Bookplayer's 50 Questions · 5:29am Apr 11th, 2014
The questions come from Bookplayer, but that I am answering them should be credited to PoweredByTea. Find the original list here.
Argh, formatting this to be readable slayed me. If anyone has advice, please share. EDITED: I did the BIU thing with the numbers. Should make the questions stand out more.
The Princesses:
1. How old are Celestia and Luna?
Old. When Celestia was young, so was the sun. Luna was born at the same time, but is nonetheless content to be called the younger sister, for she has tacked a strange path through time's river since.
2. How old is Cadance?
There has been more than one Alicorn of Love. Cadance in particular is quite young, born when Chrysalis' metamorphosis left Love without an avatar.
3. Were Celestia and Luna always alicorns, or did they ascend?
Always.
4. Are Cadance and Twilight immortal?
Probably, but it's not guaranteed. Shining Armor's death would have terrible consequences for Cadance, and likewise losing her friends would put wrinkles on Twilight Sparkle. Of course, Shining Armor himself is in position to make a fair bid at immortality, as is anypony who personally befriends Twilight Sparkle. (See Pony Aging, below.)
5. Have there been other alicorns in the past?
Yes.
6. How much authority do Celestia and Luna have in Equestria?
Celestia's political power is only limited de jure, not de facto. She could be titled empress if she asked for it, but she never has and never will. Luna's situation is basically the opposite of Celestia's. She has political power de jure, but it is very limited de facto. Ponies listen to her orders only out of fear. Everything Luna does gets snarled up or distorted as it crosses from one end of the Equestrian government to the other.
Both sisters are frustrated with the way Night Court tends to struggle with projects or be ignored entirely. Celestia never has free time; Luna has far too much of it. Luna copes with this the same way she always has. She vanishes into dreaming every time the Night Court runs out of work or gets gridlocked. Her work in dreams, although quite thankless given that she was not usually recognized at the task, has at least never required ponies to love her in order to be effective. Celestia has been trying to encourage her sister to go out and make friends and pick up some kind of hobby, any kind of hobby, rather than trying to bury work stress under more work.
7. Does Shining Armor rule The Crystal Empire along side of Cadance?
Yes.
8. Other than Twilight, Luna, and Cadance, what relationships have been important to Celestia in her lifetime (students, close friends, lovers, family)?
When Celestia says she cares about "all her little ponies", it is never a lie, and very nearly true. She is almost capable of wielding the Elements of Harmony as a single mare. The "almost" comes in because her perspective is inherently inequine. Celestia draws a little magic from everypony in the country, but gets a strong charge from nopony at all, and Twilight's friendship letters take her by surprise more often than she would be comfortable admitting.
Ponies and Equestrian Culture:
9. Are there still cultural differences between earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns, or is the culture homogeneous by the time shown in canon? Are there cultural stereotypes (positive or negative)?
Pegasi have a highly independent culture, signalled by cloud homes, but really epitomized by cloud cities. There are pegasi who never touch the ground in their life. (This is of course very rare.)
That said, tolerance is quite advanced. Pegasi haven't been source or target of serious animosity since the founding of the first Weather Factory made pegasi an indispensable part of every settlement in every part of Equestria. (If anything, pegasi stereotypes have become undeservedly positive in recent years.) Meanwhile, unicorn prejudices (both for and against) are evident in history and heavily debated in academia, but they're fading fast from the world beyond the ivory towers.
10. Are there foods or items native to Cloudsdale that are uncommon on the ground? Are there foods or items on the ground that are uncommon in Cloudsdale?
Cloudsdale has cost-of-living problems with regard to high and unstable food prices. It also has some small, heavily enchanted greenhouses. There's no such thing as a food that is native to Cloudsdale, but the rocks farmed there are entirely unique.
11. Can all unicorns learn all spells, given the time and effort spent practicing them, or is magical talent usually limited in some way?
All unicorn magic is based upon special talents. Which is to say, yes, any unicorn can learn any unicorn spell, it just requires tremendous empathy combined with a compatible personal need to use the spell. What's 'compatible'? Well... Learning to use a spell your friend uses to feed orphans because you find an orphan starving is trivial. Learning to use a spell they use to feed orphans in order to corner the market on basic comestibles is probably impossible. Learning to use a spell they use to feed orphans in order to corner the market on basic comestibles because you are trying to buy a better life for an orphan is somewhere in between. (This hypothetical spell seems unlikely to exist, but works well as an example.) The nearer the thing you're trying to do to what the inventor was trying to do, the better the spell will work, and the less tiring it will be to cast.
