Joe and sequel thoughts after seeing Season 4 opener

I really enjoyed the season four opener. I really didn’t think quite so many of my ideas and plans would be contradicted. I still really enjoyed the season four opener though.

Here are the problems for me after watching it.

The first set are the gambles I took to extend the timeline of the story and how those have not paid off. I suggested the threat would take place in Canterlot so Joe would not be involved and I’d not have to detail it, the threat heavily involved Ponyville so Joe would have been out there with an axe weed-whacking. I suggested the threat would be the same day as the coronation, it was actually at least the day after. I also had them returning to Ponyville in winged chariots rather than five of them by train and Twilight Sparkle by flying herself.

Then there was extending the timeline yet further to include Equestria Girls by having the Princess Summit swiftly follow the coronation. That seemed to fit with Twilight Sparkle’s uncertainty about being a Princess and her problems with her wings. So my idea of the Princess Summit was along the lines of it being an intensive residential training course with Twilight Sparkle’s friends playing the part of her advisers in some scenarios and long conversations with the other Princesses for her. Something that works if it is soon after the Coronation but not if there is a significant gap.

Unfortunately there might be a significant gap.

In Equestria Girls Twilight Sparkle becomes Princess of the Fall Formal. In the season four opener Twilight Sparkle takes part in the Summer Sun celebrations. It wouldn’t be so bad if the former was mid-winter or the latter was Winter Wrap Up as you could use the ass-pull of suggesting opposite hemispheres (so opposite seasons) for Equestria and the alternate-world. But that would still suffer the same problem as if you said the seasons were simply at different points of the year between worlds of what happened to the Elements of Harmony in the season four opener.

It is possible that what we saw at the start of season four was them stopping off on their way home. Despite Spike having been able to catch a direct non-stopping train from Ponyville to the Crystal Empire the railway lines are all drawn as going through Canterlot (and no line is drawn going to the Crystal Empire…) so the Mane 6 and Draconic 1 were just taking a break. I’d even had the idea of them being diverted so rather than Joe meeting them at the station (he returned to Ponyville a day and a half before them) he’d be meeting their luggage so I left that section of things un-expanded.

But I simply don’t think that will work. That it was quite clear in the episode that it was the day of the coronation when things opened and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna vanished during that night, with the threat being the following day. Or maybe a day later for it all, if there were formal events into the night and the others stayed overnight in Canterlot and most of the following day. I say most of it because we saw that Twilight Sparkle was working Spike on her checklist well past where we saw Princess Luna raising the Moon, and given how late dusk is at mid-summer I’d feel sorry for him had they started too early.

Therefore if you can’t insert several days of a few days in Ponyville, a few days in the Crystal Empire / Alternate world, and a few days of Crystal Empire / Ponyville between the episodes Equestria Girls must happen after the season four opener. And must happen long enough after the season four opener for Twilight Sparkle to have got a new gem in her crown, since we saw that, and for the others to have also got replacements, since they were talking about being powerless without the Element of Magic rather than already being powerless. Which from the box with six keys seems to be what they are going to have as a story arc in season four and would likely take long enough to take us from mid-summer to autumn. So saying Twilight Sparkle was having a bad day with her uncertainty and wings and months had passed seems more plausible.

(On a side-comment it did seem to me that the way Princess Celestia was talking about the Summer Sun Celebration made it sound like it was the first one since her sister was restored to her. There is evidence that one season does not mean one year, Spike celebrated his first birthday in Ponyville halfway through the second season for instance and if a season was a year then he’d have been there for more than a year at that point. It also felt in Luna Eclipsed that this was Princess Luna’s first Nightmare Night since her redemption and that a few months would work better for her attitude than a few months plus a year.)

Though unfortunately, as I said, if there is a significant gap then most of what I wrote for the Princess Summit doesn’t work. So most of the large opening chunk of Joe 2 doesn’t work, I’d considered trying to cut it down rather as I had written so much for that relatively short time but I hadn’t though to be possibly discarding almost all of it.

