) so I had to wait until it passed. Thankfully, it has, and my next one-shot story is planned to be out on either Friday or the weekend.Director's cut: Caught and Punished, chapters 29-32 & epilogue + Final update · 4:36pm Feb 2nd, 2021
Before I get to the “director’s cut” part of this blog where I talk about my thoughts of a certain chapter and of notable cuts & edits, I’ll start by saying that, since there wasn't much interest in them, I will not write any bonus chapters for Caught and Punished. The story is now marked complete. if you are tracking the story to watch for this blog about if there would be more chapters, you can now un-track the story.
With that out of the way, let’s move on. I’ll start with talking about chapter 29.
One of the things that TheHardie-Boy asked me to do was to have Sam die near the end of the story vie some kind of illness. So, as sad as it was, I had to follow through on it. I didn’t want for the illness to come completely out of nowhere, so I got the idea to leave hints of it by Sam having dizzy spells in some of the previous chapters.
Usually, I would say a bit more before I get to the cuts & edits that happened in chapters. But this time, I’m going to do things a little differently, because this chapter has the biggest edits & rewrite of not just any chapter of this story, but all of my stories. It even changed some major parts of what’s now in chapters 30-32.
Originally, in chapter 29, Nurse Redheart told Twilight & Starlight that Sam was dying, like she did at the end of chapter 30. The early chapter 29 scene with Starlight in Sam’s hospital room was very much as it was in the finished version of chapter 30 (after she learned that Sam was going to die in chapter 30), but she fell asleep. Twilight eventually came and carried her back home.
Later in the original chapter 29, Twilight & Starlight had the conversation they had at the start of chapter 32, with Starlight struggling and Twilight suggesting to do what she had been doing as a way to deal with the pain of loss. Later still, Sam went on to improve enough for him, the mane 6, Starlight, and Sunset to have a conversation. It went surprisingly similar to how it did in the final version of chapter 29, but Discord was there too. However, Sam knew he was dying, but was okay with it. Just like with the final version of chapter 29, Twilight went on to tell Sam that there was something she was hiding from him, but was finally going to tell him, and the chapter ended there.
That was how chapter 29 was Initially going to be. However, TheHardie-Boy suggested for Sam to appear to recover, have Sam & Starlight have one more bonding moment (AKA the scene with Starlight trying to eat fish). Then, once things look to be okay, have Sam fall sick again. If the story stayed as it was, Sam would have died at the end of chapter 30, not chapter 31.
On a related note, the reason why Twilight told Sam the full story of how and why he was in Equestria -- the cause being the “Rainbow power” the mane 6 used against Tirek -- was changed so it could still happen. Instead of doing so because she knew it was now or never, Twilight and the mane 6 subconsciously sensed time was running out, despite Sam appearing to be fine. Same goes for why Sunset Shimmer chose to visit Sam in the hospital.
Speaking of the Rainbow Power, I thought it would be interesting to have that be a cause for a human winding up in Equestria, and be a reason why the mane 6 never used it again. At the time I’m writing this blog, I don’t recall seeing a HiE story use the Rainbow Power as a catalyst for bringing humans into Equestria.
As for cuts and edits for chapter 30, there are none. Chapter 31 did have a small cut, where Twilight pointed out the hidden catches and complexities time travel has, and it was why they didn’t try it.
Since I already brought up what happened in chapters 30 & 31, there’s no point in talking more about them specifically, so I’ll go to chapter 32.
As I mentioned before, the scene with Twilight & Starlight’s talk was originally in chapter 29, but, after I did some edits, it got moved to chapter 32. Something new that was added was how Twilight brought up how she talked to Princess Celestia about the best ways to deal with grief. Since Twilight had never lost anyone before, I thought it made sense that she herself might be unsure of how to handle the pain of loss. I wondered about writing a scene showing Princess Celestia giving the advice to Twilight that Twilight herself went on to give Starlight. If Twilight were the story’s protagonist (or one of the protagonists) I probably would have.
Moving on, Sam’s funeral. I wasn’t sure if this would have been its own chapter or not, but it ended up being short enough to just keep it as part of chapter 32. It was a challenge trying to get what the Mane 6, Spike, and Starlight said to be, overall, unique to them. Same goes for what they each left by Sam’s casket. At first, I thought about having Twilight leave a book behind, but that was way too easy and too comedic for this part of the story. When she finished Starswirl the Beard’s spell in the season 3 finale, and it was partly due to how much she learned and embraced friendship, I thought that would be something Twi might leave with Sam. “Friendship is magic” and all that.
As for noteworthy cuts & edits for chapter 32, there’s one larger edit and a few smaller ones.
The large one is about Spike’s speech. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I forgot about adding in a speech from Spike. When I was going over the chapter, I knew something didn’t feel right, but it took a while before I noticed Spike hadn’t said anything. This also changed what Rarity left behind: she originally left a gem by Sam’s casket, not a vase of roses. The change of Rarity’s final “gift” to Sam was one of the smaller edits.
Another small edit was to Starlight’s speech. It was a little shorter, but TheHardie-Boy suggested having her say a little more than she did in the earth drafts of the chapters. Yet another edit was to her parents being there; they weren’t in the first couple of drafts of chapter.32. The line where Starlight’s dad asked if she was okay (after Starlight gave her speech) was originally asked by Twilight--although she didn’t almost call her “Sugarplum”.
And finally, the epilogue.
It was only when I started writing the epilogue when I chose how big a time-skip I was going to do for it. I wasn’t sure if I would skip to somewhere in season 8, season 9, or go all the way into “The Last Problem” timeline where Twilight was a full-grown alicorn.
This isn’t related to the story, but for the record, I don’t think Twilight’s design as a full-grown alicorn looks that bad. It does feel weird, though, because I’m not used to her looking that big and having a Celestia-like design.
Back to Caught and Punished. After the voting about whether Starlight and Spike would get together ended with it not happening, TheHardie-Boy suggested hinting about Sparlight possibly becoming a thing in the epilogue. Did Starlight make a move on Spike eventually or vice-versa? That would be up to your headcanons.
With the epilogue being so short and simple, there are no noteworthy edits & cuts.
And that’s it. It was a challenge at times writing Caught and Punished, and I know there are things I could have done better, but, overall, I’m proud of how it came out. It was fun taking Starlight’s redemption and reformation in a different path than the show did. I started on Caught and Punished late in December 2019, not long after Thehardlyboy asked me to take over for him, and the final chapter was published on Jan. 16th. So, 13 months were spent on it--by far the most I’ve spent on a story up to this point. Its word count of about 141,000 is more than double the length of my longest stories, When Dating a Sunset and A Giant Adventure to Equestria, which are about 62,300 and 66,700 words long, respectively.
I gotta say, the killing off of Sam affected me for an entire day. That's how powerful your finishing of what HardieBoy started was.
5446460
That so? Glad to hear my writing could have an effect like that.
Well, not "glad" that it was a negative effect like sad stories can do, but you know what I mean.
5447009
Oh, totally. It's rare that a work of fiction can affect me that way, especially as a grown man, so props to the way you laid it all out.