Ordinarily, a unicorn's spellbook (if they had such a thing; some do, but aren't ordinary) would hold a dozen spells or so, equally divided between personal talent inventions, spells learned to support their talent, and spells they know because their friends know them and they know their friends. The most common spells have been rediscovered dozens of times for dozens of reasons, and these can be learned by study alone. Keep reading until you find somepony who used the spell for the purpose you want; no great reserves of empathy needed. Rare and exotic spells can verge on impossible due to the difficulty of really understanding somepony across a geographic and temporal gulf. Tomes of dark magic are very forbidden, as being drawn from horrible desires, the nature of magic makes it almost impossible to use such spells without tragedy.
12. Earth pony magic: Does it exist? What is it?
Not only does it exist, it is the ur-magic of ponies, stronger than the other forms and writ deeper into the nature of reality. Earth pony magic is a pony's connection to Equestria. No more, no less. It is available to all ponies, has had unnoticed exemplars of every kind, and "alicorn magic" is merely an extension of it. Individuals strong in earth pony magic develop extraordinary ties to their communities and special abilities related to those ties. Cutie marks can be "mainly" about unicorn or pegasi stuff, but a pony with no earth magic never gets one. Assuming she's not just a disguised draconequus, Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie because the raw magical power of forming bonds with everypony she lays eyes on has scrambled her brain, especially given that she's not forming the bonds for anything but their own sake. It's not as blatant or as extreme, but pillar-of-her-community Applejack draws on the same font, and in return Sweet Apple Acres has become a Fisher Kingdom that would rot in a day if anypony else tried to run it.
Earth pony magic is healing and oracular. It directs you in the right place at the right time without necessarily telling you why it's doing so, and it gives you the strength you need to face what you find. It's very enigmatic stuff. Celestia has more of it than anypony else in history, which is why she's both immortal and famously serene. Celestia is ALWAYS in the right place at the right time. She doesn't know the future, but her hunches always pay off. Except when they don't. Sometimes her good luck gets so untouchably perfect that she stops taking problems seriously. Combined with her inequine perspective, this causes her connection to Equestria to wane. She gets subtly older whenever this happens, and her perfect luck turns sour until she figures out what happened.
13. Some pony families we’ve seen seem to have naming conventions (the Apples, Twilight’s family) and others don’t appear to (Rarity’s family, Pinkie’s family), which is more common? Are there reasons for one or the other?
Since there's no official authority regulating names, families name their foals whatever they want. Random naming dates back to the era of Discord. Under the rule of King Discord, named families faced repression for their attempts at creating order across generations. Once the major lineages were dispersed, it became normal/expected that ponies be named without relation to their parents.
Part of the longevity of this new tradition has been because it turned up the modern spectacle of oracular naming. "Randomly" named ponies tend not to be randomly named at all. "Applebloom" and "Applejack" are names that establish a connection to the Apple family, but they say nothing about who a pony is. "Scootaloo" was named more arbitrarily, and her name tells you a lot about who she is. This is regarded as the only good thing Discord ever did for equine culture.
14. How much formal schooling is an average, middle class pony expected to complete?
Basic schooling covers reading, writing, and arithmetic, but it also includes long stretches of free periods in which young ponies are expected to be self-directed. This is to facilitate discovery of special talents. Once a pony has discovered their talent, they generally transition into apprenticeships. This transition is not to be denied. A young pony who has their talent and who is forced into irrelevant schooling is a very unhappy pony who will develop a negative view of educational institutions in general. This happened to Rainbow Dash. (She was pressured into a weather academy, which was very good for her future career prospects, but insufferably boring to her due to talent mismatch.) There ARE universities, but only for the very late bloomers, and those whose talents require them.
15. What’s the average lifespan for a pony? At what age is a pony expected to be independent of their parents?
Ponies with talents that translate easily to income end up moving out of home young. Those with more challenging talents have a harder time getting out of the nest. See: Rainbow Dash and the weather academy. Athleticism is an all-or-nothing kind of talent; either it makes you wealthy or it makes you a nobody. Rainbow's parents insisted she be prepared for the worst case scenario, and wouldn't let her leave until she had a saleable skill outside of her special talent.
