• Member Since 24th Jun, 2012
  • offline last seen Sunday

scoots2


I'm a writer of fluff, kibitzer, and especially interested in canon AU: Equestria Girls, the comics, etc. They are fun to play with.

More Blog Posts181

  • 239 weeks
    Follow-up on that stalker thing

    He seems to have gone quiet for now. I'm assuming the admins managed to smack down all of those alts. I haven't seen any new material on Tumblr or DeviantArt, either.

    Speaking of DeviantArt, here's the reply I got from them:

    Thanks for getting in touch!

    A member of the DeviantArt staff has reviewed this situation, and we have taken appropriate steps to resolve the problem.

    Read More

    5 comments · 444 views
  • 242 weeks
    Just so you know...

    There's a person on here who has been creating alts and harassing me. I keep getting posts like "why have you stopped talking to me? Tell me what I did. I need closure." I'm also getting PMs along the order of "yo, why are you ignoring X? I thought you were friends."

    Read More

    13 comments · 506 views
  • 248 weeks
    I lurk

    I know some people have asked why I won’t say anything, etc., but the truth is that I lurk. I sign in to see something, usually to re-read Rage Reviews. There are some things I can’t see unless I’m a bonafide member over a certain age. And then I just don’t ever log out, but I’m not “here” and ignoring anyone on purpose.

    Read More

    6 comments · 406 views
  • 327 weeks
    Some people make themselves very, very unhappy

    Haven't been around much, but then, you knew that. Busyness, health issues, and frankly a whole lot of depression. Even ponies weren't interesting me very much anymore. I had a ticket to go to EQLA and a party that same weekend, and I did not go to either.

    Read More

    26 comments · 783 views
  • 381 weeks
    Hey guys guys guys

    So, hi, you haven't probably seen much from me, and that is primarily because I have been sucked in again by my primary fandom, Harry Potter. Which isn't surprising, considering that I help run a convention and teach a course on it and am the school's club's faculty advisor and have given talks on it for, oh, over a decade.

    So for me, for the last few months, it has been mostly about:

    Read More

    12 comments · 712 views
Dec
17th
2017

Some people make themselves very, very unhappy · 9:40pm Dec 17th, 2017

Haven't been around much, but then, you knew that. Busyness, health issues, and frankly a whole lot of depression. Even ponies weren't interesting me very much anymore. I had a ticket to go to EQLA and a party that same weekend, and I did not go to either.

However, I do keep in touch with a few friends, and I follow EQD on Facebook, so I noticed the story about the massive leaks. From there, I went to this article: How Can the Mane Six Develop? (Part 2).

Mostly I find these sorts of articles not very interesting. Maybe it's because it's from EQD, and therefore feels more like the voice of the Metatron, or maybe because it reminds me of posts from Pottermore, which look terribly official, but which are actually rehashed fan theories: "u guiz, wat if Harry waz a Horcrus and like thats why the Durelsys hated him you guyz" . In other words, YAWN. But I read this one, and lo, I was rewarded by multiple postings from the same individual.

STOOOOP IT!! Stop saying bullshit, rainbow dash no have boyfriend. She is not interested in having one. is not oficial.
We're not going to start with that garbage. just because you care a damn. because they never admit.she does not have a boyfriend. is about friendship

I actually agreed that I preferred the show without canon love interests, but he was on a tear:

that will not happen, only friendship by lauren faust. none of them have boyfriends. rainbow dash and none of them have no boyfriend.
is not confirmed
i warn you and last time. they no have ones

I warn you all guys here!!I already told you many times and for the last time. that rainbow dash nor mane 6 don't have boyfriends and they are not interested in having one, they no have love instest. Soarin is not her boyfriend, he is with spitfire.
It's a friendship story about ponies created by the very lauren faust. that is why it is the incarnation of g1.

lauren fasut since created the show, she make sure to put friendship between the main characters and that way things will continue.

They will meet new male or female ponies, dragons or something. and hopefully they are friendship things.

