Episode: Parental Guidance random thoughts and observations.

First off I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the episode was actually just as much of a Scootaloo episode as anything else. Always a plus in my book to see more Scoot and Dash interaction. And being the Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash fan that I am I wanted to share a few observations from the episode to anyone who cares to read the thoughts of some random author on Fimfiction.

As usual I prefer to focus on world lore.

And as ponies and places are part of the lore, we finally get to see Dash’s parents and their Cloudsdale home. Fairly extensively too. Scootaloo’s tour gives us:
A good shot of the outside/front.
A clean shot of the living room.
A good view of the kitchen/dining room.
Two of the (at least three) parts of the hallway outside Dash’s room.
A good view of Dash’s room.
And enough shots of at the trophy room attached to Dash’s room to make a 3D model of it.

So basically everything needed to piece together a decent model of the house leaving only a few things up to the imagination. Somehow I get the impression that DHX knew they weren’t likely going to get another chance to show this location.

The things that seemed most worthy of note to me were in the trophy room. While Dash’s words later make me believe that most of the items in the room were worthless trinkets that her parents used to celebrate every little thing she did. Like a broken lamp that was painted gold and mounted to a trophy base.

The graduation cap and gown seemed to stand out mostly because they were accompanied by both a scroll and a framed piece of paper. With two documents I get the impression that they represent both a GED level and more specialized diploma. (I’m going to hazard to guess the non-regular-school one probably had something to do with her weather pony skills.)

Another intrusting observation, apparently there are tools to help pegasi shape clouds, if their weather pony skills aren’t good enough to do it with their bear hooves. Namely the mower equivalent Dash’s Dad uses to smother out the bumps in the cloud lawn. Witch also makes it a safe bet that he isn’t much of a weather pegasus.

As far as ponies go, we get Dash’s parents. Not much to say there. But the one thing that isn’t clear is, is Dash’s dad just supposed to be a tuned up version of the pony shown in ‘the games ponies play’? Or are the facts that the pony who took Rainbow Dash to the Cloudsdale-Equestria-games-city-hosting announcement had a different muzzle type, mane/tail style, and cutie mark, supposed to mean that that was Dash’s uncle or something?

On a more concrete note, we also see that Dash’s family played a part in isolating Rainbow Dash from other’s her age. We see this in the sequence where Rainbow Dash finally takes first place in the flight club race. At first the others smile at Dash’s family supporting her. But then any thought of, ‘maybe I could be friends with her’ get quickly crushed when they realize that her parents are going to keep carrying on. And they’ll always be putting her so high on a pedestal that they’ll feel belittled by being around Dash and the constant praise that mom and dad will give to her and her alone.

Oh and we get to see that Derpy was once the best flyer in some flyer's club at one point and then got steadily worse as her eyes de-synced.

Also we once again learn that Scootaloo has a dangerous freedom of movement for a kid her age. As apparently she doesn’t even need the consent or aid of an adult to reach cloud cities. So not only do we know that nothing's stopping Scoots from visiting any city on the same continent any time she darn well pleases, but now we know she can reach a city in the sky with little more than the help of her friends. All that's left now is the question, Can she cross oceans without the need for proper vehicles? If yes, then she's free to roam the whole world.

Lastly, to anyone who wants to use this episode as proof that Scootaloo is an orphan:
This episode does no such thing. Just as a reminder, ‘effectively absent from a kid’s life’ doesn’t require ‘dead’. All Scootaloo said was, “Growing up, I never thought I’d be the best at anything, because nopony ever told me.” All that proves is that her parents weren’t her personal cheerleading squad. Even my own head-cannon version of Scoot’s family as shown in ‘In Another Pony’s fits that. All Scoot’s comments prove without question is: That her parents weren’t running around telling her that ‘she was the best X’ often enough for her to remember that they’d ever said it. And certainly not enough for her to feel like she could be the best at something.

Overall I thought it was a great episode. Not perfect, and I do have one rather strong qualm with it that I’ll keep to myself. But I really do like that we get to see Scoots help Dash with a request to Dash’s benefit this time. And that Scootaloo was the catalyst that helped bring Rainbow Dash's family closer together. Oh, and you can never go wrong ending an episode with Scootalove.