The Next Chapter Early

I figured:

I could either keep nibbling at the details here and there for the next two days, or I could kick chapter 8 of "History" out of the nest now and move on. So I did that second one. But I'm still keeping March 28th as the date to aim for with chapter 9 and April 8th for the epilogue. Then I can start the big Cadance story that Skywriter doesn't know he's forcing me to do!

Mike

Comments

[Aquillo]

Then I can start the big Cadance story

Tell me more...

[AugieDog]

924929

Y'know?

I've never actually seen the movie "Grease," and yet I've prob'bly seen more episodes of the comedy-variety TV show that the pseudo-1950s rock group Sha Na Na used to do than a semi-sapient person really ought to...

As for the Cadance story, back in January 2012 when I wrote "The Birth of Harmony," I decided that Cadance was summoned to Equestria at the same time as her two aunts and that her place in the cosmos was essentially as Equestria's death goddess: she escorted the souls of the departed through to their eternal rest in the Groves Beyond. And I pretty much left her at that.

Ten months later, Jeff Wells, known around these parts as Skywriter, put up a blog post in which he solicits possible songs for him to listen to while he's working on his Cadance of Cloudsdale stories. And the song that immediately popped into my head was "Calling You," sung by Jevetta Steele from the 1987 film "Bagdad Cafe."

And within another day, I had a plot outline for a story to be called "Calling You" that would follow Cadance over the thousand years from Nightmare Moon's exile to her installation as the Crystal Princess. It still needs a lotta work--I'm so ding-dang close to working my weird vision of the changelings in!--but once I get Applejack and Fluttershy settled into their whole "happily ever after" thing, that's what's next on my Pony agenda.

Mike

[Aquillo]

925511

I decided that Cadance was summoned to Equestria at the same time as her two aunts and that her place in the cosmos was essentially as Equestria's death goddess: she escorted the souls of the departed through to their eternal rest in the Groves Beyond.

Ok... That's...

Right, seeing as I'm probably never going to complete it, have some beans. A story I was once writing -- Beyond the Everfree -- had this as part of it, the idea of the story being that Equestria has no such thing as death because death causes sadness, and so instead, when ponies are injured beyond repair or grow too old, Cadance wipes all traces of their existence from the world and spirits them away. So... quite close to that quote, in other words.

It is pretty damn strange that we both seem to have had the same ideas about Cadance. I wonder if Hasbro inserted subtext which we're subconsciously picking up on or something?

As for the Cadance's origins thing, though, you may be too late. There was a book released not that long ago which established her as being a pegasus previously who went through the same ascension process as Twilight.

Still sounds like an interesting story, though. I'm also all for trying to give Cadance a purpose; I haven't quite managed to stomach yet the fact that she has none.

[AugieDog]

925542

There was a book released not that long ago which established her as being a pegasus previously who went through the same ascension process as Twilight.

I've been ready:

To abandon all my ideas about Cadance from the beginning. I mean, when "Birth of Harmony" went up at Equestria Daily, I gave it the additional tag of "canon-fodder" 'cause I fully expected the show's writers to give us an actual origin story for Cadance somewhere along the way. And I fully expected that origin story to have her go from being a regular pony to a princess for some reason or another.

And yet, not only have they never given her any backstory, in the season 3 closer, Celestia starts Twilight's whole alicornification process by saying quite specifically that Twilight has done something that has never been done before.

I'm taking that to mean that Twilight is the first regular pony ever to achieve princess status. It's like what I plan to do with the changelings: I'm extrapolating from what we've seen on the show and ignoring what Cook and Price did with them in the comic books. If I can make it all work, that is...

Mike Again