Finally I gave him a bit of Scootsy advice:

Take a deep breath and a rest. You can't go nuts just because someone is wrong on the internet. I've been around long enough to know that arguing about this kind of thing is like smashing your head against the wall. It is not going to convince anyone, especially because I doubt anyone on EQ has missed the fact that the show's called *Friendship is Magic* or that Lauren Faust developed it.

I don't particularly want RD to acquire a boyfriend and I like the show better focused on friendship, but yelling will not get you anywhere.

This was, needless to say, not heeded.

A day or two later, I got a notification from DeviantArt. This never happens. I haven't posted anything there in ages. I recently added some South Park art to my favorites folder, so I thought maybe it was an artist saying thanks. Instead, it was this:

those fic that you created is called fun for your tastes but they are not in love. that's why it's called your own art and fun.
listening pinkie pie is more crazy than cheese, they are just friends and like brothers.
but they no have love interest. never was more than friendship.
but I will respect your taste.

In other words, he must have stalked me over from EQD just to make this comment, which incidentally was on another person's comment thread. This is where I became annoyed.

Do you do this a lot? pop by stories written by other people and say, "nyah, nyah, it's not a ship?" Are you that unbalanced guy from EQD who was having tantrums about the very idea of anybody shipping anypony at all? Did you actually stalk me over from EQD just to make your statement?

Then I got curious. Did he, in fact, follow other people around on DeviantArt, just to let them know that they were shipping and shipping was wrong? Turns out that yes, he does, and I am in good company: he left a similar message for DM29.

I don't know what he expects to accomplish. He can't stop shipping. I've been in this fandom for a while, but this is a first: someone follows me home, rings my doorbell, and informs me that I am going to hell. Not even the staunchest of anti-shippers has ever done that.

So I suggested that he join FimFiction, where we are desperately in need of his advice :ajsmug:

EDIT: The person in question has hidden his comment, but now it lives forevermore, above.

Comments ( 26 )

The internet does seem to often bring out the strangest tendencies in people. Or magnify them, I'm not sure.

Good to hear from you, though I wish it was under less obnoxious circumstances. Still, the idea of someone forcing their opinions with that degree of fervor... Yowza.

Glad to see your face icon 'round these parts! Sorry for you it's to report on something irritating.

A war on shipping in fandoms, huh? That's a bit like declaring war on salt in seawater, and every bit as hopeless.

Also, it's good to hear from you again :pinkiesmile:

"u guiz, wat if Harry waz a Horcrus 

Um...

I find the argument that the characters can't fall in love because the Show is primarily about Friendship to be absurd. From a Doylist perspective, yes, the focus on Friendship means that there will be less focus on Love intrigues than one would expect from a show centered on a group of unmarried females of courting age. On the other hand, from a Watsonian perspective, there isn't a "Show" at all, and hence the observed lack of courtship is probably best explained by a combination of (1) it happens offscreen and (2) all six of them are fairly busy with their careers right now, not to mention occasionally saving Equestria, so they don't have a lot of time for Love.

Having said that, the Show has done some stories and set up some relationships with themes of romantic Love. It's just not the focus of the Show, in general. This is not the same thing as saying it doesn't happen.

I'm not sure why this DM29 fellow was so focused on you and Rainbow Dash in particular, but as you probably know, I don't see her tomboyishness as making it impossible for her to fall in love. I think she has trouble relating to (and especially admitting) her softer emotions at time, but that doesn't mean she doesn't feel them. (In fact, I think that once you get through her defenses, she is rather soft and gooey and sentimental and extremely loving underneath; she just has trouble in, or fears, the expression of such sentiments).

As for the really obvious couple with which you're associated, even though they haven't yet brought Cheese Sandwich back with any speaking parts (probably due to the cost of engaging his voice actor) they set that one up as in some ways a classic Chivalric Romance (with the big difference that Pinkie Pie isn't married to anypony else), complete with admiration for the Lady inspiring the Knight-Errant to do great deeds, and even a momentous exchange of Favors. So yeah, I'd say there's a Love theme going there as well.

