a major reason Skyborne Dance isn't moving very well · 10:45pm Dec 5th, 2014
Mind you, the actual scene and prose I'm doing right now is a lot of fun, and I'm glad I got back to it.
But...
As some people have noticed, I've already dug myself partially into the hole of the pegasus culture being categorically awesome and Applejack being categorically wrong about how she doesn't like it. If I could tag people here like you can on Facebook, I would tag Applejinx here, because Trixie's Magic Bit does this with polyamory. Avatar does it with Na'vi culture. Dresden Kodak does this with transhumanism. The Conversion Bureau does it with ugh forget I said that; I feel filthy comparing things I like to that POS.
A key catalyst is that Applejack will see something that she very reasonably considers a big fat indictment of certain characters and their lifestyle, but--bit of a spoiler--she will be mistaken. The only honestly unsympathetic, problematic, "bad" thing about pegasus culture according to my current planning notes is that Cloudchaser is a racist.
side note: I'm gonna have to go back and retcon in the fact that Cloudchaser and Flitter like to visit Ponyville so that they can fly with a famous athlete. They don't recognize Rarity and AJ, which doesn't fit now that we know that Chaser was on the Equestria Games team. OR MAYBE ALL GROUNDBOUNDS LOOK THE SAME TO THEM OH MY GOD THAT'S HILARIOUS.
... but anyway, it's not much of a story if the ending is just Applejack and Rarity being put in their place and learning about tolerance. Applejack's good intentions should be partially vindicated, and not just by a cop-out like a character saying "your way is good too." Even more against my current approach is that Rarity's prudishness should be vindicated as well, instead of, again, simply being waved off as "fine too."
You see the problem, right? Again, I have already started digging this hole. And with AJ's current activities... now is the time for me to make sure she's not completely in the wrong. The question is, how?
So, I've never read it, I admit, though it's on my tracking list and I'm totally interested in it. But the way I see it, there are two things you can do to address a general situation like you described:
1)
Keep in mind that in canon, two of the maybe four pieces of pegasi culture we see are Fluttershy's experience at flight camp, and Dash's interactions with the Wonderbolts at the Academy and then again at the Equestria games. So, there seems to be something in pegasus culture that isn't awesome for everyone.
And, really, that's realistic. There's no culture in the world where everyone who should be a part of that culture feels welcome. Cultures set values and limits, and there's no value that doesn't have an opposite version that's also positive. So if you literally have no pegasus who isn't happy with the situation, and no non-strawman argument for why a pegasus might not want to be part, then you've written a whole culture that's a Mary Sue.
It doesn't have to be the core of the story that it's flawed, of course. It might be a situation where AJ or Rarity sees and brings that aspect up in defense of misunderstanding the core issue. Something roughly like:
Dash: How could you think that about us?
AJ: Well I talked to <PonyName> and she seemed none to happy about <other issue>. I reckon I figured it's like that.
Dash: Yeah... I guess I can see how that part is kinda messed up for some ponies. But this part isn't like that, this part is awesome!"
This way it's not totally jumping to conclusions, AJ and Rarity have reasons to think that pegasi culture is messed up, they just misjudged the part that's central to your fic.
2) The other thing you can do is what I did with Twilight in Maidens Day: not just have the story about them learning "I was wrong to judge, this is cool" but have them really understand and appreciate it before the end. In Maidens Day, Twilight goes from knowing nothings, to thinking it's really weird, to understanding how important it is to AJ and Dash to the point where she spends the whole chapter before the climax actively trying to help them take their parts in the ritual, to actually condemning the unicorns for having the attitude she did at the start. This is also similar to how they pull it off in something like Avatar.
So in this sort of thing, AJ and Rarity coming to understand they were wrong about pegasi culture allows them to be heroic and actively help something, somehow.
I don't know if either of those work with your specific plot, but I thought I'd throw them out there.
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That actually serves as a nice guide for an angle I had in mind but forgot to write sufficient notes for! Great post, thanks :D