Another problem with having Equestria Girls be the months later is that as well as it affecting Joe and Rainbow Dash if he doesn’t see the pretty teenage human version and realise he prefers his marefriend that it would affect Spike. I’d had him realise from meeting schoolgirl-Rarity that he does think more like adult boutique-owner Rarity and so it was time he began trying to act more adult. To finally see if there was a chance for a different relationship with Rarity, something she had also been reluctant to attempt as it might risk their dear friendship to try to add more romance. In some ways it might work better for Joe to work things through more gradually but he’d have worked them through before the months. But without the kick up the rear of Equestria Girls would Spike have moved at all?

Then there is the sparring which took up another chunk of the opening part of Joe 2. As they were in the Crystal Empire Rainbow Dash showed off the jousting armour she’d worn before. As even a padded hoof in the head hurts during sparring Joe asked Princess Celestia, at lunch, for his own armour back. As Shining Armor wanted to hit Flash Sentry for flirting with his baby sister he suggested a series of sparring matches that afternoon and with Flash Sentry as the fourth. As Joe almost overbalanced when he got annoyed and was just reacting rather than thinking Rainbow Dash suggested training together (sparring in armour and unarmed combat at the Gym) when they got back to Ponyville.

(I don’t name names in the story, not sure why I was following that habit, but the overbalancing is like the classic superhero does something and discovers powers. If I’d say a specific scene I’d cite Captain America: The First Avenger where my impression was that Steve Rogers intended to jump up and climb over that chain link fence and was surprised when he jumped high enough to clear it.)

I can still have Joe and Rainbow Dash train together, if he’s involved in the season four opener then scope there for him to surprise himself and her to suggest they train and find what his limits are. Joe can still get his armour back as going through the Everfree without it would be even more reason to ask Princess Celestia to return it. But if they haven’t been in the Crystal Empire then seems less likely that the training would be sparring as well as ‘karate’ as they’d have not done that together there and Rainbow Dash wouldn’t have returned from there having been given the jousting armour she’d worn for that. And if I did try to salvage that part of things for a later set Equestria Girls aftermath I’d have to decide how much difference the months of training would make.

So this is the last part of Joe and the first part of Joe 2 rather badly affected. Which is bad enough but the problems don’t stop there.

Season Four opening with the Summer Sun celebrations causes a couple more minor problems. One is that I was referring to how the days were shortening since I’d had only the short time between coronation and “Fall Formal” and so was thinking everything that much later in the year. The other is that I was going to have a formal dance a month after the coronation and was going to make that a combined celebration with Nightmare Night. Joe would fail to learn to Pony Dance so he and Rainbow Dash were going to go in costume, her as Commander Hurricane and him as bizarre subordinate. The second being a problem not so much because of losing the party as much as Joe was going to paint his shield with the Pegasus emblem and then alter that so the emblem had rainbow hair. Which would make the Pegasus emblem with rainbow hair on the breastplate of the new armour Princess Celestia would give him not seem out of place. Although it was strange it was in profile rather than full face.

The major problem though is my denouement for Joe 2. I tried to think of a reason why Princess Celestia would have wanted Discord to become an ally and a threat that the Elements of Harmony would be powerless against. What I came up with was a group mind that was at harmony with itself and was the reason why the Everfree Forest was so chaotic. It had imprisoned itself by drawing so much Order from the forest surrounding it had created a band of Chaos it could not tolerate or cross. But it had gradually been learning to release some of its Order into that band to form channels through which it could draw more energy. Think of it like a cloth and water, it had made the cloth around it so dry that little moisture was soaking across but had learned to draw channels of damp to let more flow.

Discord’s job was to add more chaos to the band and prevent the group mind from being able to absorb more energy. Unfortunately it awoke and though he could still defeat the mind that would be at the cost of twisting the Everfree into something truly insane. Celestia could defeat the mind, but with as much power as she’d to use to overcome its shielding and as much as would be reflected from it the analogy that came to Joe’s mind was the Yellowstone supervolcano erupting. So Twilight Sparkle and her friends (including Joe and Spike) had to enter the Everfree to deal with it.

To keep it from being too bloody the things they fought were like the literal Timber Wolves, collections of magically animated wood rather than animals of flesh. Spike had matured enough mentally over the time since when I’d set Equestria Girls and he’d decided to try to change that he’d managed to mature physically overnight and had been quietly growing even larger as they fought. Then what looked like the central mind arrived as a huge construct of wood and they zapped it with the Elements of Harmony to no effect and it explained why there was no effect. Laughter still hurt but when all are one it is easy to be loyal, generous, and kind to yourself. You are one so you cannot lie to yourself and are honest. And magic is what you were born of.

