Director's cut: Caught and Punished, chapters 9 & 10

First, Lyra Heartstrings.

When I was still working on chapter 7, while going through the earlier chapters to make sure I didn't miss or forget something (like how I forgot Sam asked Applejack to fix his table in chapter 3) I got the idea to have Sam and Lyra truly interact. I wanted to actually use Lyra for something, so bringing her up in the story wasn't just to have fun with the meme that she's obsessed with humans. Lyra acted like this in Donnnnn's version of "Caught and Punished" so that didn't come from me, but I just decided to build on it in chapter 9.

While the jokes of Lyra being obsessed with humans are funny, jokes aside, she really couldn't have known about humans. Because I'm writing this story straight, not for laughs, I couldn't try to hand wave it as "she just knows" or something: I had to think of something that could work. That's where the "mythical creature" idea came in to justify her interest in Sam as soon as she saw him.

If you overlooked it, the "Lyra the Loon" nickname Lyra had came from trying to think of something that could play off her name. "Loon" and "Lyra" start with "L" so that's why I picked that name.

Chapter 9 have two noteworthy edits. The first is about Starlight wearing a collar again. This wasn't originally there, but I was thinking about having her put a collar back on, so the thumbnail continues to fit the story. When that very thing was brought up in the comments, it sealed the deal to think of a way to get it back on.

The other, smaller, noteworthy edit was about Sam almost calling Lyra cute, but Starlight stopped him at the last second. This was done to try to show how Sam could have gotten the ponies in Ponyville to give him dirty looks. He already said how it happened, but to make sure this side of Sam didn't become an "informed flaw", I wanted to show it "on-screen" at least once. It was also nice for Starlight to do something to help Sam as well.

And now for chapter 10.

Believe it or not. the toughest thing about this chapter was coming up with why Spike formed a crush on Starlight. I could have just used that he thought she was cute being it, but I wanted more than that. If you have read my "When Dating a Sunset..." story with my OC Eric Reed, you'll know how I went deeper for why Eric formed his crush on Sunset Shimmer and why she later felt feelings for him.

But when I tried to think of what made Spike fall for Starlight beyond that he thought she was cute, I found that I had a problem: I couldn't think of anything, since his crush on her happened right away! It took me a couple of days to come up with the reason partly being that, sometime after the Mane 6 left to Starlight's village, he came to grips with the fact that Rarity doesn't like him, and it made him a little down. A plus is this reason is that it let me go deeper into Spike's character, and even gave him a little character development; something I didn't plan to do.

Now, if Sparlight would have begun in this chapter, the main plot points that's coming, such as Starlight going back to her village to make up with the ponies there, would still happen. The two chief differences would be that Spike and Starlight would be (obviously) closer, and Spike would be in the story more after chapter 10 than he will, but other than that, the story would be largely unaffected, as far as the more important events are concerned.

Chapter 10 had three noteworthy edits. First, the part where Starlight reminded Spike that he had Twilight and the others as his family wasn't there at first. After she said that something she and Spike had in common was that their parents didn't think they were "worth anything", Spike simply said "maybe" and then went on to apologize for staring at her. Leaving it that way didn't feel right, so I added Starlight cheering up Spike to help the scene flow better.

The second change was the candles on the table: that was something I added in editing. The third thing I added in editing is related to the candles. The narration pointed out how Starlight missed the hint that Spike had the candles there to set a romantic mood. But later, I took out the part of the narration about how she missed that sign to show her "lack" of romantic knowledge more subtly. Did you pick this up?

Edit on 4/4/20: Can't believe I forgot this. A cut in chapter 8 that I couldn't mention in the director's cut for chapter 8 was that Starlight mentioned that she thought Spike was a "little cutie pie", making Sam have to hold back laughter at it. Once it was decided that Sparlight wouldn't happen in chapter 10, it felt odd for Starlight to say it there, if she didn't have a crush on Spike. That was why I took it out, but was able to move it to chapter 10, where it could make more sense.

Comments

[RandomGuy101]

The narration pointed out how Starlight missed the hint that Spike had the candles there to set a romantic mood. But later, I took out the part of the narration about how she missed that sign to show her "lack" of romantic knowledge more subtly. Did you pick this up?

Yup. I almost laughed when he said, "I thought they looked good."