Story: This seems Like a Bad Idea & Newbie Dash comentary · 2:57pm May 10th, 2016
Like I said in the story's comments, this is the first time I've written a story as a direct response to an episode of the show. Sure single episodes have inspired stories before but I've never gone out of my way to fully script them, let alone write them out, before the next episode even airs or even usually before the session it was in had been fully seen.
I a way I guess I wanted an excuse to share my thoughts on it here. And yes, I know I don't have to write a story to write a blog post. It just didn't seem my style not to try to entertain a few people before rambling on.
So what I liked about Newbie Dash:
World Lore:
I always like seeing new bits of information about the world it self, and while it might have been small scale stuff this go around I liked what I saw.
Namely this is the first time we've seen evidence that Rainbow Dash's home isn't the only cloud building in Ponyville. And there are upwards of three other cloud buildings within line of sight of Dash's home.
So something tells me that Rainbow Dash's might not be the only mail box with an empty field behind it on that road.
Also we got too see Dash's living room, and it's location compared to the entry room.
Like I said, small stuff, but we've seem so much of the other main 6's homes that we can create fairly accurate 3D models of places like the Apple family home, sugar cube corner, carousel boutique, and even Fluttershy's cottage. So it's nice to finally start getting what we need to piece together what Dash's home is like.
The culture shock:
I happen to agree with the episode that Rainbow Dash never really struck me as a militarily minded pony. So the idea that the concept of using negative nicknames as terms of endearment would elude her fits well.
What I disliked about Newbie Dash:
The obvious cringe inducing part where Dash tried mimicking the personalities of her friends to try to earn a different nickname aside, the biggest one is the story itself.
Namely the acsident at the air show.
#1: Dash asked for a storm cloud to be put in her path.
#2: Scootaloo puts the storm cloud in Dash's path.
#3: Dash panics because there's a storm could in her path...
To quote Scootaloo, 'wha-huh?'
How does that sequence make since? Throw in the fact that Spitfire would have chewed Dash out just for not following the flight plan and it really seems like a poor scripting choice to me. Personally I'd have gone with something like Dash aiming to fly just over the cloud only to get hit by a last second microburst to drop her into it to start the 'epic crash' sequence.
And let's not forget the whole point of my story, this is the first time the show has had Rainbow Dash ask her honorary little sister for help, and the end result was something that would make Scootaloo feel guilty. We even see a hint of that in the way Twilight looks at Scootaloo when talking to Rainbow Dash at the clean up that evening.
Well there you have it, a story and a slight episode review. Until next time, have fun out there. 
Actually, I have an explanation for the accident during the air show:
The plan was for the cloud to be just behind RD by the time she reached it, so that the lightning would give her a cool looking silhouette or something. What instead happened is that the cloud ended up right in front of her path. As a result, she panicked.
3939104
An interesting theory. although I find two problems with it.
#1: Rainbow tells Scootaloo to kick the cloud 'into' her path, no 'behind' her path.
#2: If Rainbow Dash intended the cloud to show up behind her then she signaled Scootaloo WAY too early.
Especially if you consider that Scoots took 2 seconds to say "I hope this works." before heading down the ramp. So if anything the cloud should have shown up 2 seconds later then Dash expected it, not earlier then she expect it.
When you look at the timings, that means Scootaloo was signaled upwards of 5 seconds too soon, an eternity in stunt flying.
So that would leave us with trying to reconcile Rainbow Dash the ace flyer who just did a stunt show and performing maneuvers with less then a tenth of a second margin of error, and the Rainbow Dash who planed a stunt with its intercept timing off by 5 seconds.
And all of that is completely ignoring the part where if you missed a course intercept by 3-5 seconds in an air show the two objects wouldn't even come close to each other.
Personally the best theory I can come up with would be that Rainbow Dash planed to fly through the cloud and have it shoot lightning after her. (Much like the end of the cash sequence.) But she saw the cloud was already arching and that lightning cut off her indented path. And then by the time she went through the cloud at the end, she was no longer flying fast enough to evade the resulting lightning bolt.
But then you run into the logic problems of questions like, why did she backpedal into a tree when the most natural evasion move out of a dive is to pull up and get back into known clear skies? What happened to the Rainbow Dash who's subconsciously hyper aware when flying of Testing 1 2 3? Or even the Rainbow Dash of May the Best Pet Win that pulled off a dozen 90 degree angle turns in the blink of an eye? Or even the Rainbow Dash of The Last Roundup who showed that she can be dangerously perceptive even when not flying?
I know that in the end, I'm just being silly and applying logic and my experience as a pilot to a cartoon show and all. But I'm not fond of the glaring inconstancies that the show writers put into Rainbow Dash's character at times.
Ultimately, the way the scene plays out, I suspect the show's script writer was going for a Tanks for the Memories kind of moment and that Rainbow Dash really was just being a blithering idiot 'because she was too distracted by trying to shake the nickname she didn't like' that she just make a plan that had a 0% chance to work from the get go.
Take my thoughts for what their worth, my thoughts.
And thank you for the comment. It never hurts to share your thoughts on a matter. Even if I disagree I usually like seeing other view points.
3941980 1. True.
2. Considering how nervous Dash can get sometimes, and her excitement at the idea of finally doing something that would have gotten her a nickname that she preferred, I wouldn't be surprised if that had been the case.
