The Sons of Barricade part 1 completed

Decided to toss the remaining chapters up for this part 1 of the Sons of Barricade, there was something buggy going on with the story. The statistics for didn't look right. I just hope the next part won't behave as strange.

There are some mild spoilers after the break, as I discuss this story a little.

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I did have fun writing this story. I had for a while wanted to touch on Barricade's remaining kids. It was always a running gag of sorts that he seemed to have kids all over the place.

I always intended this to be a short story, there is drama, but I knew it could never get too dramatic, for one Junebug and Cooper were living a fairly content life, plus even if Junebug was scared of Barricade, she never really hated him and was already starting to heart hings from Derpy and the others that he was changing. Barricade now would just defuse all drama, fully acknowledging the damage he did and just agree to stay away if told to stay away. Just compare him to the Barricade who appears in the Time Keeper, it's night and day difference.

I had some trouble writing soccer instead of football, being European, but it did help that in my mind the ponies wouldn't call it football, but hoofball and that sounded too similar to buckball, so to avoid confusion and knowing that most of my readers are probably from the US, I stuck to soccer, it gave a nice alternative.

I had a blast writing chapter five, I am mildly a fan of football and do usually watch a game every now and then. I had fun adding some pony specific rules to the games, like no magic and only goalkeeper pegasi can use their wings but not the outfielders. Dinky kind of represents people I know who scoff at football, calling it boring, but will totally cheer and get into it if the National team is playing or someone they know is playing. However, I do know this is not a sport for everyone, but I seriously doubt someone who hated football would be showing up for a football game. Then again, I could be wrong.

I know I kind of hastily resolved Tootsie's crush on Cooper. I never intended it to be something to last, it would die the moment she learned he's Dinky's brother. Tootsie has such strong sisterly bond with Dinky that she would just feel weird to be crushing on her brother, so I put in the alternate that she could instead just admire him as an older brother playing a sport she enjoys watching.

For the record, I am aware that Tootsie Flute is called Liza Doolots now in merchandise even if she's never been name dropped in the show. I've just written her using the fan nickname Tootsie Flute for so long that it just felt off to be suddenly calling her Liza, let's just say that her real name is Liza Doolots, but everybody just calls her Tootsie Flute by now and she responds to both but prefers Tootsie.

I snuck Applejack into this story as well, since she had a hoof in helping Barricade reconnect with his daughters in In Old Manehattan, so I felt it was fitting she was also there to help a little with Cooper as well, since Junebug lives in Ponyville. It also gave me finally an excuse to write Granny Smith without shoe horning her in.

Also finally wrote a Junebug story, I've wanted to write a story with Junebug for ages. She just stuck in my mind ever since she appeared in Secret of my Excess in season 2, I just never figured out what story to tell. Since she is basically a background pony, I figured why not have her one of the mares Barricade had kids with.

The final bit of this story is a mild foreshadowing for part 2 which will focus on Barricade's youngest, Chisel. We also got to meet Sunny Daze who had quite a different reaction to the apology letter than Junebug.

So we have so far met almost all the mothers, just one has not appeared. Fuzzy Cloud, the mother of Cara. I think I like her better as the ghost. Someone just mentioned but never is seen, she abandoned Cara and dumped her in an orphanage, she hated Barricade enough that she didn't even want to have anything to do with the foal she bore him, she just isn't interested at all in anything regarding Barricade, and I don't think I should force it. She's washed her hooves off the whole matter.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the story. I will soon begin working on Chisel's part of this tale.

Until later