in a miraculous miracle she did and got all the creative control she wanted?
That wouldnât being the friendship is magic they all remember back just with a few bad plot points sanded away.
Itâd be my little pony adventures. It would fundamentally be a different show.
And they donât want a different show.