Director's cut: Caught and Punished, chapters 26, 27, 28

Oh, yes. The reunion between Starlight and her parents was something I was trying to help set up throughout the whole story, including the story's prologue.

Before I start talking about chapter 26, I'll bring up that, to be honest, I almost forgot about Sam's lingering resentment toward Starlight’s parents. 

Now on to chapter 26. Bringing back the song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was, of course, a callout to chapter 4. I like to do callbacks and use material I used earlier in stories later on in them, not always coming up with new stuff. Sometimes, I planned to do it from the start; other times I come up with the idea as I write. This was the latter.

Next, that "Nice day, isn't it?" icebreaker question that's been a thing throughout the story. I didn't think much of it when I was first using that question as an icebreaker in chapter 6, but before I knew it, it became a go-to question the characters asked when they were nervous. That gave me the idea to lampshade it a little and have the characters bring up how they have asked that question a lot. And if you didn't notice it, "old stallion Jenkins" is a reference to "old Man Jenkins" from Spongebob Squarepants.

I actually forgot to bring this up in the Director's Cut for chapter 22, but chapter 22 was where the symptoms of Sam's illness appeared for the first time. Since his dizziness appeared in chapter 25 too, I thought I'll put this fact here.

There are no noteworthy edits or cuts in chapter 26, but one thing I did wonder a little about was where to end the chapter. I was thinking of ending it when Starlight started to stand up to her parents, but instead ended it before she knocked on their door. This also allowed me to change the first-person POV to Starlight at the most appropriate time, but also not in the chapter.

Now for chapter 27. I got much more to say about this chapter. At first, this chapter was named "The long-awaited  Confrontation" before changing it to "Like Mother, Like Daughter". At one point, I thought about renaming the chapter "Starlight Glimmer vs Starshine Glimmer", but since there was never a risk of the two mares becoming physical with each other, or magical in their case, I chose not to go with that name.

Unlike chapter 26, which I had no real problems with as I wrote/edited it, the early part of chapter 27 was tough. I had some trouble getting the initial conversation between Starlight and her parents going, as well as which of the other characters would say something and when. This turned out to be tougher than I thought it would be, and I even had to skip ahead to the Starlight & Starshine confrontation, which I had a much better idea on how it would go. I even wrote through the rest of the chapter before I went back and finished the conversation at the Glimmers' door and actually moved the characters inside.

Next, the flowers. I didn't even think about trying to use the language of flowers when I was foreshadowing Starshine's true feelings. I just made up the name "Granda Remosa" 4because it sounded similar to "Grand Remorse", and how she grew attached to it was due to the guilt she felt being so hard on Starlight, since Starshine really didn't want to act that way.

Speaking of Starlight’s true feelings, I wanted to give her a good reason for being hard on Starlight that could be badly misread instead of just being her actual cold-hearted pony. This is where the idea of her being hard on Starlight in an attempt to toughen her up came in. Not too much is known about Firelight, but who Starlight’s mom is like, or even her name (as far as I know) is a mystery. With nothing to go by, I had to treat Starshine like an OC from scratch, since she is an OC.

However, at least one idea for Starshine’s character that wasn’t fully something I came up with from scratch, was how the pitch in her voice changed once she was crying in her room. Starlight's voice did that too starting in chapter 4 (or the season 6 premiere in the show), so I thought it was one of the things the two had in common. On a side note, I always thought the change in Starlight’s voice in the show gave off the vibe that she changed more than she really did. Sometimes I’ve seen fans talk like she did a “Rainbow Rocks” Sunset Shimmer-level 180 degree turn in the season 6 premiere, which I would strongly disagree with.

Back to the story. While the voice change was something I planned for Starlight & Starshine to have in common, Firelight & Sunburst both having overbearing parents wasn’t something I meant for them to have in common, but went with it when the idea showed itself.

Moving on, the “Sugarplum” pet name. I mentioned in the “Director’s cut” for chapter 6 that, initially, Firelight had called Starlight pet names even when she was a filly, but I changed this when I was editing chapter 6. If you have read stories with my human OC Eric Reed, Starshine calling Starlight “Starie” should sound familiar: that is a nickname Eric likes to call Starlight. I tried to think of a different name for Starshine to use, but “Starie” just sounded too fitting for a mother to use as a pet name to not use.

This is really surprising, but despite the length of chapter 27, the longest chapter yet for a story of mine, there is only one notable change to mention that I did during editing. Starlight didn’t point out (and lament) how the others were still holding her hooves a little in the first draft of the chapter. This was added later on, and it ended up being another reason why, once she had enough of Starshine’s attitude, Starlight wanted Sam to stay out of it when she finally went off on her mom.

Now for chapter 28: I don’t have too much to say about this chapter.

I wanted Starlight to try to do something for the gang, but not have it backfire like it did back in chapter 14. That gave me the idea for her to try to bake a cake for them.

To make the chapter a little more interesting, Starlight made some mistakes when baking the cake. She had never tried to bake a cake before and had never tried to bake anything on her own, so the mistakes she made were justified, not just something she did to have something go wrong in the chapter. Having the gang throw a little party for her, I thought, as a nice, cute touch.

Oh, and Twilight’s reaction when she finally learned about Sam’s friendship speech to Starlight back in chapter 15 was something I planned when I was still writing chapter 15. I just wasn’t sure, at the time, when she’d find out, or how. I thought it would have been better if Twilight said nothing, but instead showed what was on her mind with how she acted.  Since I’m mostly a comedy writer, this scene was something I was particularly looking forward to writing.

As for cuts & edits, there is one notable cut. The first time Starlight tried to bake her cake, she put in too much flour and it overflowed in the oven. This happened because she wrote down the wrong number of cups of flour she was supposed to use. I thought Starlight messing up three times was enough, so I cut this error from the story.