Sky Blue Bro Notes · 12:33am Mar 5th, 2017
Hello everyone. Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, I wanted to kind of go over the different iterations Sky Blue Bro went through. It actually went through an awful lot of changes from inception to publishing, and a lot of ideas were scrapped, changed, and tweaked for various reasons, ranging from trying to keep under the word count (on GDocs Sky Blue Bro got to 6000 words exactly, whereas on FimFiction it went about a hundred and fifty words over, as bloody usual), but also to convey different ideas.
Obviously, this blog will be a tad spoilery with regards to what occurs in the story. If you haven't read it (and given that currently only about seventy people have, so there's less than a 20% chance you've read it before reading this based on my follower count) you should probs head over to the story first, or else, well, I mean, that's your decision. I'm not your mum. You can do whatever you like, mate.
It all started a month ago...
I like the EFNW contest, and I was pretty chuffed about winning an award last year, so I was keen to enter again. Thing is I kinda don't expect to win this time around, frankly because I don't expect gents would be all that chuffed to see me take an award two times in a row. Just ain't fair, really, innit? So this time around I was much more concerned with making a more balanced story rather than doggedly pursue a single award like last year.
This year there was also a prompt, which threw a considerable spanner in the works. The prompt is Growing up, wild and forever free, which I'll be honest, I didn't bloody like. Usually I tend to take better to single word prompts, which tend to stimulate my mind without really restricting me much. This here was a whole sentence, and the term 'growing up' pretty much limited my mind to only a handful of things without outright going out of my way to subvert the prompt (which I didn't really want to do this time around). I felt I kind of had to tell a story about growing up, so I went where I always go in my time of need.
Rainbow 'Bestpony' Dash. Rainbow is one of the few ponies who still has a lot of ambiguity about her childhood (although if certain spoilers are to be believed, this won't last long). I decided I wanted to tell a story about how she came to Ponyville as well as how she became the 'cool' pony she desperately tries to be.
That's where Rainbro came in. I actually enjoy stories about older siblings an awful lot, especially when they're, well, 'good' ones. I'm an older brother myself, and I get along famously with my sister. One of my favourite bro's of all time is Toya Kinimoto, from Cardcaptor Sakura (a show I watched back when I was ten). The cool thing about Toya is that although he'd go out of his way to irritate his sister, he'd always be watching out for her, and even though he was always watching out for her, he'd always let her do her own thing. He was top banter, and I love him to bits.
Look at that bastard! What a bloody legend.
Tying into the prompt, I very early on came to the conclusion that Dash would operate without much supervision as a foal, leading to her being headstrong. I also wanted to play with her rather extraordinary abilities and ego. Rainbow has demonstrated several amazing abilities, which involve being able to memorise virtually anything so long as she's flying, incredible durability and athleticism, and obvs, being able to fly real gud. I liked the idea that, in order to progress as a character, she needed somepony to challenge her and to be almost a rival, and this is where I veered away from Kinimoto and looked to other sources. I wanted a character who was cool, incredibly skillful, and enough of a match for Rainbow to motivate her to get stuff done.
Mid-way through the project, Rainbro took on many surface characteristics of Kamina and, more notably, Dirk Strider. That said, I wasn't happy with either of them. Dirk is an asshole (a cool asshole, but still an asshole), especially regarding his alpha world equivalt's relationship with Dave. Kamina was also loud and obnoxious at times. Really, the only thing I ended up keeping from those two were Dirk's ninja abilities and those sweet shades.
At this point the story was formatted more as a duel or revenge story, with Rainbow dropping hints at divorced parents, loneliness, and violent abuse from Rainbro. I didn't like that angle, although I still think it would have been a much stronger fit for the Dash award, as it was almost constant action and anime references. I didn't like that angle, though, and eventually changed it to feature Dash's last year in Cloudsdale. The story was going to change drastically to closer resemble what the final story looks like. Rainbro would still be violent, but he'd also make Rainbow dinner every evening and encourage her to re-read her maths homework on her way to school, as well as teach her to treat injuries. The idea was that Rainbow is a remarkably violent pony: we even see her dream of fighting changelings and enjoying it, saying it's her 'favourite dream'. Whilst Rainbro would fight Rainbow, it wouldn't be the fighting but more the fact that Rainbow had such difficulty that would be the source of Rainbow's irritation.