The big mistake that DM29 is making here, I think, is that he wholly separates Love and Friendship, as if they were antagonistic rather than reinforcing emotions. That is rather alien to the whole ethos of
Equestria, a culture which blatantly sentimentalizes and idealizes both ideals. It also strikes me as rather immature.

The Show has two more seasons to go, and I think it's quite possible they'll take up or even resolve some of the ships they've teased in earlier seasons. If G5 is a direct sequel (X Years After, or something like that) it's quite possible that some of the Mane Six will be married and even have children. (It would be rather surprising if none of them were).

Anyway, yeah, DM29 wants to come to FimFiction, he'll find at least a few shipping arguments here.

Yeesh. It's one of those things that I'm rolling my eyes at, yet I want to make a shippy thing just to spite this guy. I've got a couple things on the backburner anyway.

The Internet lets you meet the most interesting people, doesn't it? Hopefully this bout of drama is over.

4751529

Rainbow Dash have boyfriend. She have good boyfriend. She have no articles though.

Also her number no agree.

4751505

In point of fact, Harry wus Horcrus. Or a Horcrux, even.

4751696
...I want to respond to that but I have no idea how. :rainbowhuh:

4751505
I think the theory is that because Harry is a Horcrux, the Dursleys somehow sensed it, and it made them be mean to him; that they were naturally quite nice.

This is a load of donkey excrement.

4751519
Oh, no! Poor DM29! It wasn't him. He is a very good artist who was also targeted by this towering intellect. DM29 does quite nice art, particularly of Flashlight. He let me borrow his picture for Flash and Trend Steal All Your Waffles.

Here is one of his fanarts:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2017/11/13/1585289__safe_artist-colon-dm29_flash+sentry_maud+pie_starlight+glimmer_sunburst_trixie_twilight+sparkle_book_dating+game_game+show_meme_microphone_roc.png
Sunburst, Who Will It Be?

I didn't name the culprit because I don't want anyone to feel tempted to harass him.

4751529 Please let this be a thing.


vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/1/1d/Pinkie_Pie_Gala_Fantasy_S1E3.png/revision/latest?cb=20121023062315

Just thought of something! QuibbleDash. Something tells me that QuibbleDash would really roast this person's toasties.

4751818

(*nods*) Right. There's no evidence that the Dursleys normally were nice. In fact, they're a family of the sort that Roald Dahl might have written at his most satirical. And they rather show what I think is a Roald Dahl influence on Harry Potter -- I could easily see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Matilda taking place in the same world.

Though Rowling shows herself to be actually a better writer than Dahl by coming up with good reasons why Petunia and Dudley are the way they are (and Dudley turns out to be not so bad). And I suspect that if we knew Vernon's backstory better, his nature would also make sense.

Minor evidence for why I consider J. K. Rowling a really great writer, even if she obviously based herself on A. K. Yearling. :pinkiesmile:

4751830

Annoying as he can be, I actually like Quibble Pants. He's a caricature of a particular fan type, yet in his single appearance so far he was able to step up and be a hero. And he rather balances Rainbow Dash: she has significant Leeroy Jones tendencies, tending to act without thinking; in contrast he tends to think his way through dangerous situations. His episode shows that he and Dashie work well together, both socially and functionally, and they definitely became friends.

I know of at least one good romantic (and explicitly sexual) story which pairs them up, and I wouldn't mind a sequel to that story one bit. It would also be interesting to see how the rest of the Mane Six would react to him. (I wonder what he'd make of Pinkie Pie, for instance). And I would love to see him on the Show again.

Indeed, Quibble Pants was one of the characters of whom I was thinking when I pointed out that the Show has already possibly touched on Love themes. Cheese Sandwich, of course, was another.