As for lifespan... Beyond an expectation that earth ponies outlive others, there's no average. The older a pony gets, the more their earth magic gets drawn on to sustain them. Ponies with poor connections to the world around them seem normal until they enter a horrible decay in their fifties. Ponies with solid connections to the world around them live for centuries; Granny Smith has, and this is the secret of alicorn immortality as well. Very importantly, nopony ever gets so senile that they forget their closest loved ones. The point at which their magic can no longer sustain them well enough to avert that is the point at which they die.
Earth ponies are known for longevity because they're used to touching the earth and knowing where they stand in relation to it, but any pony who finds wrinkles in the mirror can do a lot to stave off the reaper by making friends, reconnecting with estranged family, and generally finding reasons to stay alive.
16. Are there roughly an equal number of male and female ponies?
No comment.
17. How informed are most ponies about things that happen in other parts of Equestria? What about other parts of the world?
Ponies tend as a rule to be very poorly informed about the world beyond their community. Most ponies have the problem of finding a rut and getting swallowed whole by it. Once somepony has ordered their life around their talent, it becomes an inescapable vortex of order that offends the cosmos themselves. (Cue Discord.) This is why Equestrian history is so sparse and impenetrable. Everything was the way it was, and it seemed so natural to everypony involved that nopony bothered to write it down. Equestrian literature is a richer historical source than actual historical documentation. This is also why small interruptions to the daily routine cause mass panic.
The Main Characters:
18. How old are the Mane Six? Spike? The CMC?
I don't really think much about the ages of the Mane Six. Old enough to get into trouble, young enough to get out of it. Spike and the CMC: Old enough that it seems normal for them to have crushes, but young enough that acting on a crush would still seem weird.
19. Did Fluttershy remain on the ground after getting her cutie mark? Were she and Rainbow Dash friends all along, or did they drift apart for a while?
Fluttershy did remain on the ground. I tend to imagine that the relationship had ups and downs where Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash would alternate spending time together with hiding from each other. They like each other, but their interests aren't just not held in common, they're actively opposed! Fluttershy would generally be pushing for the "hiding" side of things and Rainbow Dash would generally be pushing for the "time together" side of things... but Dash is not the most charismatic pony around, and every so often she'd upset 'Shy enough to get chewed out and switch this up for a while, with a shame-faced Rainbow behaving much better but not feeling comfortable. They were already friends, but the relationship was unstable. Having friends in common made the relationship deeper and more secure.
20. Rarity and Applejack both seem to have grown up in Ponyville. What were their interactions like before the show?
I sometimes wonder if I've missed something in the episodes on this question, because it seems to me that they would never have interacted positively before Twilight ended up re-introducing them to each other. I can almost imagine Applejack as Applebloom... and Rarity as Diamond Tiara. Kids who try to act posh tend not to come off well at all.
21. What do Twilight and Spike consider their relationship to be?
The relationship between the two is somewhat complex. Twilight calls Spike her assistant, and he calls himself that sometimes, but they also tend to think of themselves as being the other one's guardian against themselves. Twilight is guarding Spike from the excesses of draconic nature; Spike is guarding Twilight from... basically the same thing. Of the two, Spike is more willing to admit he needs it, but Twilight's obsessions are the ones that more often need to be brought down to earth.
22. When did Pinkie move in with the Cakes? Is she a worker who rents a room, an apprentice, or is there some other relationship?
Pinkie Pie's talent could barely even be EXPRESSED on the rock farm, let alone incorporated in her life in a stable way while she was out there. She left home early with her parents blessing to seek an apprenticeship elsewhere. She didn't spend much time travelling. Sugarcube Corner was love at first sight, and she begged for the apprenticeship until she was granted it. And, although her talent isn't exactly baking, the skills dovetail nicely. Pinkie Pie is a professional party ninja planner! She is competent around the kitchens but where she really earns her wages is by drumming up a ton of business for the Cakes.
23. Who among the Mane Six had the best parents growing up? The worst parents?
I've never thought about this before. Fluttershy's parents seem likely to have been the worst, though. She seems to have grown up with little expectation of safety. As for the best... So many of the candidates seem to have disqualifying elements. Rarity's parents are right out and contending with worst with Fluttershy's; Rarity seems to have grown up to reject every identifiable cultural element from her parents, and it's no teenaged rebellion. I almost think it has to be Rainbow Dash's parents. Even then, it's based on the total headcanon that they made her go through more schooling than she ever wanted, setting her up to have a good-but-boring job while she trained to take on the athletic world.
