"Want, not need. I don't NEED anything."
Scootaloo3,262 stories ·2,570 members
Spitfire596 stories ·1,117 members
Buried Treasures (Stories that Deserve More Attention)690 stories ·594 members
School for New Writers9,608 stories ·5,008 members
I Just Want a Comment15,700 stories ·3,671 members
Spitfire and the Wonderbolts275 stories ·297 members
Spitfire has been the captain of the Wonderbolts for a long time, and she has seen many a swaggering pegasus - so convinced that they are the Next Big Thing - come ... and more importantly she has seen them go. Usually in a mangled heap of torn feathers and broken bones. Today, however, she is convinced that this latest candidate is the real deal.
Page generated in 0.085 seconds
Total duration
806 users online
638,380 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
This was really well done. And for a first story, too...! Really touching idea for a story. There've been a couple of others with Scootaloo and Spitfire talking in Rainbow's absence, it's always an interesting dynamic.
I have to say, I know you were trying to keep the candidate's gender a secret until the reveal, but I'm not sure the they/their pronouns really helped. Given that all but two of the current Wonderbolts we've seen are female, and the vast majority of the interesting characters in the show, I'd say you could use female pronouns and still keep a lot of the mystery.
I had wondered if you'd go a bit further with the ending; if Rainbow's passing had somehow passed on the magic of her pegasus wings and flying talent to Scootaloo, rather than just Rainbow being a presence out there watching her. Or was that the implication, and I missed it?
Thanks for writing this, excited to see what you do next!
8414538
When I was writing the story, I realised that, once readers sussed-out it wasn't Rainbow Dash - something I did my best to keep as a possibility with the allusion to her mane - they would come to one of two conclusions: Scootaloo or Fluttershy. Using gender-neutral pronouns preserved, I hope, the secret up until the final reveal.
No, you didn't miss anything. Rainbow's spirit, magic, whatever you want to call it, is out there as a guiding presence, but Scootaloo's flying abilities are all her own.
Thank you for the kind, thoughtful comment. Next up: we spend some time with a wandering Trixie.
8414624 I think you kept the secret wonderfully. I'm afraid I missed the detail about her mane. My own guess was Princess Twilight, since the text mentioned the flyer having purple eyes. But I don't think giving away the gender would have made much difference - the only male pegasus that immediately springs to mind for me is already a Wonderbolt, and while there are others (Zephyr Breeze, Thunderlane, Rumble), they're hardly numerous and I hadn't even thought to rule them in, let alone ruled them out. I didn't think of Scootaloo until you revealed it, perhaps because I was subconsciously only considering characters who are adults at the time of the show.
Ah right, I just wondered if that might have been the thing that finally forced her wings into growing, as it's looking like that won't happen in the show.
By the way, of course it's entirely your call and your story, but I know some people look through story comments sometimes before deciding whether to read or not, and since the whole story here is built on a reveal, I'd be a little hesitant about unmarked spoilers in the comments, personally
Wandering Trixie sounds like an excellent next port of call!
8414635
The mane-reference is on the fourth line of the second paragraph. It isn't anything big, but just enough - I'd hoped - to throw people off. I realise that the obfuscation when it came to the gender might've been a bit heavy-handed, but I really do like it when a mystery is preserved until the moment it's ready to be revealed.
Faust's original idea was, of course, for Scootaloo to be disabled and for it to not be a big deal: her talents would lie in other directions. I'd totally respect the production staff if they went down that road, but it seems that they don't want to commit one way or another (for potential story-related reasons, perhaps).
I hadn't even thought of Twilight, actually.
I don't think that there'll be enough readers for me to worry about that, but I'll mark them, anyway.
8414651 Also committing like that is sort of like them admitting the CMCs are ageing (in that it's accepting it'll never happen, rather than that it just hasn't happened yet), which they've otherwise avoided. And they might consider it heavy subject matter for a kids' show? They're getting better at that, with The Perfect Pear, but if Tanks For The Memories was their death episode, perhaps they couldn't handle disability without similar vagueness. I thought that between Scoot's alicorn wings in Luna's dreamscape and her line in The Fault In Our Cutie Marks about her wanting something out of reach was kind of a quiet acceptance that it wouldn't, but I agree it's not confirmed.
After you mentioned that you doubted many would read it, I went to look which groups it was in, and saw you'd hit the same spoiler/group problem I did once
There's just no ideal answer there with whether to add a story or not.
You might be able to add it to some Rainbow Dash groups, though, as it's kind of about her legacy?
8414670
Since we've had an appearance from a disabled character - the pony in Trade Ya - I don't know what, if anything, is holding them back from just coming out and saying that Scootaloo can't fly for whatever reason. Since, in Flight to the Finish, she puts a lot of effort into trying to fly it suggests to me that she might be able to, but just isn't at that stage in her development yet as a pegasi (I can't imagine, if she's been specifically told by trained medical experts or whatever that there are other issues at play, she'd go to such lengths otherwise).
The rule of thumb for character-focused groups seems to be that it must have said character in a large-ish speaking role to qualify.
8414710 I had thought it must be her being determined, whatever medical experts have told her, but fair enough. Ah, the pony in Trade Ya may not have really been their decision though; he was a fan's self-insert OC incorporated into the show (I think it was a Make A Wish Foundation thing), much like Vapor Trail in Top Bolt. I don't know if they'd have included a disabled pony if not for that, and might otherwise prefer to avoid it.
I did not know that about group rules. I've added stories to groups before where those characters aren't even in the story, but the narrative involves quite a bit of discussion of them. But maybe that was ok as those were lesser-known characters (the Shadowbolts), so the groups were happy with whatever they could get? I guess you could ask in the group forums, if you think there's a chance, but fair enough if not
Let me guess: Rainbow Dash.
Really great story!
I'm going to second what forbloodysummer said: obfuscating Scootaloo's gender isn't necessary. I realized while reading that the recruit wasn't Rainbow Dash, but I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't been wondering why you kept using "they". I didn't expect Scootaloo, but that was because I figured that the recruit must be male since you were hiding the pony's gender.