And considering how fast Dash flew at that part, and how slow the cloud was actually moving, I'm not surprised that she ended up close to the cloud early.
Your theory probably makes a bit more sense, though.
As for your questions regarding that theory, I chalk that up to the nerves that she was likely feeling already combining with the panic that came with the realization that her plan was failing.
I personally don't mind the inconsistencies as long as there's a reasonable explanation in the episode itself. And more often than not there is.
And I'm sure her plan could have worked, the chances just being very slim. And trying something that's likely not going to work DOES fit RD.
You're welcome for the comment.
I also enjoy discussing opinions.
3942635 That is a good point, Rainbow Dash engaging in reckless ideas does fit her.
I just find it hard to reconcile the Rainbow Dash who's so good at handling lightning/storm clouds that she uses them in pranks, and then suddenly not being prepared for it in her own stunt.
Another thought is that if we go with my theory as to Dash's plan, then that means Scootaloo was the point of failure in the plan when she overcharged/riled up the storm cloud too much when she kicked it.
And that that point the question becomes:
Did the plan fail because Rainbow Dash's expectations of Scootaloo's ability to handle the cloud were too high? And thus Rainbow's plan never had a real chance of working, and so the failure was Dash's fault.
or
Did the plan fail because Rainbow's expectations of Scoots were with in her ability and Scootaloo just messed up? And thus the plan failed purely because of Scootaloo.
Ultimately the show don't give us an answer to that. On one hand we have Scootaloo asking Rainbow to "-teach me everything you know-" And on the other, for potentially obvious reasons, we've never seen Scootaloo attempting weather work before let alone handling a storm cloud, and forget handling one while we know Rainbow was around to see if she was any good at it or not.
Although judging from the look on Scootaloo's face when the plan was explained, I'm guessing the plan never had real chance.
So we're left with no idea if Rainbow had a good reason or not to think that Scootaloo could send the storm cloud out while leaving it in a proper state for the planned stunt.
Either way it would no doubt leave a massive guilt burden on Scootaloo, knowing she was the weak link in Dash's plan.
Even if Dash was too happy about sorting out the culture shock in the Wonderbolts to care who's fault it was that her stunt failed. Or even, as I pointed out in the story, that her stunt wouldn't have fixed the problem in her mind even if it had worked.
I don't mind inconsistencies in a character's behavior either, when it's explainable. Like in May the Best Pet Win, that didn't bother me at all. It's just the scale of the inconsistencies that bugs me here. It just strikes me as too much of a contrast in Rainbow Dash's skills to lump it all into 'she's not thinking clearly because she's trying to earn a good nickname.'
Namely the part where aviators train their panic response, so even with Rainbow panicking her panic response should have been pull up and aim for the largest patch of open sky you can find.
But again that's probably just me being a pilot. And I've seen enough to realize that there are no pilots among the MPL show writer's list, or even likely with in the circles of said writers.
I suppose in the end I'm just letting my disappointment as both a Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash fan show here. It really was a big let down to see the first time Rainbow Dash ask Scoots for help turn out to be something that Scootaloo could only regret.
3943710 Honestly, at this point we're probably just thinking too hard as to what caused the plan to fail, since the end result is the same, no matter what.
Though I interpreted the look on Scoots' face as worry, but with a touch of hope mixed in that the slim chance would actually work.
But yeah, there probably would be a point where something similar to your story happened. This is one of those times where I wish the episodes were just a few minutes longer, or the DVDs had extended editions of episodes that add in some extra scenes to tie up some loose ends.
I'm kind of disappointed too, but there's likely going to be a later episode that more than makes up for it.
3943739
I'm sure we are overthinking it, but that's part of the fun!
And we can always hope for something awesome between the honorary sisters in later episodes. That's the nature of hope after all.
3943748 True.
And I'm pretty confident that it will happen, because of the following information:
A DVD that focuses on RD episodes will be coming out soon, and one of the episodes on it is a later one from this season called "The Fault in Our Cutie Marks".
And since episodes with the words "Cutie" or "Mark" in them involve the CMC, that can only mean that RD and Scoots are going to have some serious bonding time in it.
3943766
You mean how the CMC were key characters in The Cutie Re-Mark parts 1 and 2?
... or not.
In all fairness while episodes with titles like that usually involve the crusaders, it's hardly an absolute rule. And the only pattern that the DVD gives us to infer from is that Rainbow Dash will be a key character in that episode.
Now it certainly stands to reason that if Dash is finding 'fault in her cutie mark' that the Crusaders and Scootaloo especially would be eager to help resolve said issue.
But then again, the title says 'our cutie marks' not 'my cutie mark', so perhaps Dash isn't even the one with the cutie mark problem. Maybe its the crusaders with the problem as they further realize how unneeded their shared talent is most of the time, and the episode turns out to be Dash helping Scoots, or even the crusaders as a whole.
So until that episode actually comes out, all we can do is guess as to its contents.
That said, I do hope you're right.
3944030 True.
And I did kind of forget about The Cutie Re-Mark when I made that comment, which is odd since that's my favorite of the season finales.
And when I made that comment, the part about "making up for the disappointment" was more that there would be some serious bonding between the two of them in the episode.
This also wouldn't be the first time that part of what happens in an episode could be guessed by information long revealed before said episode actually aired.