Which doesn’t really work with the season four opener. Small problem of part of the build up being Rainbow Dash deciding Joe had done well enough in his training that she’d risk taking him the Ancient Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters and him discovering things. Which is what I meant by saying I could have broken things off at different points as could have had him not discover anything or what he discovered not lead to a story from Princess Celestia or that story not lead into the crisis and ‘heroism’. Major problem that rather than the Everfree forest being chaotic due to the group mind having drawn too much of the forest’s order into itself that it is actually all under the influence of the Tree of Harmony. Possibly more chaotic that it should have been due to the tree having had the Elements of Harmony removed, but that tree rather than anything to do with a group mind. And certainly not the twist I was thinking of to reveal the actual origin, or core, of the group mind.

Situation therefore is that the end of Joe and the start of Joe 2 have been torpedoed by the combination of “Summer Sun”, “Fall Formal”, and returning the Elements of Harmony to the Tree of Harmony. While the historical speculation, build up to, and the climax of Joe 2 have been torpedoed by them going back to the ancient Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters and the existence of the Tree of Harmony and its relationship with the Everfree Forest. Which leaves me with the slice-of-life stuff that was supposed to surround the forthcoming episodes as Joe trained and things went on. The middle bit between “I went on rather a lot about what everyone was doing in the Crystal Empire” and Joe waking up in Ponyville hospital and going “I did what?” and a rather small fraction of what I’ve written or planned.

If the season four opener had been self-contained rather than having the lasting consequence of them returning the Elements of Harmony to the Tree of Harmony I’d be tempted to try to ignore it. If they solved the problem without relinquishing their Elements then I could say Joe was trapped in his hut, to explain his absence, and fudge the difference in seasons to keep Equestria Girls where I’d suggested. That would at least salvage the end of Joe and the start of Joe 2. It would also make the later visit Joe’s first visit to the Ancient Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters and would allow me to salvage part of the end battle if I made the threat the Tree of Harmony. It had adjusted over the millennia (plus) without the Elements of Harmony to their lack and so having them returned overcharged it and it tried to create too much harmony. Though that would still be losing all the build up and backstory and I don’t think they’d even try to zap the Tree of Harmony with whatever they’d replaced the Elements of Harmony with.

But it is not self-contained as they (probably) have to find the keys to open the chest and get replacement gems before we can see Twilight Sparkle’s crown intact in Equestria Girls, so that can’t be set until after that, and the search will affect the forthcoming episodes.

I am going to have to think about this as I am feeling torn between three options, all of which involve accepting that my ideas don’t work with the season four opener. The first is to go back to where Joe was petsitting and work from there, leaving the story as written up but starting Joe 2 from that point and discarding most of what I have written for that. The second is to do Joe 1.5 using the parts I would have discarded in the first option, post a revised version of the opening part of Joe 2 that I have written and expand the plans for buildup and backstory and denouement. The third is to do both, do Joe 1.5 to tie off that AU (and not waste the work) and do a ‘proper’ Joe 2 where he can continue to have a fairly quiet life and it be closer to canon.

Or there is the fourth option of doing none of this, Joe ended at a reasonable point and as loath as I am to put 140k words aside there is the sunk-cost fallacy of throwing good money after bad. Which sounds like I am asking for people to say “please do more” but that wouldn’t make any real difference to the decision compared with the other factors.

Comments

[JMDARE]

They went back again… they don’t go to the Ancient Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters between the season 1 opener and the season 4 opener and they went back again in S4E3? And they went back quite casually rather than having any concern about the journey or trouble during it, unlike the previous two occasions. Now I can argue and accept that in the season 1 opener their problems were caused by Nightmare Moon and in the season 4 opener things were being riled up by the growth of the chaos-seeds. I’ll even extend it to say that it would make sense for the Everfree to become calmer with the return of the Elements of Harmony. But going from how worried they have always been to it being so casual?

So even if I’d ignored the season opener that next episode did really undercut any daringness about making the trip, or need for Joe to be well trained, or it being a quite risky or major undertaking that would be a special treat for him to do some archaeology there. There also didn’t seem to be the sort of partially buried or low remains of walls that he was tracing and mapping.

