The Writing of The Bonds of Love Progress Update 3

Hello, everyone! As promised, I’m making a Blog Post to update you guys on my progress with the “Writing of…” for T.B.O.L. I’ve finished discussing Ch.7(Pride) and re-editing the original chapter as well. Next, I’ll be tackling the Smolder chapters, Ch.8(Tension) and Ch.9(Fear). Once I’m done discussing both of them, I’ll make another progress update informing you all of such.

That’s all I really have to say; nothing much has changed for me IRL since I dropped my discussion/review of the MLP: A New Generation movie. Having said that, I did mention I might drop a preview of what I’ve currently done every so often with these updates—an appetizer, if you will, for the main course. Sooo…? Since I just finished talking about Ch.7(Pride), why don’t I give you guys an excerpt from that chapter’s discussion?

Any of these excerpts I show you will naturally be included in the final version of the “Writing of…” and might also be subject to change should I decide to edit the following excerpt(Not likely, but I thought I’d mention it anyway).

The following excerpt concerns a possible—and half-finished—alternate version of the Science Fair:

So, there were a few different ways the alternate Fair was going to go, but this is the overall gist:

Gruff would show up and check out Gallus and Ocellus’ project, but he would be an absolute Dck about it, making it clear he hated being there and didn’t think visiting Gallus or checking out the project was worth his time. He would even guilt-trip Gallus for asking him to be there and, of course, put his work on the project down as well.

Gallus would be completely heartbroken, but Neighsay, who had overhead everything since he and the other judges had been approaching their project, would be absolutely livid. He was then going to go off on Gruff, drawing a crowd of nearby ponies as he completely tore into the buzzard for treating Gallus like Sh*t and praising Gallus for being a “Hero of Equestria,” perhaps even some of the nearby crowd would have joined in the Gallus support as well.

Gruff would naturally argue back and drop the “Gallus doesn’t need to know I’m proud of him” line again which would further devastate Gallus. Some more arguing later and Cadence or Shining(Who had shown up to support the kid they were giving love advice too) stepping in, and eventually Gruff would just say peck it and leave, not even sparing Gallus a glance.

Gallus would then skip out on the medal award ceremony and head off to the Treehouse to hide away from the world and wallow in his misery. Cadence, Shining, or Ocellus would then show up and give him basically the exact same therapy session he got from Ocellus later.

How all of this would have gone, all the minute details, how the rest of the Student Six would react to the situation, whether or not Smolder was still going to talk to Gallus; whether or not Gabby or Gilda would have appeared as well…? I had no idea. I didn’t fully plan out any of this, and you can really see it in what little bit I did plan.

Cadence and Shining were only going to be there just so they’d have a proper, non-letter cameo, and Gruff was only there to be a blank, one-note antagonist. And of course, Neighsay was only going to stick up for Gallus just to hammer in how little Gruff cares for Gallus when the good, ole strawman racist of Season Eight likes Gallus more than him.

So what made me not go down this route? For one thing, I didn’t want to go through the hassle of explaining why Cadence and Shining would just so happen to suddenly show up. For another, I wanted that Gallus/Smolder scene to still happen. But most importantly: I didn’t want to make Gruff that heartless.

I was already mulling over possible ideas for the Griffonstone arc and knew I would have him make up with Gallus, so having him spend his entire cameo here hurting Gallus would not have worked at all. It’s the same issue with Smolder; I couldn’t have Gruff be that awful or else the two making up later would have felt insincere and undeserved.

So, yeah. Gruff was going to be even worse originally. You can probably tell how glad I am I didn’t go do that to him. Shame that Cadence and Shining lost their cameos though, but at least Neighsay got to keep his, and I even managed to sneak in that “Even Chancellor Neighsay is prouder of me than him!” line. And even better, since the Alternate Fair got scrapped, I got to go through with the adorable Gallus/Silver psuedo-date plan which was infinitely better as far as I’m concerned.

And that’s about all I’ll say for now; I don’t want to spoil you guys too much, after all. Hopefully, you guys found it somewhat interesting at least because this is merely a taste of what’s to come.

Now then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go discuss why the heck Smolder’s storyline ended up the way it did. Have a pleasant day, everyone.