During a talk with Z over skype, I began to focus much more on Rainbro being, to a certain extent, held back by Rainbow. Rainbro has, if anything, a far worse family history than what I gave Rainbow, and I tried dropping hints to him having lost both parents and having to move in with Rainbow (his cousin). Making Rainbow stronger was going to be his way of repaying that debt of honour.
He quickly gained other interests, too. After brainstorming his appearance with Xadrow (again over skype) it was decided that he was going to be an Earth pony and have a bit more of an anime look (mostly in the shades, but also in the hair, cutie-mark, and other effects). Early on I wanted him to be an 'extreme chef': his job would be to venture into starving third-world or war torn areas and cook for the people there in incredibly dangerous scenarios. A lot of his culinary ability is based off of Soma Yukihira, from Shokugeki no Soma.
The concept of him using foods to do battle with Rainbow came from a much more MLP source, however.
To this day I do not fully believe that using pies as weaponry would be a winning strategy. Amazingly, I was proven wrong. This is where the concept of 'battle bakers' came from, which Rainbro seeks to emulate.
Tying into the themes of growing up, I wanted the appearance of Rainbro not being free to go wherever he wanted and feel the need to instead take care of Rainbow and make sure she would get to a place she was comfortable. In this case, the Ponyville Weather Team.
Originally, there was going to be a lot more to do with overcoming obstacles, as in earlier drafts, Rainbow was going to be heartbroken over her parents divorce and her thinking her mother didn't care about her, whereas Rainbro was originally also an Earth pony (much like Windy Weathertop, from my former EFNW entry) as well as blind (this was to tie into his adoration of anime, due to them 'screaming their attacks and letting him know what was going on). Both of those were dropped due to the word limit, although Rainbro remains an Earth pony in the cover-art. It's worth noting that I also never pointed out what tribe Rainbro belonged to, a remnant of that former decision. His glasses were originally also opaque.
Rainbro also actually had names in some drafts, as opposed to merely wearing his nickname like a title. Among possible names were Leslie, Broseph Brodacity, and Neon Dash.
In very early versions of the story Applejack was going to have made an appearance, playing horseshoes with Rainbow. This was before I moved the entirety of the story to Cloudsdale. During a duel with Rainbro, Rainbow's house was destroyed. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to leave this in. I rather like breaking Rainbow's house. In that early version, Rainbow learning skills from her friends would be what finally led Rainbro to respect her, before that aspect was dropped. I believed it was, for starters, far too abrupt a change to go from tormentor to friend, so I changed the story so Rainbow was able to have some positive opinions on her adoptive cousin.
Throughout the story I wanted Rainbow to never actually see her family, and the only time she comes properly face to face with Rainbro (without him being asleep or ninja-ing about) was right at the end. That said, there was at one point to be a scene where Rainbow does go out with the other karate ponies, and the place she went to was Rainbro's diner, where the concept of him being less than content working in Cloudsdale was to originally emerge. It is entirely possible that this scene may make its way back into the story once the contest is over, as I believe it would make the story better in more than one way.
Other interesting things I thought of when writing the characters were their ages. At the time of the story Rainbro is 20, whereas Rainbow is 17. Rainbro also originates from Fillydelphia, the same town Windy Weathertop comes from and Applejack sends food to in The One Week Year. One concept that never made it to the story was also that Rainbro learned to be stealthy simply because he had no chance at outrunning Rainbow, and needed to use discretion to even the odds considerably. Whilst this was never addressed in the story, this is the reason that Rainbow was only ever able to 'get the drop on him' when he stopped to pose, where he lost the element of surprise.
Speaking of posing, the pose Rainbow attempts on the school rooftop is this:
Additionally, at one point Fluttershy's parents were to be referenced, but I honestly just forgot their names and couldn't be bothered to google them.
And that's pretty much it. Those are some of the things that were considered whilst writing Sky Blue Bro. I hope this gives everyone some insight regarding all the stuff that goes through my head whilst writing a story. Cheerio, and take care.
I'd just like to add something to that. What we mean by Rainbro being held back by Rainbow Dash, is that originally, he was meant to be blind, as Haph' says. Something Rainbow would be ignorant of (through the magic of storytelling) and thus, she would have been all of the angry and all of the annoyed at him.
Throughout said Skype talk, I suggested that instead, Rainbro should be focused on Adulting for the sake of RD (getting a job, feeding her, etc...). I thought it would be more inkeeping with the themes and the prompt of the story, as well as a more realistic reason for his actions than simply being blind. Saddly, a pun had to be sacrified in the process for this change to come to life.
I tought this needed to be said, as "being held back" doesn't really cover it.
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