And Twilight Sparkle managed to undercut my timeline with a simple comment that the castle was ‘thousands of years old’. It could be that when Equestria was founded they found the pre-existing structure but it seems more likely that comment means Equestria is also thousands of years old. While I’d made it more like 1400 years and my telling of that did not really match the twin thrones as I’d had Celestia not fully becoming Princess Celestia (i.e. accepting mortal rule) until after that place was abandoned.

I’d also picked up the idea from somewhere that the Ancient Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters had been at the heart of the original capital, and this seems less likely to me after seeing that place the extra times.

Looking at Joe and what I’d done for Joe 2 it does seem I can filter and combine. The slice-of-life parts from Joe 2 where they were back in Ponyville would work with canon, for instance I could still have a masquerade party even if not Nightmare Night. The destruction in S4E3 by Twilight Sparkle of the timeline I’d come up with couldn’t worsen things as they were already completely broken. Therefore, and for now, my plans are to do the extracting and re-planning and see what I can come up with and if Joe 1.5 will work. Then decide if a Joe 2, diverting from Joe where it diverted from canon, would work.

[PlaceHolder]

I haven't read your story in a while, so my memory of it is a bit foggy, although I do remember I liked it significantly more than other stories I've read.
I don't know how much of Joe 2 you've already written, so I can't be a judge of a good course of action.

I'd like to point out that Fall Weather Friends aired after Winter Wrap Up, so either Equestrian seasons are different, or the episodes aren't shown in chronological order.
As for Equestria Girls, there is this image:
3.bp.blogspot.com/-0qOtEY3YuzY/Uh-hgOytsGI/AAAAAAABg3Y/_bLqd-laCZ0/s1600/1.JPG
From what I've inferred, Equestria Girls was that one trippy dream that never happened but everypony knew about and didn't let affect their lives.
For options on how to tie in with the canon (or not), I like the option of marking Joe's Doggy Adventures as an AU to your story, and have Joe 2 start from just before the Crystal Empire becomes relevant again.
Again, I haven't read your story in a while, so I don't know when that happens.
I'd like to think that the events of S3 Finale and S4 Opener didn't happen within the span of a week, but rather over the course of several weeks.

As for the Everfree forest, I think the ponies were at first more scared over the reputation the forest had, rather than what was inside.

In the S4 Opener, they were scared because of the unstable situation.
There was an unknown that made the princesses disappear, and they didn't want that unknown getting Twilight.
There is also the fact that for the attacks that did happened, they were caught by surprise and panicked in an already bad situation.

For S4E3, there was no global threat, so casual explorations were viable.
They've also been to the castle so many times that they could probably navigate with their eyes closed.
Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose.
Also, nighttime/twilight is a lot scarier than daytime.

This is your story, so you hold the map to where it leads.
This one reader doesn't care how closely you follow the canon, I already know I'm going to enjoy it anyway.

[JMDARE]

I was implying, though not stating, that Equestria Girls was an illusion since it was so perfect a test and a lesson for Twilight Sparkle. But they’d still needed to travel to the Crystal Empire. I suppose I could have taken the stained glass window of Twilight Sparkle as showing a significant time has passed. Or that the plans were already in place and they worked fast.

I’ve managed to get a reasonable timeline worked out for a Joe 2 that diverges from Joe partway through Chapter 45. Joe still pet sitting but they come back by train, don’t have any adventure to tell him about, and no Twilight Sparkle. Then the weed-whacking the next day… And probably have the Head of the Equestria Weather Service come to investigate, about a week later, if there are any lingering effects of the strange clouds, but with his mane and tail dyed…

Joe 1.5 would be a three part story, whatever I salvage from the 90k of Crystal Empire, maybe some vignettes of training, then middle part of archaeology and backstory, and then the end fight and aftermath of Joe going “ow, why am I in the hospital?”.

With the Everfree I’m taking it as just being really peaceful since the Tree of Harmony was returned to full power. So no daring to travel through it, and Joe hadn’t been being attacked on his wanderings before anyway.