24. Why didn’t the CMC hang out more/know each other before Call of the Cutie?
None of them are named Pinkie Pie.
25. Is Scootaloo an orphan? Will she ever be able to fly?
No, she's not an orphan.[1]
As for flight... she's certainly using her wings enough to develop them and their magic. Her wings look to be deformed, and sufficiently so to make flying hard, but they're not uniquely so. There's one other pony in Ponyville who has wings like that and he flies fine. (YEAH!) Between that and Scootaloo's hummingbird metabolism, she'll probably be able to fly eventually. It may not come as naturally as it does to other pegasi, but that's a hurdle she should clear.
26. Will Apple Bloom’s cutie mark involve an apple in some way, even if it’s unrelated to farming or baking?
Maybe?
27. How is Sweetie Belle’s relationship with their parents different than Rarity’s was?
Rarity came into a high-class talent from a low-class family, and she did it when she was younger than Sweetie Belle is. Once that happened, her parents just couldn't be what she needed anymore. Talent is stronger than blood. The cultural gap just got bigger every time any of them tried to bridge it. This is another factor in most ponies being independent early - no power in Equestria trumps a pony following their dreams.
Side and Background Characters:
28. Is Mr. Cake the father of the Cake twins or not?
Yes, he is. Even if he's not, he is. Genetics do not matter more than love.
29. Are Big Mac and Cheerilee an item, romantically?
No, but they are friends.
30. How did Prince Blueblood get his title?
Fifteen hundred years ago, a dark mage got his fangs into Celestia. They had "a beautiful romance" and he became the Prince Consort, eventually managing to buck the Consort part of the title. When he eventually died, their eldest son (who had never known his father was an evil pony) expected to inherit the title as he had been often promised. The son was a good pony. Princess Celestia let the bloodline be founded without blackening the name of its founder... and after the creepy beginning, the memories weren't that bad, anyways. Even the current ponce of a Blueblood has never shown a hint of original's manipulative evil, however much of a personal disappointment he may be.
I made that up on the spot. I don't have the slightest clue how Prince Blueblood got his title. It's an interesting question that I HAVE thought about before, and the other explanations I've come up with bear no resemblance to the one I just made up. It's excellent ground for fanfics about Equestria past and present.
31. Is Silver Spoon equally as bad as Diamond Tiara?
Meh, I don't really care about these two.
32. Is Zecora’s magic common among zebras?
Yes and no. There are many zebras who could do what she does, but few who could do them RIGHT NOW. She has found many secrets in the Everfree Forest. Other zebras who wanted to have Zecora's magic would have to walk a good way in her horseshoes.
33. Why does Daring Do publish her stories as fiction?
...I'm declaring fanon discontinuity, sorry. Daring Do is fictional. My headcanon remains that one of Twilight Sparkle's parents is the author.
34. Do you have a strong headcanon for any non-speaking or one line background ponies that you want to share?
Some of Luna's bat ponies are under illusions, but most of them are actually bat ponies. Celestia's solar guards, on the other hoof, are just under uniformity enchantments. Some of them aren't even stallions.
Other Species:
35. Does Equestria differentiate between speaking and non-speaking species, in terms of respect, rights and legal responsibilities? Is there some other line or scale used? (For example, how are cows classified? Diamond Dogs? A chimera?)
Fluttershy is somewhere between a weird animal lover and a public servant. She demonstrably can talk to animals, but most ponies obviously can't. The work she does is important in maintaining pegasus control over nature, but it goes undone in many settlements due to lack of ponies with the talent. (Given the proximity of the Everfree, if Fluttershy hadn't chosen to live there, the Equestrian Crown probably would have dispatched a specialist.) In any case, speaking is conventionally important for having rights... and even Fluttershy's squeamishness has limits. Some of her friends are carnivores! She's even been shown feeding them fish.
