Story Notes: The Young Mage And The Lighthouse · 5:10am March 9th
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/164888
This is one of my favorites from my PVCF app stories. Most of the time when I write Dewdrop she gets overshadowed by another blue-green unicorn with a weather cutie mark. 
But with Snowcatcher not appearing in this story at all, my inspiration was a 'what-if?' scenario. What if Dewdrop had never befriended Snowcatcher?
She's drawn to the coast, of course. For her, water is power. With no water, she can do no magic. The more water there is, the easier her magic flows. In Baltimare, she has an entire ocean.
But she's different and ponies are a herd species. Even the other unicorns don't like her. So she lives alone, isolated from the community. Even her pet duck is leaving her in the lead image. Probably just flying south for the winter. Hopefully to come back!
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/139392
Thanks to the miracle that is coincidence plot convenience, she's in the right place at the right time to save the town from certain disaster. She does so in each of the endings, but her motives change with each option. Is she a hero, doing this because it's the right thing? Is she chaotic, doing this for the attention and respect of her fellow townsponies, or is she a villain, demanding riches for stopping the wave? You have the power to decide!
That's one of the reasons why I like this one, and why I think it works well. The options are all slightly different, but they're all meaningful. The line between hero and villain can be a snap decision at a crucial time. It might even come down to your mood at the time of the decision.
I had briefly entertained the option of the villain ending being simply sitting back and doing nothing, but I didn't like that and I don't think the PVCF editing team would've liked it either. While there were a few creative differences in the writing process, I was trying to avoid anything controversial. Didn't stop that from happening a few times - my idea of an 'E' rating may be slightly warped due to a steady diet of '80s cartoons.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/421
The title is actually a reference to the Care Bears episode The Old Man And The Lighthouse and the cover art is a screencap from that episode. Adding to that, the font used for the title is Care Bears Family.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/205059
Dewey's a character I've come to know well the past four and a half years.
But that's not the whole story. I started writing Dewdrop Dazzle in 2012. Grab a beverage, I'm about to ramble more than a '65 Marlin.
Coincidentally, that same story also had Snowcatcher.
For those of you who've read Business Trip and 16, finding these two together in my writing shouldn't be surprising at all. As for what you would find surprising?
Dewdrop reconnects with her best friend from school, a down-on-her-luck mage. Somepony who's been living in her parents' house for six months after her home was destroyed in Ponyville by an ursa minor. A pony by the name of Lulamoon, aka The Great and Powerful Trixie. She's not a water mage, nor is her magic noted for being exceptionally good nor bad. Instead she works at a bakery owned by her parents.
Snowcatcher, meanwhile, is a college student who's buddies with Minty (which shouldn't come as any surprise). She also has seven brothers (Dewey's family is never explicitly mentioned). In 16, it's Dewey who has a horde of siblings, while Snowcatcher only has an older sister.
This never-finished, never-published story was called The Seventh Element and was based on a dream I had. It's what got me into writing fimfiction in the first place.
Not only was this never finished, the narrative never even made it to the point where my dream had started. If I could have 1. put my dream into words and 2. done it quickly it probably would've been a hit. I still can't put what I see in my head into words that truly describe what I see. I try, but I'm never going to be the kind of writer who can paint a picture. Character interactions, dialogue, plot, I've got covered. Sadly, really flowery writing is a turn-off for me, and that shows through in my own writing. But this was a very lucid, very vivid dream that lasted for quite some time. I also managed to remember most of it, which was impressive. None of what I wrote for the story was in the dream, because I foolishly decided it needed a setup. Because of that bad decision, it was rendered a moot point with Discord's release from stone in season 3. Canon changed and I abandoned it - this hasn't been touched in over a decade.
The premise of the dream was as follows:
While on an archeological dig, Trixie discovers the seventh Element of Harmony, which in fact is a force multiplier for the other six. If that sounds like a horrible clichéd setup, it's supposed to. The catch is that it's not actually real. This new element (Power) is actually a gambit from Discord, a little bit of chaos he left laying around during his brief return. An insurance policy against being returned to stone (incidentally, the Elements of Harmony didn't work on him in Return Of Harmony, he turned himself to stone instead, knowing he could get out when the time was right). Using the seventh element triggers the other elements as follows:
Rarity gets the power to control cutie marks. Her own mark can be used as a mirror to blind others, Fluttershy's can be used as butterfly spies, and Rainbow Dash's can be used to generate lightning, etc. I still want to use this in a story someday. More than a decade later and I've still never seen anyone explore that possibility. If it's been done, I'm unaware.
Twilight gets complete mastery over every spell, ever.
Fluttershy gets invisibility, becoming shyer and more withdrawn.
Rainbow Dash gets faster.
Pinkie Pie's fourth wall-breaking abilities get ramped up as she basically gets Discord's own powers.
Applejack gets nothing. This is lampshaded by her flippantly responding that she's more honest.
