HedonismBot

Plus if Cadance didn't take no for an answer, I have an even better way to get back at her. Earlier in the thread, others mentioned the idea of plopping her in front of a TV. What I propose is to show her such classics as "Beavis and Butt-Head", "South Park", "Family Guy", "Superjail", as well as web animations from the golden age of Newgrounds that make those look family-friendly. Expose her to every curse word ever invented and more lewd humor than you can shake a stick at. Then when her parents get back, watch her show off her new vocabulary and arrange for Starlight to immediately get me to the other side of Equestria.

I don't know about Equestria, but in most real-world cultures marriage generally implies making one's self available for sex to a reasonable extent (failure to do so is actually grounds for divorce in many places). Personally I guess I'd be all right with just cuddling. Though in that case I'd probably scrap the whole "monogamy" thing and live up to my username. And while I'm at it, broaden my horizons to griffons, kirin, and others (or all at once).

I have zero interest in becoming a parent, so a genetically incompatible partner would actually be a big plus (that is, assuming that "genetically incompatible" means "nothing happens" as it usually does in real life, as opposed to "freak baby"). And as others have said, with any species possessing human-level intelligence (regardless of resemblance to real-world animals) inter-species relations would be morally no different than dating one of the aliens from Star Trek.

I keep seeing fans holding up Scootaloo as a role model for people with disabilities, and I just have to say: Scootaloo is a textbook case of how NOT to do the "disabled representation" thing. "Flight to the Finish", in and of itself, did a respectable job with its message. The problem is what came after that. First it's implied that she's simply a late bloomer flight-wise. Then for several seasons we see signs of her yearning to fly, but making no visible progress towards flying. Then we see her so desperate for at least some of what her condition has denied her that she joins a stunt team with a devil-may-care attitude towards safety. Then right at the end, we see her adult body with child-size wings (technically up for interpretation on account of Bulk Biceps, but the creators' intent was pretty obvious). Here's where things really go wrong: At no point do we see anyone making any attempt to help her learn to fly (one would assume Rainbow Dash would handle that, but there's never even a brief mention of her actually doing so). Nor do we see any evidence that she's been to a doctor (one would expect Equestria to have specialists in that area) to try and sort out why she's been having trouble flying. Nor do we see anyone properly helping her to cope with the possibility that she may never fly. Nor do we see anyone introduce her to technology (such as Apple Bloom's glider from "Call of the Cutie") which might let her compensate for whatever unspecified condition is keeping her from flying. Twilight's book smarts extend well beyond magic - by all logic, she should have been able to find Scootaloo a solution there. For a series which normally has much more in-depth discussion of characters' feelings than you typically see in a Y-rated cartoon, it feels like we never got more than a superficial look at what Scootaloo was going through. Way too much was left to the realm of speculation and headcanon. What we actually got to see paints a picture of a child whose dreams are threatened by a possible medical issue, but no one around her bothering to step up and get her the help she needs - in essence, more fuel for the Scootabuse dumpster fire.

The big ones I can think of right now are: Take a stab at reforming Cozy Glow. If they don't want her to actually reform, it'd be fun to have her fake her way through it and hatch her next evil scheme (and then punish her however). Show us the CMC in their role as friendship tutors at the School (many of the pony students would likely be at the age where they'd either be blank flanks or still figuring out how to translate their cutie mark into what to do with their lives - ample opportunity for them to also practice their talents as Cutie Mark Counselors). Quit beating around the bush with Scootaloo's wings - either keep the "late bloomer" line they'd been feeding us and get her into training, or formally establish her as disabled and get her one of those glider things from issue 81 (or something along those lines).

The problem there is that so many fans have glommed on to her as an example of disabled representation (even back when Hasbro was still pushing the "late bloomer" line) that having her fly all normal-like would ignite the greatest controversy ever seen since Twilight sprouted wings of her own. The idea behind the "assistive tech" route is to keep them happy without having everyone else watch her dreams get steamrolled. Though for what it's worth, there is a real-world surgical procedure that could possibly help her, and it doesn't require any tech beyond what Equestria is shown to have: Limb lengthening That could make for an interesting story - perhaps have it so that Scootaloo would need to have it done by someone who specializes in wing surgery, whom one would expect to find in a place where the population is biased towards pegasi - say, Cloudsdale. Having the other CMCs try to get up there to visit her could be tons of fun - I could possibly see Sweetie Belle being able to handle the walk-on-clouds spell (probably not the butterfly wing spell - Twilight could barely get it off once).