Some of the non-speaking species are actually raised for meat. Notably, pigs. This meat is mostly exported to places with gryphon (and half-gryphon) residents, although with the return of the Night Guard, meat-eating is slowly on the rise domestically. Luna's bat-ponies are semi-obligate omnivores who need either some meat in their diet or a much more carefully balanced nutritional profile than Equestrian science is capable of on a consistent basis. Otherwise, vegetarianism is so nearly universal that many ponies don't realize they're even capable of eating meat.
The question of cattle is just plain uncomfortable.
36. Do other speaking species form their own nations, or are all nations largely integrated, with some having larger populations of a species than others?
There are three gryphon kingdoms with varying levels of species-openness. Minotaur citystates are quite advanced and try to be friendly cosmopolitan places, but they're laid out in innavigable tangles. The Buffalo claim to have a nation, but with no permanent settlements, ponies don't take them seriously. The Diamond Dogs claim to have a nation, but none of the packs agree on what it is or where the capital city is buried. It's said that the forests used to run thick with deer, but they're hardly ever seen now... And Zebrica is so far away, nopony even knows what it's like.
37. Are minotaurs related to cows at all?
No.
38. Do all zebras rhyme?
No.
39. Do zebra cutie marks work the same way as pony cutie marks?
Yes, but zebra cutie marks are abstract stripey things, and zebra talents are like that too. The minority of zebras who can concisely explain their talent is only a little larger than the minority who can't explain their talent even to themselves.
40. Do any species have types of magic, other than ponies and zebras?
Yes, all of them.
41. Is the lack of buffalo presence in Equestria cultural, or simply because most pony towns aren’t built to accommodate a full grown buffalo?
Buffalo are very nomadic. They can't imagine settling down in one place for years at a time. Their traditional movements are actually marked as sacred. A buffalo who loves a town might come back to it again and again over the years, but they'll never live there for more than a few months at a time.
Headcanon and You:
42. Do you consider official sources other than the show (comics, card game text, movies, novels, etc.) to be canon?
Only if they suit my purposes. I don't even necessarily consider the show canon if I dislike a given element enough. (Good evening, Daring Do!)
43. Do you have one headcanon that you always use, or do you switch depending on projects?
Switch.
44. Can you easily accept the headcanons of different writers? Do you prefer when stories match your headcanon?
A story matching my headcanon is like sharing an inside joke with a good friend. It's amusing and a good feeling. It's also not the only way to make a connection with someone - if it was, you could hardly get close enough to someone to HAVE an inside joke, could you?
45. Is there a part of your headcanon that you wish was more popular among writers?
Even though they're very different from each other, Cadance and Chrysalis draw on love magic in a very similar way. They are near each other in power, orders of magnitude ahead of third place, and both run entire nations on the backbone of their magic. These workings create an inexorable pull between them. There is a bond between them that they do not understand, do not wish to have, but yet cannot ignore. The magic is trying to force a resolution to the paradox they represent, and it is going to force them to interact again and again over the years until they come to terms... or destroy each other.
46. Is there a popular piece of headcanon that other writers use that you dislike?
Yes, but none come to mind right now. I may edit this answer later.
47. Have you ever written a story or blogpost just to explain some part of your headcanon (other than this one)?
Um, sort of. Probably. Whispering Stars was NOT written to explain headcanon, although it does contain elements.
48. Does your headcanon influence things like your favorite pony, ship, or episode?
Yes.
49. Would it bother you if the show proved part of your headcanon wrong? Any specific piece that would really bother you to lose?
I'm mostly committed to going my own way on canon. The show can't prove my headcanon wrong to me without a lot of evidence. What it can do is prove my headcanon wrong to others. I already suffer this with regard to Daring Do, although thankfully my perspective there gets sympathy. Theoretically, a "Celestia origins" episode would probably be the most upsetting.[1]
50. Is there something that wasn't asked about here, but you feel like you need to explain to everyone?
Changelings operate an extensive and conspiratorial network of fronts in almost every Equestrian city. This provides them with information, influence, financing, and sustenance, depending on the focus, location, and skillsets of each front. Even the unflappable Princess Celestia would be unnerved if she discovered the true extent of changeling infiltration, but there's no need for that reaction. Her oracular magic has never directed her to them because they're basically harmless where they are. Many of them are infiltrators in name only that provide excellent services at negligible costs in order to bask in (and feed on) the happiness of the customers they help.
Queen Chrysalis continually overestimates the loyalty of her infiltrators and minor hives, and has no idea how effective they could be if they were REALLY loyal. But then... maybe they couldn't be. If they were really loyal to her, they wouldn't be very good infiltrators, would they?
