Razed Attempts to Start a Discussion (Spoilers From Yesterday's Episode Abound) · 2:52pm Dec 15th, 2013
Overall, yesterday's episode was pretty good: nice debut for Ed Valentine, catchy (but merely average overall) song, and gorgeous animation. Scootaloo episodes are 2 for 2 in my book.
Also, the episode destroyed a fairly common headcanon.
Scootaloo has a house
And it has columns. Columns!
Now, I don't know about individual headcanons amongst my followers, but having Scootaloo be homeless and/or an orphan is a very, very popular headcanon. Hell, doing a quick image search for 'Scootaloo house' fills your computer screen with cardboard boxes and frowns. Having Scoots be a sack of angst and misery is as common as having Rarity being a pony who makes dresses.
Personally prefer my Rarities like this, but beggars can't be choosers.
It's all a matter of headcanon, of course. Everyone has certain ones, and will cling to them like Rainbow Dash to Daring Do's leg, and that's fine and all... I guess. But as the dust settled, and the ruins of Homelessloo came into view, I found not acceptance, but people picking through the rubble, desperately searching for excuses: "It's an orphanage." "It's a foster home." "It's just her parents' mausoleum." (Okay I made that last one up). And while these things are sorta valid (though I've never seen an orphanage that has two floors and gives one filly a whole room), I just have to ask:
Why is this fandom so obsessed with making Scootaloo's (of all ponies) life miserable? What is it that lead people to think: "See that orange thing with the scooter? Let's cripple her, burn her home, kill her parents, and give her cancer." ?
Is it a matter of this fandom having an obsession with tragic backstories, and Scoots being that one foil writers/artists can latch onto and it be generally accepted? Is it because one person wrote one fic or drew one piece of art portraying Scoots as homeless/an orphan, and it all snowballing from there a la "Alicorn = immortal," "Lyra loves humans," "Derpy is a mailmare," and other extremely popular headcanons? What is it about her that makes a lot of this fandom scoff at the idea of her being happy*?
*Yes, I am fully aware that I myself have written sad, angsty Scootaloo. I never said I was not a hypocrite. Besides, this is merely meant to spark a discussion, not lambast people for their headcanons.
She HAS to be a orphan! Otherwise my story where she's adopted by Diamond Tiara who, in order to properly raise her, gets engaged to Apple Bloom will be completely worthless!
To be fair, I never thought Scoots was disabled (she can hover in the episode, so I'm guessing if she tries hard enough she might fly someday in the future). I don't know why I like the idea of her being a orphan, it's just a neat concept...until everyone started using it and made it boring
.
I think it's because we had never seen her home up until this point, and that we STILL haven't seen any family. Compared to her friends, who both have families and someplace they live. Basically, everything about her was a complete mystery except who her friends are and that she's unhealthily-obsessed with Rainbow. The simplest solution, and the one with the most fertile ground for fans to play with that didn't overlap the other two CMCs, was that she didn't have a family/home.
See, I prefer making Sweetie Belle's life miserable. I would enjoy Scootorphan etc. more if it wasn't so damned ubiquitous. I've only ever used it as a punchline, myself. :B
Its because for what ever reason 90% of the people in the mlp fandom are terrified of change. Im glad its cannon that she has a house and Im glad its cannon that she cant fly.
Im tired of seeing the same comics or fics over and over. Scoots is homeless but no pony knows about it then character B (usually Rainbow dash) shows up and asks scootaloo and finds out the truth, Then they go off and she learns to fly and they all live happily ever after.
Its the same basic story that has been pummeled into oblivion. Hopefully some tweaks to the cannon will help rejuvenate everyone's creativity.
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I think everyone started using the idea because it looks less like a concept and more like a fact when episodes like Family Appreciation Day and Sleepless in Ponyville skirt around whether or not she has a family. Since the show never directly says a lot of things, it's more interesting to assume 'Scootaloo is an orphan who despite her situation manages to find happiness with her friends' than 'Scootaloo is just another pegasus filly who exists to inflate Rainbow Dash's ego.'
Just like with the Applejack's hat fiasco, it doesn't surprise me that people are clinging to the head canon they like more than the show's new canon.