Could have been a time skip past summer. Wrap up Winter so Spring is here and then suddenly it’s autumn. Aside from those two episodes and the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant it does seem like Equestria is in permanent springtime. It seems green the whole time, and with the degree of control over her sun I’ve suggested Princess Celestia has she’d be able to focus her heat and light to work against the effects of axial tilt causing seasonal change and keep things constant. Especially if Equestria has a smaller axial tilt so less change, though there is enough for “three months of winter darkness” rather than “three months of marginally shorter days”. Thinking as I type a smaller axial tilt would work for the Crystal Empire as that would make the Arctic circle smaller so they could be further north without having six months of night.

Joe would be petsitting during Daring Don’t. Yet to decide how much impact his repeated assurances to Rainbow Dash that she is awesome would have. Lesson of the episode was her friends telling her that and her realising she should not forget that, so a little extra might have helped her remember it well enough to not act so fangirl. Analogy that came to mind was Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern) having had the ring for less than 24 hours and meeting Superman, who he’d wanted to be when he grew up, but (with the aid of his girlfriend) getting over the “ohmygosh” and on with helping.

Thing I was going to post though was… something might have actually worked! I complained about the first three episodes and how they contradicted things, but S4E5 slotted in nicely. In my timeline I had Day 31 be about when that episode should be and Day 32 was Joe having an idea about how to help Scootaloo with practising flying. She flaps hard like seabirds that are right on the edge of their wings being too good for underwater use and too bad for using in the air, so maybe she can practice flying underwater? Get used to 3-dimensional manoeuvring and keep up regular training in aerial flight to avoid developing bad habits. So where I’d had her not sure about them making a flying machine when she can’t fly the show had her being upset by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon into worrying about not being able to fly.

Plans at the moment are get the AU Joe 1.5 done and out of the way and then see about the less AU Joe 2. Have problems in the latter like needing to learn how to dance rather than anything heroic. I did have to discard some of the slice of life ideas as they don’t fit the cut down Joe 1.5 and they were coming off of the Crystal Empire or Equestria Girls part of Joe. Still got to have Joe trying to foalsit though, even if that wasn’t because the Cakes were visiting a baker in the Crystal Empire that Pinkie Pie had talked to during a break in the Princess Summit. Joe 1.5 should take long enough that I’ll see enough of season four to decide whether to have Spike ‘man up’ about Rarity in Joe 2 and therefore how much of that to leave in Joe 1.5.

[JMDARE]

Still working.

Rewrote the opening of Joe 1.5 (the more AU one) and the plan for Joe 2 (the more canon one) has been expanded with ideas based on episodes. Fun that I’d had Joe being tempted with the offer of superpowers again in the original plan before stories split like an amoeba and where I’d put that in Joe 2 was not so long before they all go into a comic. Tempting to have Joe be heroic but managed to work out how to strike a balance between useless and overshadowing the Power Ponies.

On the other hand I think that as much as I enjoyed the episode that I am going to derail ‘Bats’ a lot more than others, and hope that Flutterbat does not have any consequences down the line. But if needed though the Vampire Fruit Bats can always break the deal, them go back to Twilight Sparkle’s plan, and Fluttershy get cute little tufty ears at a later date. Pinkie Pie antics did give me an idea for a superpower analogy for Joe to make when chatting with Spike during previous episode and, given that Joe works at Sweet Apple Acres, it’s good to know I’d need some vignettes of “holy ****, look at the size of that apple”.

Hopefully my word count for Joe 1.5 will start going up again soon. Been going down with summarising things down or cutting them out for use in Joe 2 or discarding them and at least being this far into Season 4 without anything posted means I have a better idea of what to cut and what to discard. Things have got a little smoother since the season opener and the problems mentioned before. And looking on the bright side if I retreat from Joe’s Equestria Girls spawned realisation then that helps me adjust the pacing of the romance in Joe 2.

(And further looking on the bright side that this blog post took so long to write was annoying, but even if I deleted most of what I typed it did help me think things through.)

[PlaceHolder]

This reader isn't too concerned about sticking to the canon. I'm happy enough to read your style of writing and Joe as a character.

I actually like the idea that the Everfree became safer with the Tree of Harmony active.

In "Rainbow Falls", a sunbeam hits a pitcher of water and creates a rainbow.
If I was writing this story, I'd either chalk it up as magical coincidence or have Rainbow so concerned about her situation that she doesn't remember about it at all.

I'm going to assume that you're going to release Joe 2 sometime after the Season finale so you won't step on any toes. I'm alright with that.