[1]Answer has been edited since first publishing.
Dem answers.
1999733
You like? Which do you like best?
Uh, I mean, not that I'm desperate for approval or anything. The Great and Powerful Causal Quill doesn't need your approval!
...I'll just go read yours.
1999743
I adore your Cady-Chryssi connection, and I may adopt it, at least in part.
I very strongly disagree that Scoots is entirely without any form of adult care at all. An orphan perhaps, but not without some kind of guardian.
I am tickled with the degree of sync we have regarding Pinkie Pie and apprenticeships as well. We aren't parallel, but our thoughts are rather compatible.
Regarding Daring Do, I have a link on my questions to a blog I made about that. I would like it very much if you were to check it out. I do not say this to change your mind, but rather I am curious as to what you think about my own headbands for her. I got a buffalo blog to, but it would require some digging to find it...
1999781
Huh? I was trying to say that she HAS guardianship, but SHE wouldn't agree. She has ponies who care about her and who would take her in, but she won't let them.
I'll look up the Daring Do thing.
Okay, I might have to pilfer your answers for 13, 17, and 45.
I already heavily agree with you on 23 with regards to Fluttershy having the worst parents, she's just plain badly socialized.
On regards to question 30, I already had an answer. If you're looking for what others think on these questions in general, I'd love to have you comment on my answers to these 50 questions.
On question 35, I think I'll have to raise my own theory of pigs here as the thought of ponies using them for meat hadn't crossed my mind. I have it that Equestria's pigs are used primarily for compost purposes. Grade-A Equestrian Naturale.
Those are some very well thought out answers, and I enjoyed reading them. (So much so, in fact, I ended up a few minutes late for work
this morning). See, this is why you're the pony every pony should know.[1]
You captured a subtly that missed in my answer. As much as Twilight looks after Spike, Spike looks after her. They need each other. I wish there were more adventures with Twilight and Spike. He so often ends up having to stay at home in Ponyville.
Hey, you answer is a lot like mine. Guess we share a in-joke
. But I love the extra detail about intent mattering too. I may steal that.
Fascinating. It's frankly kind of disturbing how deeply talents govern ponies' lives in your Equestria.
And it's very nice to see someone who shares my headcanon about minotaur labyrinth-cities. It makes sense to them! (The goats just climb up the walls.)
2001091
Discord would agree it's disturbing. It's part of what drives him. He hates to see things... crystallize. He tests and prods at the natures of the ponies he meets. I expect that "reformed" Discord still does it now, just with less brainwashing.
Most ponies think it's beautiful. I can imagine somepony who might agree with Discord... Somepony insatiably curious, or whose talent was so firmly set in the realm of hobby that it could never be a major part of their life, or whose talent was so broad or chaotic in nature that it couldn't stick them in a rut. Also, historians. Actual historians would suffer the frustration that Twilight has ("None of you care about history?") taken up to eleven, even if they were otherwise conservative in attitude. Any pony fitting these descriptions would find it appalling how little others around them understand about the world.
Ponies go nuts when their talent fails because it's like their soul just failed at something.
1999781
I've been thinking about this point for a while. I actually ran away from home when I was younger. Twice. Eventually, I disowned my family, at an age where these things are not so dramatic.
That's why I'm inclined to see Scootaloo's situation as I am. Not because my family life was awful, but because if my history had happened in a place like Equestria... I never would've ended up home again after the first time. Run away, stay away. Combine the zero crime rate with the ability to subsist on grass and field plants, and you have a young independence that is merely boring and distasteful rather than terribly dangerous. Given that she's still in school and has friends her own age, even the "boring and distasteful" aspects are reduced.
That's about the life situation I imagine for Scootaloo. She does well enough three seasons of the year and grudgingly accepts enough support to be okay in winter, too. If some meddling do-gooder ever forced the issue, she may have gone so far as to seek legal emancipation. (Such an event would be good story-fodder.)
2002243
She does seem to have a home though, so she isn't just living outside. That would seem to imply something at least, since it is doubtful she bought her own home, and it looks too nice for her to just be squatting. She has enough personal possessions to indicate she either has some form of income (but she seems to young to have a really steady job, and she has far too much free time for that anyway), or has someone who buys it for her.