All of this is intentional on Discord's part to sew the seeds of discontent between the element bearers and drive a wedge between them. AJ getting nothing grates on her nerves, while Rarity becomes more manipulative, Fluttershy less social, etc. The other elements are then used on Trixie but fail because they’ve been corrupted.
It’s then that Discord reveals himself. Using the elements against the 7th neutralized them as he intended it to. Chaos follows.
Sigh. If I'd just been a faster writer, or if canon hadn't changed so quickly...
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/165267
At no point in my dream were either Dewdrop or Snowcatcher present. But I needed more ponies, and that's where I decided I'd raid the toyline (and G3 & G1) for characters. Which has set the tone for my writing in the years since.
My story Four In The Morning is actually based on this. My absolute inability to tell a story/paint the picture in my head from this dream that gave me so many great ideas. To give you an idea, The Seventh Element has more than 1,700 words as notes.
That may not seem like much, but that's more than I had/have for 16, a story that's already 350,000 words long and still growing.
Source: https://derpibooru.org/images/164880
Since this will never see the light of day, I'll toss out a few snippets. Scenes that sit on my harddrive, waiting for a time when I can use them for something.
“Does anyone else hear that?” Minty asked.
“Hear what?” asked Snowcatcher.
“I hear singing. It’s really faint, but it’s coming from out there.” Minty pointed towards the open water. “It keeps going ‘shoo-be-doo…shoo shoo be doo’.”
“Professor Do, I think Minty’s been out in the sun too long. She’s hearing seaponies.”
Yes, this fic was supposed to reveal Daring Do was real... before the show beat me to that punch too.
“No problem! I can do this in my sleep!”
“That doesn’t surprise me. There were many times I thought the papers you turned in to me were written in your sleep.”
“Half of them were…” replied Minty as she slipped out the door.
Daring Do shook her head. “Minty, Minty, Minty.” There were days the tan pegasus couldn’t understand why she had chosen Minty to be her student assistant. But the green earth pony was optimistic, enthusiastic, and detail-oriented which stood in stark contrast to Daring Do’s own sarcastic cynicism.
Minty was Daring Do's student assistant. I still absolutely love this premise. So much so that I was in the process of recycling it as The 13 Villains Of Daring Do focusing on G1 villains showing up in G4 (Trotting Blackout is one of the remnants) when Tirac was brought into G4 as Tirek and once again, a great idea for an action story was put on the backburner, only to be dropped entirely once Grogar showed up. Had I known Grogar was merely Discord in disguise, I would have continued with this... Because by that point I'd come up with a workaround on losing Tirek - I was going to make Tirac a different character. One who inspired Tirek.
“Ugh. The whole reason I signed up for this was to get field experience. I’m sick and tired of reading about it. I want to actually do something for once. I could be home right now, or maybe lounging on the beach.”
“You know, with a name like yours I would have figured you’d want to take a vacation to the mountains…”
Snowcatcher complaining to Minty about the summer archeology course being delayed. This may just be where Snowcatcher gets her love of history from. 
And an introduction Twilight Sparkle tries to delay as long as ponily possible... for her own sanity, and that of Daring Do's. Remember, this was written before Daring Do was revealed to really be A.K. Yearling. My own characterization of her portrayed her as older, a professor at Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns (archeology department), a friend of the princess, and very sarcastic. Rainbow Dash annoys her for most of the story and is the target of most of her flippant remarks.
“Daring Do! You’re my hero! I’ve read all your books ten times at least!” gushed Rainbow Dash, excited to finally meet her hero face to face.
“And that’s just this week,” added Pinkie Pie.
“Look kid, I’m not as young as I used to be and those books are mostly fiction. Especially the action scenes.” Daring Do replied. “Look at your mane, I remember when mine was as brightly colored as yours.”
“You mean your mane wasn’t always grayscale?” asked Rainbow Dash, incredulous.
“Of course not. It went gray when the rest of me got old. Unfortunately the artists for the book series thought it made me look distinguished so they colored me that way for the books. I miss my rainbow locks.”
Rainbow Dash just stood there with her mouth hanging open. “I told you that you two have a lot in common,” said Twilight Sparkle.
“But how could you have known that? It’s not in any of the books - I’ve read all of them!”
“Daring Do has been consulting with Princess Celestia as long as I’ve lived in Canterlot. And as Princess Celestia’s most faithful student I’ve met her more than a few times. Including back when she still had her rainbow mane and tail,” Twilight Sparkle explained.
“Your friend’s too modest. I used to tell her stories while I was waiting for Princess Celestia to arrive to our scheduled meetings. And she hung on every word, begging for more. It was her interest in my adventures that prompted Princess Celestia to suggest I write a book about my exploits. She even arranged to have it published. And then one book turned into a series of sixteen.”
“Will there ever be a seventeenth?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“You’re living it now.”
Oh well, what might have been.
Very interesting stuff! Daring especially is quite a fun concept. To say nothing of Discord's extra chaos.
Hoping it sees the light someday. n_n