The good bits... · 8:43pm Sep 30th, 2015
About three weeks ago now, I wrote a great deal of well-deserved profanity about the simians in charge of Equestria LA, stopping just short of cursing their descendants unto the seventh generation. Now, after way too much needless procrastination, I'm finally going to talk about the good bits that happened at that con.
History. Behind-the-scenes info. Character revelations. Seaponies. (Shoo-bee-doo, bitches.)
First off, many of you no doubt know these details already, but they're still worth mentioning. Lauren friggin' Faust was there, without whom we would not have Friendship Is Magic. Also there was (Ermahgerd!) Bonnie Zacherle, Mother of Dragons Ponies, without whom we would not have My Little Pony at all. It was not only the first time they had been invited to the same con, it was the first time they actually met. They met the day they shared a panel together! A panel I went to!
It was fandom history. It was cool. It was even a little touching at times. It was also a genuine pleasure, as both ladies were smart, funny, and had great stories to tell.
As some of you already know, Bonnie had access to a pony in her childhood thanks to her father's job. So she got to ride it pretty frequently, without the family having to worry about the associated expenses. Later on, when she no longer had a pony to borrow any time she liked, she wanted one of her own... but never got one. The memory of that desire stayed with her, and gave her an idea as she was working for Hasbro back in the early '80s. Why not toy ponies?
One of her colleagues shot down the idea, saying that what girls liked was cooking and ironing. Not only was this an incredibly sexist thing to say, it was also pretty ignorant. Who doesn't know about the fondness that young human females have for equines of all sorts? The first efforts to domesticate horses thousands of years ago were probably spearheaded by little girls. Fierce little girls, determined to climb on the backs of those beasts because frankly, Dad, life on the steppes for girls is bullshit, okay? Boys get to do all of the cool stuff, so I want something for me.
Undeterred, Bonnie came up with a design, worked with someone who could turn her drawings into a 3-D prototype, got it approved, and My Pretty Pony was born. The original ponies were in real-world colors. Later on, one of her co-workers came to her with a suggestion: "Have you thought about making the ponies in pink and purple?" Bonnie replied -- probably only half-jokingly -- "Get out of my office."
Bonnie explained at the panel that this exchange was with a friend of hers, and "that's why I could say that to her". But I got the impression that even back then, she was trying to fight against the stereotypes of what was and wasn't for girls. Cooking and ironing? Please. Pink and purple? Take that talk elsewhere. Turns out that idea worked, though; when Hasbro started selling smaller ponies in unnatural colors, they really took off. Fortunately, they were still covered under Bonnie's patent, so she got credit (and, presumably, a piece of the action).
As pretty much everyone in the fandom should know, one of the little girls who played with the toys in that first My Little Pony generation was Lauren Faust. Incidentally, long before she started working on developing the fourth generation of My Little Pony, she bought a vintage My Pretty Pony toy on eBay... which she brought with her to the convention. Right there in front of the whole audience, she pulled it out of the box so Bonnie could sign it.
Most of what I have to say concerning Lauren came from a later panel, where she was interviewed by M.A. Larson. (He showed that he doesn't just limit his smartassery to Twitter, as he opened by saying he wanted to ask her about Equestria Girls.) I'm glad I went to both panels, though, as it gave me a little more insight into what Lauren did for the show, and gave me better idea of why she left. (Not that she ever outright stated it, of course. But it didn't take much reading between the lines to get "creative differences" as a major factor. It had been sort of hinted before, but it seemed pretty clear in these talks. Also, I got a strong impression of disrespect towards her from the network higher-ups.)
Anyway, let's talk Scootaloo.
"There is nothing tragic about Scootaloo."
-- Lauren Faust
You know why we've never seen Scootaloo's parents in the show? It's not because they're dead, or indifferent absentee parents, or abusive foster parents, or anything like that. It's for the same reason we've never seen Fluttershy's parents, which is also the same reason we didn't see Pinkie's parents or Twilight's parents for the first twenty-two episodes, the reason we didn't see Rarity and Sweetie Belle's parents for the first thirty episodes, and the reason we didn't see Rainbow's dad for the first sixty-three episodes. There wasn't any need for them to be in an episode.