Not to mention one of the alternate timelines from "A Cutie Re-Mark" had Rainbow Dash flying on a prosthetic wing.

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I was talking about: Every time I've seen any sort of discussion of whether Scootaloo should have had the chance to fly, it's always come down to "keep the 'late bloomer' line and let her finally bloom" versus "let us have ourselves a disabled character - what she does on her scooter is kinda sorta vaguely like flying, let her be happy with that". For reasons I can't fathom, it seems hardly anyone besides myself ever thought of keeping the "disability" part but letting her overcome said disability by way of actually flying (using technology firmly established to exist in Equestria). Seriously, what's up with that?

I have zero interest or experience in caring for children of any age in any context, so that's an obvious hard pass. One would expect that a member of royalty would have easy access to experienced babysitters when the need should arise. And as for "A Flurry of Emotions", I just realized: On top of Twilight haphazardly trying to balance babysitting with her pre-existing obligations (which wound up making a huge mess when Flurry Heart didn't get the attention she wanted), she was also bringing a baby into a hospital ward full of kids suffering from a likely contagious disease. Not a real smart move there.

No need to get that fancy. She already has plenty of thrust - she just needs a little extra lift. Something like a miniature hang glider (technology clearly shown to exist in Equestria) would be a good place to start (an off-the-shelf hang glider built for a pony with no wings at all would probably create too much drag, slowing her down). As an engineer, I've found it outright idiotic that the idea of technological assistance was never even briefly discussed. Twilight's book smarts extend well beyond magic - she should have been able to help Scootaloo get her hooves on something that would get her flying. That would have been the ideal resolution to Scootaloo's situation - her disability would still be there (as the creators originally intended), she'd just be using technology to compensate and do what she wants to do with her life (like so many people in real life). Win-win all around. For what it's worth, if I were to find myself in Equestria (where my educational credentials wouldn't carry over, making it tricky to get a proper career going), helping her out with that would be the perfect sort of engineering project to both prove that I'm good for more than menial labor and score PR points with the locals. And for those of you who wouldn't have wanted to see her fly by any means: When you present a character's goals as unachievable after establishing the existence of a solution for achieving said goals, the message you actually send is "If you encounter an obstacle to your goals, don't bother trying to find a workaround - just give up". Yes, she has her scooter, but it's been well established that the technology exists to let her actually fly, not have to settle for something that's kinda sorta like flying.

Remember "Marks for Effort", where at the end Twilight offers them positions as tutors at the Friendship School? It would have been nice if their sendoff had involved actually going somewhere with that. Many of their students would be at the age where they would either still be blank flanks or just gotten their cutie marks, giving the CMC ample opportunity to practice their talent as cutie mark counselors. It could have added more to her character if it had actually been part of her character for a meaningful length of time, instead of just being dropped on us at the end. For several seasons we've seen her yearning for the experience of flight, and now she finds out that it ain't gonna happen and has no reaction whatsoever. Even if you've resolved to not let your disability define you, discovering that you'll never get to do what you've always wanted to do with your life tends to be highly unpleasant. To ignore that is to do as much of a disservice to people with disabilities as they would have by giving her adult form normal-size wings. Not to mention that dropping the "late bloomer" act earlier would have allowed the opportunity to explore the idea of assistive technology (such as Apple Bloom's glider from "Call of the Cutie") - which would have made Scootaloo's situation feel less tragic than the wishy-washy way they handled her condition for most of the series.

Not to mention the fact that Twilight was more concerned with teaching Rainbow Dash a lesson in humility than giving her students someone who was ready, willing, and able to be the teacher they needed. That's a big load of horse apples right there. Helping teachers become better teachers is a noble enough goal, but not when it might come at the expense of the students.

One would expect Equestria's medical community to have at least some research going in in that area - I doubt Tempest would have been the first unicorn to have their horn broken off like that. It would be cool if it turned out that one of Tempest's childhood friends had dedicated her life to that sort of research - that not only had she not written Tempest off as defective, but had been busting her flank trying to produce the solution that Tempest had been so desperately searching for (fun idea for fanfic, perhaps?). For what it's worth, the comics show Tempest using telekinesis, which she couldn't in the movie. No explanation was given, but the best I can think of is that Twilight had been giving her the magical equivalent of physical therapy, helping her get whatever non-violent magic she can out of what's left of her horn. Which would have tied in beautifully with the movie's message of friendship - it's not the same as a whole new horn, but it's WAY more than the Storm king ever did for her. Also: The plot to "The Cutie Pox" starts with Zecora cooking up a potion to fix Apple Bloom's chipped tooth - in essence, regenerating a missing body part. While here we're talking about regrowing a much larger body part (with magical properties that might present an additional challenge), it's not at all implausible that somepony could in time develop something that could achieve that. There's the problem with doing the "disability acceptance" thing from within speculative fiction if you're not careful. Sending the message that people with disabilities shouldn't have to wait around for a cure before they can have lives worth living is good. Insinuating that people with disabilities should have zero preference for being cured over not being cured, or that doctors and scientists shouldn't bother trying to find cures for things that are currently incurable? Not so good.