The other 4-5 examples are Fluttershy and Discord (which has been shown to be emotionally a bit more intense than one would expect of non romantic friendship), Spike and Rarity (which is explicitly romantic at least on Spike's side), and (Humanoid) Flash Sentry with both (Pony in Humanoid forms) Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer (hmm, he really is a Waifu Stealer. And, of course, Sunburst seriously with Starlight Glimmer, and less romantically with Twilight, Maud and Trixie.

In addition to those examples, there are quite a lot of secondary or background characters in romantic relationships of various kinds. Lyra and Bon-Bon even got to have their Declaration of Bestest Friendship at a wedding, which I thought was both sweet and utterly hilarious.

So, yes, the Show has already done Romance.

4751946
There is most definitely a Roald Dahl influence on HP. One can see it most clearly in the way that the adults are irredeemable. There are bad characters who are just plain bad, and who do not suddenly collapse into hugging and learning. It's refreshing, and not particularly American. We don't like seeing truly bad parents. When I teach Cinderella, my students are adamant that Cinderella's father, as well as her mother, must be dead. They cannot believe that her father would passively stand aside and let her be abused, but in fact that's what he does in many versions of the story. (The exception is Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted, in which he is a really terrible person all around).

If there is any specific influence in the very first chapter, I always point to Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge in James and the Giant Peach.

4751830
Heh, I've been meaning to draw QuibbleDash for some time. I just get sidetracked a lot. :twilightsheepish: I did draw a comic, but I'm not sure if that really counts as shipping art, just a reference to a scene of a show I like.

4752542
It always makes me happy to see Quibble and Rainbow art, even if it is platonic.

4752312

The classic fairy tales represent the harsh and unforgiving social nature of The World We Have Lost, which is to say pre-industrial Europe, most specifically Early Modern World (~1500-1750), with a few having rather older roots (but most of the really early versions having been lost). The main objects of the characters range from finding a fortune to marrying well, with some merely trying to get enough food to survive to a ripe old age. The antagonists have no mercy at all for the protagonists, and if the protagonists have mercy any supernatural allies they obtain rarely share this trait.

"Cindarella," at its root, is about a sort of evil springing from family politics which must have happened far too often in reality. The daughter is beloved of her parents, but her mother dies and her father remarries. The stepmother already has two daughters of her own, and deliberately shoves aside the father's daughter to advance the interests of her own offspring. This includes reducing Cindarella's status and sabotaging her hopes of escaping this fate by making a good marriage. The stepmother is perfectly willing to sacrifice the interests of the whole family (including her husband) to advance the interests of herself and her direct progeny.

Up to this point, this is a sadly-common situation in a world where most marriages end in death of one of the partners when still young by our standards, and one very much supported by sociobiology. The Early Moderns wouldn't have thought of it this way, of course, they would have seen the stepmother as being "wicked," and of course Cindarella's stepmother is wicked in the lengths to which she'll go to degrade the heroine.

Where things go differently (and get interesting) is that Cindarella has supernatural help -- her fairy godmother. The fairy godmother's assistance enables Cindarella to win the love and hand of the Prince, and it is this supernatural supporter who ensures that the wicked stepmother and her two daughters are punished -- variously, blinded, lamed and killed, depending on which classic version we speak about. Note that the fairy godmother is far more ruthless to them than is Cindarella: that helps us continue to sympathize with the heroine as sweet and innocent, while providing a satisfying (to an Early Modern) punishment of the wicked.

One of the morals of the tale is that when your parent remarries, you can't count on his help against the interests of the new parent. And this is true -- it is true even today. The difference between the world of the 16th-17th century and today is that our vast wealth usually insulates the relic child against the worst outcomes of the situation. We tend to play these sorts of sociobiological games with padded sportswear and Nerf Bats; our ancestors played them naked, and with knives.

Note that in the world of real Renaissance to Early Modern city-state nobility and gentry, which is the sort of situation being described in "Cindarella," it would not be that surprising if the wicked stepmother decided to eradicate Cindarella's side of the family through murder. Wicked indeed, but not unheard of.