Not that this info will dissuade the Orphan Scootaloo brigade, not even if combined with Lauren's line that she "always just assumed she had normal parents." People see what they wanna see. Even when we got a peek into Scootaloo's comfy, personalized, and spacious bedroom, some people were like, "Don't you think that looks kind of institutional?" If that's an orphanage, why doesn't she have roommates? I hope one day they actually do show Scootaloo's perfectly normal family; if they do, I'm going to point and laugh at so many people.
As for the other Scootaloo issue, Lauren said she was meant to be a "late bloomer", which makes perfect sense to me. Some of the viewers aren't going to be as tall as the other kids in their class, or aren't as quick at mastering certain skills, or whatever; Scootaloo gives them someone they can relate to. But as Lauren also explained, someone pitched the idea to her of Scootaloo never being able to fly, and that if done properly, that could be "kind of beautiful".
Scootaloo seems to have what other pegasi would regard as a serious limitation, so now she's not just a character for the late bloomers to relate to, but she's someone for the disabled kids as well. Suppose she gets a magical solution to her issue? Well, that's kind of a cheat, because there's no magic in the real world, and some of these kids in the MLP audience are never going to walk (or whatever their situation is), no matter how badly they want to. "Fixing" a disabled character is kind of a slap in the face to those kids.
More importantly, able to fly or not, what kind of pony is Scootaloo? She's loyal to her friends, she's fun-loving, she's awesome. She's happy. Being disabled is part of her, but it's not who she is. It's not her identity. It doesn't make her any less of a pony. And that's why I'm okay with a Scootaloo who will never fly outside of her dreams; she reminds all of us that we're more than just our flaws.
Scootaloo, much like Sweetie Belle, Pinkie Pie, and Cheerilee, is a name recycled from an earlier generation of ponies. Now, I'm pretty well indifferent to previous gens, for the most part. (Although after being introduced to the G3 photo-comic Kimono's Townhouse, I became pretty fond of the flighty, geeky Minty depicted there. Plus I like the fan theory that Minty is related somehow to Twist.) At the same time, I believe there's something to be said for acknowledging what's come before, which is why I happily joined in the standing ovation for Bonnie Zacherle.
Some G4 fans, though, aren't as easy-going. Talk of previous pony generations just turns them rabid for some reason. Never mind that there are plenty of elements in FIM that are callbacks. You can point out that Applejack had her origins in G1, you can show them that every show's opening sequence has featured a hot-air balloon... they don't wanna hear it. And for whatever reason, a certain subset of fans gets especially riled by the idea of seaponies.
Guess what? Lauren planned to put 'em in.
In TV-speak, a show's "bible" is a document detailing the basics that you need to know about a show -- characters, settings, back story, even summaries of suggested episodes for brand new shows. You use them to pitch your show, to provide guidelines to writers, to help set designers, and more or less give everyone working on the show an idea of what should be going on.
Lauren's original show bible included seaponies. Wail and gnash your teeth all you like, it's true. They just didn't show up because there wasn't an opportunity before she left the show. This is partly because she didn't want to just introduce them in passing; she wanted to involve the main characters in an adventure with the seaponies, in a two-part episode. She had even thought about adding to the show's roster of mythical monsters by including a kraken as the villain. So chew on that, anti-seapony people.
One last note before I wrap this up. (I realize that I've been especially wordy this time, so I appreciate everyone sticking with me.) I will confess that, like a lot of fans of the MLP comics, I've mostly paid attention to Andy Price. There's lots of great art in the comics, but Andy is particularly good at what he does. (Check out his tag on Derpibooru if you're not already familiar with his wonderful work.) After attending an Andy-free comic artist panel, though, I realized that I'm also a fan of Jenn Blake (who also has a tag worth checking out).
