Writer's Recap: Keeping Your Tack · 2:02am Mar 28th, 2020
The main struggle here was twofold.
The first was capturing everyone’s thoughts on the matter with Chrysalis. Oddly enough, that also served as a handy way to get them to not be so wary of Lyra: Ponies, like humans, are herd animals, and it’s in the nature of socially advanced herd animals to want to protect the abused, and anyone who can’t protect themselves. This still left a struggle of how to articulate how everyone was feeling about this, even if it was clear how they would feel (Applejack with her focus on family, and Dash with her focus on loyalty, especially to friends and family). The only one that was easy on both accounts was Driftwood because, after all, he's heard this exact story before; this kind of tragedy is a cornerstone of changeling folklore.
The second was Pinkie Pie. Because of course it was. So much of her character is sight gags, and often times those don't work as well in writing because there's no visual impact (which means that in writing, I tend to handle that by having other characters lampshade what would otherwise be an animation error, i.e. an editing mistake). Pinkie is still tricky.
The monologue delivered by Rainbow Dash on the nature of face offs a much more direct and matter-of-fact presentation that still felt like Rainbow Dash, but given her nature as a prankster, it felt just as natural to inject some levity to the situation. I actually enjoy slipping in small touches like this one where I can. It doesn’t really mean much for the overarching story — Driftwood and Bon Bon could have faced off just fine even without this tidbit — but it’s a nice little bonus for the reader. Almost extra content.