Also note that we don't really know much about the Prince, save that he's very picky about who he'll marry, and he's apparently become besotted with Cindarella. That's all we really need to know. Cindarella is a woman, and the best outcome for her is to be wedded, bedded and made a matron by a respectable higher-status man with the money to give her a good life and who likes her enough that he will almost certainly treat her honorably and with a decent degree of kindness. Her fate will probably be to control her own household and play the social game from a new position of high status, which means she's won the installment of that game chronicled in the tale. She's made a good match.

America is one of the richest countries in the world, which for most of its citizens has had a fairly happy history, especially for the last 150 or so years (after the horrors of the American Civil War were over). Hence we have an especially poor appreciation of what it's like to live in a society so poor and nasty and brutal that a social reverse can mean death by starvation, making a good marriage is a matter of life and death, and it makes sense to deal with one's defeated rivals within one's own family by keeping them around as cheap household labor. This is why we don't intuitively understand or want to believe in the earlier versions of Cindarella.

And there's some relevance here to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, specifically "Shadow Play." You may have noticed that the Pillars of Harmony and Stygian demonstrated very poor communication and trust toward one another, and this is what essentially drove the plot?

Now, keep in mind that Stygian organized them, and was their friend. Yet when he formed his plan to gain power enough to be even more useful to them, it apparently didn't occur to him to tell them what he was doing. And when they found out, they immediately interpreted it as him turning on them. He was cast out, and became sufficiently resentful that he was willing to literally treat with a demon to have his revenge.

This reeks of Equestria having once had a far harsher society than it has today. Try to imagine this plot with the Mane Six and Spike. It immediately falls apart, because even if Spike acted without telling his friends (which might be the case), they wouldn't be so ready to believe that he had really turned on him, and even if they did, they would be more willing to forgive him his misdeeds.

Keep in mind also that the Pillars of Harmony were (and are) heroes. They were more idealistic, brave and generous than the majority of Ponies of their day. They were not at all bad Ponies -- this is obvious when we see them interacting with their Element counterparts.

But they came from a harsher culture than is modern Equestria, and it shows. Specifically, they came from a culture in which it seemed more reasonable that one's friend might betray one, and it was harder to forgive him, for betrayals were more likely to be lethal ones.

4752542

It says something that Rainbow Dash has more chemistry with Quibble Pants, who has only been in one episode so far, than she had with Soarin' in the whole protracted crush she had for him. Not that Soarin' is a bad Pony, just that he isn't really her match.

QP engages Dashie from the beginning, shares her interests, challenges her assumptions and balances her flaws. They clearly enjoy each other's company to a very high degree in their episode.

So yes, I'd ship that.

4752730
Fairy tales, as we know them, were mostly written as literary pieces for a somewhat aristocratic audience--as opposed to the folk tales from which they sprang. In one of the earlier versions of Cinderella, she actually murders Stepmother #1 in order to make room for Stepmother #2! She does not like Stepmother #1, and complains about her to her nice sewing teacher, who she thinks would make a much better stepmother. The advice she gets is to open a heavy trunk filled with rich fabrics, ask the stepmother to look at what's in it, and then drop the lid down onto the stepmother, thus breaking her neck. Cinderella follows this advice, only to discover to her dismay that Stepmother #2 is even worse than Stepmother #1 (and why wouldn't she be? She knows Cinderella is capable of murder)!

Frankly, a lot of these stories reflect death in childbirth, yes, but they also suggest splitting the parents in two--the nice one, and the evil one. One version of your mom is sweet and perfect and dead. The other version of your mom--the stepmother-- is evil and will stop at nothing to thwart you. One version of your father is wise, kind, and noble. The other version of your father is the wicked uncle, who oppresses you by taking away your phone on a school night. Hence the typical childhood cry, "you're not my REAL mom!"

4753073

I'll do a more meaningful followup later, but right now I want to apologize for consistently misspelling "Cinderella" in my previous post on her.

It was nice to see you again

I’m not going to delete anything, as that only looks suspicious, but I don’t have to respond to anything that says “answer your fucking messages,” especially when I don’t know that person.

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