But Raaaaaazed! Who else shall we kick, pummel, curb stomp and then piss over when we want to write cheap angst? Who I ask you? Who? We need her to be an orphan so that we can write feels to the easiest denomination with little to no effort put into it and then harvest those sweet likes, favs and comments that said "i cri errat1me" like they're a fucking cash crop made entirely out of tears. I mean, sure, we can shit on Apple Bloom with her parents being dead thing, or Sweetie Belle with her having a tumor or something, but it just isn't the same! It just isn't the same…
Because stories about the struggle of the downtrodden (and often but not always their triumph) tend to be popular trope wise. And who do you use for that? You can use Fluttershy or ... Actually Fluttershy is the only one of the mane six who doesn't have visible parent(s) yet. But that would have to be retrospective.
Also Flutters doesn't have the attitude for those kinds of stories. Scoots' tude works better for it.
There was that story "final dream of a filly" that first got me into reading fanfics. In that story, Scootaloo dies and her friends mourn over her death and have regrets. And she herself has regrets too (could never find her special talent - Apple bloom will look for Scootaloo's talent in her stead, etc. it's sad in a way that I can appreciate it). I just can't say why I appreciate it. I just happen to have become a huge Scootaloo fan ever since I first watched the show, because she's that third character in the group, the radical one who does cool tricks on her scooter, and where she lives or her relatives have been a complete mystery so that makes her so special to me.
Again, I can't really say why I appreciate sad scootaloo..
Headcanon doesn't mean canon - But the only why we accept headcanon so strongly is because from seasons 1-3 we've (moslty) had episodes that only focused on the main plot and disregarded other pieces of lore (Such as the status of AJ's parents, Where Scoots lives, and the life span a power of alicorns). In the places where canon lore should have been, Non-canon headcanons took its spot all this time.
There is an old saying its "hard to fill a cup that's already filled" Just like, its hard when a canon idea is established over a widely-accepted headcanon. Its hard, but that dosen'doesn't mean that it never be accepted.
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My thoughts exactly
Eh, I figured it was only a matter of time. To tell the truth, the only pieces of canon erasing my headcanon that have truly annoyed me are ones that have yet to mentioned in the show itself, but has come from supplementary materials or twitter post. Namely that:
Sombra was killed at the end of the episode, and
Cadence was a pegasus orphan raised by Celestia.
Byebye, story about the nature of alicorns and fall of the crystal empire I'd never get around to writing, anyway.
That cannot be Scootaloo's real house. It is neither a ranch nor does it have bay windows.
Fanon is complete bunk sir.
It is the garbage that taints this fandom to its very core.
There is a reason why I am under the belief that we should have a purge of fanon that just only bloody trite.
For starters Scootaloo was the only character you could write about being homeless and still have it be partially true. Everyone else at least had a home, even if they don't have a family, that we know of(Fluttershy). So, if you wanted a sad fic about a struggling homeless filly, Scootaloo was your optimum choice. Of course this episode finally killed this point.
Reason number 2, and probably the biggest reason in my opinion, was to set up an amazing Dash and Scootaloo sister/ mother relationship. I've read so many Scootaloo orphan fics where Dash ends up adopting her and they are really great stories, possibly even some of my favorites on this site. They start sad, but end with a very happy tear brining ending. I don't know why, but it seemed to work best with that pair. Every other attempt fell somewhat short to me personally.
I think people enjoy that she is still strong and happy in the show despite the fact she can't fly, and enough circumstantial evidence pointing to her not having parents. So I'm just guessing people like sad Scootaloo because it feels more real?
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Funny enough that fanfic is what got me interested in this site to begin. At least in this story's case I liked it because of the prospective of what death might be like. I think that story could have been molded around any pony. (Although Scoots is a brave little trooper in that story.)
Well, isn't having Scootaloo perhaps be permantly unable to fly angsty enough?
Though most people don't seem to notice something else about Scootaloo that sets her apart from other pegasi ...
She has by far the best reflexes of any I've seen so far on the show.
This is an ability that might prove very useful, particularly because powered vehicles are clearly the coming thing in that world.