2002533
I kind of like the idea that she holes up in the Crusader clubhouse. I've seen that in a few fics. I've seen a few other variants of "Scootaloo's home" that still preserve her as an orphan. (In one case, she was some kind of weird secret agent actually living in a hotel... that fic was better than it sounds.) As for income... Well, there's no shortage of ponies who would buy things for her, but if she's rejecting guardianship then she'd be deeply reluctant to take up those offers. Cheerilee probably doesn't let her refuse offers to purchase school supplies. Given an apprenticeship culture, finding odd jobs is probably straightforward. That also helps make regular bathing practical.
One thing is that Applejack would have to be completely aware of Scootaloo's home situation. Why? Farms are a font of odd jobs, decent hideaways, food, and other necessities. If she didn't inform Applejack of her own will and try to network, she'd just end up stealing from Applejack instead. That would be noticed and stopped quick. It wouldn't necessarily involve much fuss. Applebloom would probably know too, but technically might have missed it. It depends on how often 'regular bathing' involves washing up on Sweet Apple Acres. If it does, or if it ever starts to, Applebloom is going to figure it out in a manner of days, if not immediately. Similarly, using the Crusader club HQ as a bedroom could only go unnoticed for a few weeks at most.
The big surprise is that anypony reliant on odd-jobs is in a pressure cooker environment for finding a talent. Broad exposure and intense motivation combine in that situation. It would feel awful to have a broad exposure to the work being done in a town without ever finding the work that 'clicks' personally in a culture where the moment that 'clicks' is a huge life-changing event. Scootaloo would be a font of weird crusading ideas, since she would rarely or never suggest any work that is actually being done in Ponyville. (If one of those were her talent, she'd know.)
If you want to use canon to disprove Scootaloo's orphan status... give me a situation where she's made a Crusading suggestion that involved a totally normal often-done-in-Ponyville job, and I will actually abandon this headcanon on the spot. This has to use the show as a resource, though. The secondary stuff is only persuasive to me when I'm hunting for headcanon.
2002846
Don't have any Canon evidence for the talent thing. However a recent episode very clearly.showed her living environment. She had her own room in a house, decorated with posters and the like. While this does not preclude being an orphan, she clearly does not live in the clubhouse, or live off the land.
That said, it could be she is living with some kind of non-parental guardian. Their relationship might not even be very close, which is why she attaches to Rainbow so hard.
Perhaps some kind of legally appointed guardian. Makes sure she isn't homeless, but no actual attachment.
2003004
I haven't watched any recent episodes in a long time. If I'd seen this, I wouldn't think what I do. Did? My attachment is via fanon now. I'm only part of the fandom because I enjoy browsing FiMFiction. Even if it's jossed by canon, the idea of orphan Scootaloo in various permutations is still common in fanfics. I had pretty much gotten to the point of not blinking at how her situation was presented as long as it was tonally consistent with Equestria as we know it.
Ah, well. The other thing was a silly personal fantasy anyways. An isolating fantasy, at that. Most people can't understand or won't believe the idea that living such a way could be desirable. Which is simultaneously the reason why I would never write a story about it (I fear the inevitable flamewar) and a primary conflict driver in such a story were it written.
2003629
Well, as I said, the home situation does not, strictly speaking, joss her being an orphan, just that it josses her living off the land. From your perspective, if kept to what canon has shown us, she could be living with a legally appointed guardian (possibly and earth pony or unicorn), who takes care of her basic needs (food and shelter), but there is not real attachment to her. She has purchased all her own possessions via odd jobs, and her closest family are the Crusaders and Rainbow Dash. Heck, you could go one further, and have it that Equestria makes sure any pony has shelter, but beyond that Scoots actually lives on her own. We never actually saw her parents after all, just her room.
2005347
I think the idea of a legally appointed guardian with no attachment is actually sadder. This becomes especially so with the idea of having to buy stuff herself. I'm not a fan of sadfics. The 'runaway' story is not automatically a tragedy to me, but the idea of living with someone who just doesn't care about you at all is depressing. At best, it's a sour note. If I'm going to build stories including Scootaloo, I would give her less apathetic role models. Lots of them.
I wonder if I should've said my headcanon is that Scootaloo's mother is Princess Celestia? I did rather enjoy that story, particularly early on when it was just fluffy flufftastic.
2005688
