New story: A Lovely Crusade · 12:36pm Jun 21st, 2020
So when I was in the process of finishing up the previous story, SigmasonicX posted the Pride and Positivity event. While that story technically fit the bill (and is part of the event!), I felt a little bit like I was phoning it in, and wanted an entry specifically for the event.
One of the things I always found a little sad about the Cutie Mark Crusaders is the notion that, even though they're fundamentally linked by their cutie marks, they will inevitably drift apart over the years. The epilogue shows us that they still live and work in Ponyville, and are probably good friends, but it isn't hard to imagine each of them finding partners, and struggling to find ways to divide their time between their best friends and their romantic other halves. I imagine there's a valuable lesson to be taught here about growing up, and the worthwhile challenges of maintaining friendships in the face of romantic entanglements and starting families.
But... it seems like such a shame that the Crusaders' bond should be weakened, however little, by the slow erosion of time. There are already plenty of sad, beautiful, heart-wrenching stories about the way time and age wear away at us all.
Mostly written by GaPJaxie ;)
But I wanted something light and fluffy, where the Crusaders all live together, happily ever after, and not only get to maintain their soul-deep bond, but get to add even more depth and meaning to it.
What better time to finally write the idea than a Pride event?
Related: Lofty Withers suggested incorporating the Polyamory flag into the cover art, but it's a) less recognizable than the pride flag and b) honestly kinda ugly?
The process of actually writing this story was a little unusual for me. I tend to write things extremely serially--from start to finish, without much deviation. Sometimes I'll throw a [ cool shit happens here ] placeholder, and come back to it later, but for the most part, I write from starting from A and ending at B.
This story didn't really work out like that. The first scene I wrote was the ending. Then, I sat down and wrote the outline, which is where I came up with the idea of the scene with Applejack showing Bloom the photo album. It wasn't until I actually sat down and began to write the story that I came up with the letters. I knew what Scootaloo and Sweetie had been up to, but just planned to refer to it vaguely.
After that, everything just sort of came together. I even had ideas for scenes pop into my head while writing the letters, so I'd get to parts of the story that were already written, and just fold them in, with only minimal editing. It felt a little bit more like connecting disparate links in a chain than writing a story.
The ending of this story feels a tiny bit like a cop-out--it originally cut even earlier, right when Scoots and Sweetie kiss Bloom. But I wanted at least a little bit of acknowledgement that the road ahead of them is not going to be all sweetness and light. Any relationship is hard work, and I have to imagine that adding an extra person to it increases all the challenges of communication and compromise exponentially.
I may come back to this idea, and cover the triad life of these three. I can't help but imagine that when they're not working at the Friendship School in Ponyville, they go on adventures helping ponies across Equestria understand their cutie marks. Or explore ancient ruins. Or go on tour to support Sweetie. Or farm things. There's a lot of grist there.
That's probably where your dislikes came from. People didn't get what they expected.
To be honest, I really was not expecting the polyamory at the end of your story. But it totally works.
I'd expect their relationship to be really bumpy at the start, considering it's a quick change in gears from friends to lovers.
Anyways, loved your story!