TA Star to Steer Me By
MLP: FiM
Dark
Adventure
I thought working for a noble could be fun. You want my opinion now, Rarity? I prefer the boredom.
Gore
Human
Alt. Universe
Rainbow Dash
Rarity
Journeyman · 13k words · 28 3 · 975 views

A Star to Steer Me By Commentary: Chapter 1 · 5:57am Apr 5th, 2013

This entry contains spoilers for its corresponding chapter of A Star to Steer Me By. Be warned...

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This chapter was difficult to write for two reasons.

The first seems like an odd and maybe superfluous one: should they be humans or ponies? I tossed this question around for DAYS until I started writing Dash’s fight with Brokenfang. I liked the way it turned out, but something just didn’t seem to fit. I suppose it was because the entire universe of MLP:FIM is based on equine life forms and I wished to turn them into something that wasn’t inherently natural to said universe. If I switched the ponies to people, I’d have to contend with another difficulty that way. But by doing so, I’d make a large chunk of what I write easier: the battles.

From the start I knew there would be a lot of fighting, necessary or otherwise. I was baffled on how to make a fight suspenseful while still keeping the suspension of disbelief and love of the characters alive if they were all ponies. Seriously, a combat-based My Little Pony story that stretches like a saga? How do you do that!? What really didn’t help was the dialog right after the fight. It was difficult for me, because I knew when I started that I was weak at conveying emotion through dialog. That was something I had to beat out of myself and although I’m not entirely satisfied at my earlier dialog, I believe it was the best with what I set out to do.

The second reason was the setting. This was helped a little by my choice to stick with human ponies. I wanted to impress upon my readers that this was an alternate universe, one that is certainly not safe and the wild would most certainly want to kill you if given the chance. That’s why I spent so much time describing the locations, sights, and smells that Dash visited in chapters 1 and 2. I needed to set a backdrop for everything for when the more exposition-orientated chapter 3 came.

For just a moment, I want to talk about Rainbow Dash’s appearance. Growing up in the boonies of Equestria, she’s not going to have the decent armor. Her terrible leather armor, almost torn to pieces as it is, would be pretty standard for a mercenary, especially for a chronically lazy individual like Rainbow Dash. Her long hair will make sense in Chapter 3, but her name is what’s important. If you couldn’t tell the townsfolk of New Brook just call her Dash, only using the Rainbow portion as a moniker due to her hair. I deliberately added the unusual hair colors to other people (It feels wired not calling them ponies). Why is Dash the only one with more? And why is that odd in my new world? I’m not telling.

But I must say initial inspiration for this story came from the Elements of Harmony story by Electricut. A My Little Pony stylized with a Dungeons and Dragons backdrop? That sounds awesome. EoH wasn’t what I initially thought it was, so I thought “Why not just make it myself?” And so I did. The D&D roots for A Star to Steer Me By and the idea for Dash as a warrior class are attributed to EoH and to Electricut and I give my thanks.

Speaking of classes, I might as well talk about Dash’s. To me, the only class that seemed to fit Dash was a warrior. I thought about a paladin, being that Dash is the element of Loyalty and paladins tend to run along a similar vein of helping others in their time of need. But that didn’t seem to fit in my head. Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe Dash would kick some tail if the need ever presented itself, but I don’t believe that she would actively seek out evil and danger as paladins tend to do. Plus, I needed her to stay rooted to one place at the start of the chapter so that something in chapter 3 would seem more pressing. The only other class that presented itself was a warrior. It seemed to fit though. In the show, Dash is a jock that loves to show off and be admired. In a medieval setting where strong arms are a dime a dozen, Dash being a notable warrior, and a woman no less, fit the picture the best and gave her rights
to brag.

The village of New Brook wasn’t important, save for the reason I needed to develop the world and Equestria more before I sent Dash to Ponyville. It was just temporary filler while I did so. I didn’t care for it too much, but the more I wrote about it, the more Dash as a character seemed to love it. I’m not sure what I will do with the village later.

Dash’s flight was fun to write, but difficult because it needed to do two things in a short amount of time. The first was to give Dash an excuse to be happy as you see her do whenever she flies in the show. The second and more important was to break the tension. Whenever an alternate universe is developed for a fanfiction, you change enough to show your own idea for a story, but if you change too much, your end product becomes unrecognizable and you get a backlash. Dash absolutely loves to fly, so showing her having fun like she does in the show was of paramount importance in chapter 1. That little ice-breaker, no matter how small, was important.

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