While it's true that she's only worked on one MLP comic so far, the one she did is Friends Forever #16, the Diamond Tiara/Silver Spoon issue. In other words, she's responsible for one of the cutest Silver Spoon images in all of MLP. And for those of us who are fans of ponies in glasses, that means she also did all of the art of Prancy Drew, and even made the decision to make her look like Velma Dinkley. (Although she says she didn't specify colors; the person doing the color made Prancy Drew match up there.)
She said she got into a little trouble for the ponified cameos she put in the issue, but I thought they were brilliant. In a single panel she gave us the Three Stooges; Sailors Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter from Sailor Moon; Archie, Betty, and Veronica from Archie Comics; plus Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup from The Powerpuff Girls. Fun background ponies like that should be rewarded, if you ask me. We need to get her working on another MLP comic ASAP. Plus, I just got the impression she would be a cool person to hang out with, what with her fondness for superheroes and all.
So if you have a chance to see any of these folks I mentioned above in person, you should go out of your way to do so. I'm just not inclined to say that you should give any money to Equestria LA to do so, 'cause seriously, 
those guys.
And did I mention that I got to speak, very briefly, to Lauren herself? And not in a Q&A session?
An interesting and informative read. Made me consider my views on the show and characters (The point of Equestria Girls has always passed me by) And it's not just little girls who want ponies, I have had three in my life time, all now, alas winging their way round equine heaven.
You know, I was going to say some of this, but you said more or less exactly what I wanted to say (seaponies, bitches) so I'm just going to link to it in my blog.
Just adding that I was one of those intense horsy little girls. If My Little Pony had been around when I was a little girl, I would have been all over that.
3432645
Oh, everyone can appreciate ponies and horses -- girls, boys, women, men. It's just that little girls seem particularly drawn to them, for some reason.
I'm okay with this.
Personally, unless they make it explicitly canon, I'm going to continue headcanoning Scootaloo as a kid with limiting disabilities related to flight that she will eventually overcome through either ingenuity or determination.
As someone who's severely dyslexic, of course I don't want some easy magic solution to Scoot's situation. But as someone who's dyslexic and reads all the time and is a goddamn writer, despite not being able to spell the word "practice" without spellcheck, I admire, respect, and support other people who try to push past their disabilities to do what they dream of. Even if Scoots will never be Rainbow Dash, and I'll always have trouble with some types of reading, we can get somewhere we can be proud of.
3432702
I get where you're coming from, and I can respect that, too.
B-b-b-but if Scootalo isn't a orphan, my oh see can't adopt her in the third chapter of my magnum epic after he marys his waifus Rainbow Dashie and Twalt Spracks. [lots and lots of words, misspellings, grammar errors, and no paragraph breaks]... I'm quitting the fandom.
3433555
I believe you mean "Twilt Sprakul".
And drop me a line when you rejoin us; I'll be interested in hearing what life is like without ponies. I actually can't recall, since the most recent time I quit the fandom has to be at least as far back as Thursday...
3432702
I totally agree, but that should be obvious with some of the things I've written.
--arcum42
pfffffffft
I MUST SEE THIS PANEL. Someone recorded it right? Someone must have recorded it...
3433867
I believe at least one video of it showed up on Equestria Daily. But I'm not in the habit of visiting the site myself, so I could be wrong...
I am all for sea ponies. If handled correctly, proper hippocampi could add so much to the show. Right now, all we have is "Under the Sparkling Sea" which I find confusing and a bit off-putting.
3433908
I bet you a whole box of internet cookies that if that day comes those people will look you dead in the metaphorical eye and say: "Well yeah, that just her adoptive family. Before they took her in, she was always getting neglect and beatings at her loveless institution or shivering in her cardboard box. Yeah, that's definitely how it was for most of the show. First five seasons at least. And can't you see how shifty they look? I just bet they give her beatings anyway."
Some people are really invested in poor little orphan Scootaloo. Which bugs me to no end, both because it's so trite and clichéd, and because Scootaloo is such a spunky little thing; she deserves better than to have every other story about her being about how abused and downtrodden she is.
I'd imagine it looked a little something like this:
i58.tinypic.com/ds19s.jpg