There's a simple non-fatal solution: Remember "A Rockhoof and a Hard Place", when Rockhoof gave up on adapting to modern Equestria and asked to be turned to stone? It's been well established that getting turned to stone is totally reversible. So the solution would be to have her turned to stone with instructions to de-stone her when there's a cure ready to go. Like cryonics, only the method for being revived is already there. She gets to stop suffering, and it won't matter if developing the cure takes a little longer (or even way longer) than expected. And if the cure doesn't quite perform as advertised, just re-petrify her until they're ready to try again. No muss, no fuss.

Yeah, about that... What we've been shown strongly suggests that the creators wanted Scootaloo to be outright disabled (pretty sure Faust and/or Larson have stated as much), while Hasbro (or someone else) didn't (we've never seen anything that fully contradicts the "late bloomer" line they'd been feeding us - even her adult form is open to interpretation on account of Bulk Biceps). Ironically, that only served to make her situation even more tragic than if she'd been properly established in-universe as having an actual disability - we never got to see anyone try helping her learn to fly, nor any indication that she'd ever been to a doctor to sort out why she'd been having trouble flying, nor anyone helping her to cope with the possibility that she may never fly. And then there's the fact that it's been firmly established in canon that Equestria is no stranger to heavier-than-air flight technology: "Call of the Cutie" has Apple Bloom try flying with some old-fashioned glider. "The Cutie Pox" has Apple Bloom sprout a hang glider cutie mark. "Sweet and Elite" introduces Jet Set, a pony with three airplanes for a cutie mark. Tank has his propeller backpack. One of the timelines from "The Cutie Re-Mark" had Rainbow Dash flying on a prosthetic wing. Even if we're to assume that Scootaloo would never be able to fly with just her own two wings, someone should have been able to hook her up with something that would have enabled her to fly in some capacity (just as so many people in real life use various technology to compensate for various disabilities, doing what they want to do with their lives when they otherwise couldn't). Yet that idea was never even briefly discussed - as an engineer, I've found that to be painfully stupid (She has plenty of thrust, but not quite enough lift - the solution should be obvious to anyone with even minimal scientific literacy). The "assistive technology" route would have been the ideal solution - creators would have gotten to do the "disability representation" thing like they wanted, and fans would have gotten to see Scootaloo's dreams come true as is befitting a lighthearted work such as MLP. Win-win. Plus I personally think it would have been neat to have a cyborg-ish pony (that isn't part of some dystopian hellscape). Oh well, there's always the comics. Hopefully now that they're free to go their own way, we can see this matter get the treatment it deserves. By which I mean, to Scootaloo's parents/aunts/whatever: GET YOUR [expletive deleted] KID TO A [expletive deleted] DOCTOR YOU [expletive deleted] USELESS [many expletives deleted]. Issue 93 is supposed to focus on Scootaloo and her family. It looks like her wing situation probably wouldn't be relevant to that particular plot, but it would be wonderful if they could squeeze in even a small piece of evidence that they hadn't been neglecting her in that department. Plus issue 81 had her learn the story of Wind Sock, an earth pony who invented some glider thing (which looked like it was specifically intended to be the ideal piece of assistive tech for Scootaloo). So at this point they have pretty much no excuse whatsoever to leave her grounded.

I'd have been fine with Ahuizotl being redeemed if it actually was a redemption and not a mind-numbingly stupid retcon. His previous behavior severely undermines the "Daring Do is a thief" thing they were going for. The artifacts she was after weren't just ancient shiny things, but powerful and potentially dangerous magical devices - as long as Ahuizotl was behaving like a garden-variety cartoon villain, Daring Do was fully justified in getting them as far away from him as possible. Which is a shame, because otherwise what they were going for (bringing light to the issue of historical artifacts being snatched from the cultures to which they rightfully belong and shown off in museums on the other side of the planet) would have been perfectly respectable.