"#savetree" - No seriously, this is a thing


The My Little Pony fandom, is no stranger to petitions. Over the past few years we've seen petitions for everything from "Saving Derpy" (which...MAY have worked to some degree?) to "Not kicking me out of Bronycon" last year, which I am still scratching my head about. Yesterday, something happened that upset a lot of people; Twilight's tree being destroyed by Tirek. Following the pattern of knee-jerk "WE GOTTA DO SOMETHING!" behavior prevalent in the fandom, once again, a petition has begun to circulate, and already has about 2/3rds of its requested signatures.

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/hasbro-savetree 

That's right everybody, we have invented a new sort of activisim, where people are using a real petition, to save a digital tree. Not a real tree, an imaginary tree. An imaginary tree that was replaced by an imaginary castle. Not legislation to save the rainforest or something, a cartoon treehouse. This is the world we live in.

Now, that's not to say that the emotional responses to the tree's destruction are unwarranted, as anyone cruising the board or tumblr would be able to tell you.


Dozens and dozens of threads and posts about the Treebrary have sprung up, describing how it was - to many people - a link to the earliest episodes and who Twilight was as a character, to who she is now. Others point out the hundreds of books that were destroyed as being particularly distressing, as Twilgiht had admitted only a few episodes ago, that the books she owns hold enormous sentimental value. Will Twilight feel the same way about her tree as the fans? Will her and the Mane 6 plant another tree in its memory? Will she use her alicorn magic to fix the damn thing and give the town its only library back?
Probably not. But maybe.

Either way, we're still stuck with a real life petition to save a fictional tree.

This is a thing and will never NOT be a thing.


An example of one mourner:


Comments (20)

  1. While the petition is retarded, I don't see what so unusual about the reaction. It was a typically dumb choice destroying another iconic part of the show for the sake of plugging more shitty toys. If anything what's funny is that people are only recognizing this after it's been happening for two entire years.

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    1. I seriously doubt that some Hasbro exec somewhere was saying that they need to destroy the original tree to make way for the castle. Okay, yes, the castle was blatant toy bait, as were the rainbow power redesigns (one of my few actual complaints about the finale this year), but nobody in the marketing department was demanding that the tree need to go. The tree was a creation of the marketing people in the first place.

      Whether you liked it in-story or not, make no mistake, this decision was made for dramatic purposes, not monetary ones.

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    2. I didn't mean that Hasbro actually wanted the tree gone, they most likely didn't care one way or another. I would say that the tree would not have been blown up if it wasn't for the fact that Meghan wanted to write in something that further justified Twilight moving to the castle; even if it was damaged it would've been rebuilt otherwise. Now Twilight lives in the crystal-buyourshit-castle instead, quite the improvement.
      >The tree was a creation of the marketing people in the first place.
      It was?

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    3. Oh, hell yeah. In fact, I think a lot of the main six's homes were marketing mandates. I definitely know that Lauren wanted Rarity to live in something more resembling a normal house, but Hasbro wanted to sell a playset, so the carousel boutique had to be put in the show instead. It's the same reason that the show was set in Ponyville instead of Fillydelphia, and why Cheerilee was in the show at all.

      People act like Hasbro cramming stuff into the show is new, but they've been doing it since the very beginning. The only thing that's different is that when they were doing it before the first season was even out, Lauren was able to plan the show around her limitations and integrate the stupid toy stuff into the world naturally. The current production team are at a huge disadvantage, because when they have to add something new, well, it's new, so people will notice it and complain about it being toy-bait. It's all toy-bait, and it always has been. It's just that it's more obvious now.

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  2. > not being able to recognise satire. Was the horrible grammar of "savetree" and random picture of a tree not enough? I guess poe's law has taken hold too strongly. Maybe I should have linked the blogpost in the petition. In other words, "Too stupid to make up": Not quite.

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    1. We're well aware its a joke
      Horse News is presenting it as a real thing to get people stirred up THINKING that it's real
      Like always

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    2. Do you want to know why people can't recognise the satire? Because this fandom IS genuinely retarded enough that lots of people ARE taking this 100% seriously. I saw that fucking blog of yours on Fimfiction, and there were genuine arguments and flame wars going on in the comments.

      It might be satire for you when you're talking about it, but that doesn't mean that stupid people don't seriously believe what you were talking about. This campaign IS a real thing now, whether you intended it to be or not.

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    3. Oh I know, I totally intended on watching the hoards of stupid people who thought it was real. Satire is only fun when people take it seriously. It's just that this article didn't seem to recognise it either, but I guess maybe I made a wrong call. It's not like this is the first post on this site I've read, it just seemed like the way this was written didn't realise it.

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    4. Oh and if you think this is bad, http://www.equestriadaily.com/2014/05/tree-issue-resolved.html Check out how many people are debating whether my photoshop is legit

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    5. This fandom, Jesus Christ, I swear...

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    6. Capper knew it was a joke, but they are treating it the same way they did #brozen, acting like its real to get better laughs out of it

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    7. So much self-effacing. This is like one of those mirror elevators.

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  3. But if the petition works, (>implying that would happen just look at Der.. oh).won't that just mean that Hasbro is pandering to the bronies yet again? Do we really want that? And yes, I realize this is satire, but it's also too stupid to make up.

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  4. lel at the "wah wah chaaaaange!" poster.

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  5. Am I the only one who was actually kind of satisfied with her tree house/library being destroyed? I don't think anybody saw that coming, it made the show take a pretty dark turn, and it just be the stakes feel higher. Good writing on McCarthy's part.... this minority needs to stop complaining about every little thing. Heck, I just saw some guy on twitter chew on Jim Miller and Jayson Thiessen because Flash Sentry had one line. Just calm down, enjoy the show and stop with this entitlement attitude.

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  6. I can't stop laughing at that "Never Forget" image. The tree needs to stay dead. Then Twilight and Celestia can cry to each other about how their homes got blown up in epic laser beam battles.

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    1. M.A. Larson make this a thing.

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    2. Hasbro has destroyed a home. That shows you why they need to listen to us bronies once in a while. SAVE TWILIGHT SPARKLE'S HOME!

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  7. #savetree is the best hashtag ever.

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  8. Fuckin' liberal hippie degenerates thy name is brony

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