Those rumours: even if they're true, it doesn't matter

Not that I think they are necessarily true, for reasons I'll get to — though since they do include a potential spoiler about the S3 finale, I'll put the details under a jump. There are a number of reasons that I think the alleged leak is no such thing. The wording, for one, has several very odd turns of phrase. In fact, just the sort of turns of phrase that would be used by a wind-up merchant. Also, Meghan McCarthy made a tweet about people "who go on the Internet and make stuff up" that was in all probability referring to these rumours.

Right, that's it. I'm leaving the fandom. Which fandom should I leave?

Let's go through each of the points our anonymous informant makes and see whether they stand up to common sense. Before that, though, look at the wording at the end: "[s]hort of an overwhelming response from the fanbase". Yeah, right. There was such a response after Derpygate, and Hasbro were unmoved. So this is actually the part of the rumour post I find the least believable in terms of this coming from a genuine insider.

• Season 4 will happen. This one is easily the most sensible bit of the whole set of rumours. Most people seem to think that MLP:FiM will continue after S3, and though I have no inside info at all, so do I. Hasbro is doing very well out of the show, so why would it be cancelled now? The staff also seem happy to stay on, from what I've seen. At least, I hope so, as we do seem to have a fantastic team here.
• Hasbro is interfering more. This one I have no idea about, but surely they'd be careful not to ruin a cash cow. We can be reasonably sure that Cadance, Shining Armor and the Friendship Express train were introduced for toy-selling purposes, but so what? This is a 22-minute toy commercial, and it's been that since the start of S1. As long as it's a good toy commercial, it will retain a large fanbase — and more viewers means more advertising revenue.

Unless her spell goes wrong and everypony turns into a Furby...

• Twilight will become an alicorn. This isn't a new rumour; we've been hearing it on and off ever since the picture above turned up. I actually think it's reasonably likely that Twilight will be alicorned. Remember that she was powerful enough (just) to create temporary wings for Rarity way back in S1, so why shouldn't she now — with greater power at her disposal — go one step further? As for the argument that it would make her overpowered, in most situations she's already more powerful than an existing alicorn, Princess Cadance.
• Derpy has been killed off. I don't know whether this is true as far as the show itself goes, but it's clearly not the case that Hasbro won't allow her to be used anywhere. Two official toys, a trading card, several comic covers and a prominent cameo in issue #1 of the comic itself. The name thing is still clearly a problem (hence the use of "that pony" in the comic) but it can be worked around. I don't really see we have that much to complain about.

All in all, we come back to something it can be easy to lose sight of: Hasbro have been very good to the pony fandom. They could have clamped down a great deal harder than they have, and I think we as fans need to remember that sometimes. Even in the unlikely event that everything in the above list of rumours is true, that still won't make MLP:FiM a bad show. Writers of the calibre we're lucky enough to have could do a lot with them.