Choice cuts VI: “Journal” and “Curtain”

So this is it—the last of the choice cuts. It was a long and difficult road, but it’s finished now. Hard to believe.

Scampy: First off, I just really really love the idea of the journal as the framing device for this chapter, good idea. So four scenes again. What’s the timescale for this? About a month? Longer? I’m not as sure as I should be. Cuz this chapter ends right before Virga begins, correct? Like, a few days or so.
Dave: Yeah, that’s about right. The timing I have in mind is, Wallflower makes enough progress for Sunset to be released from attending her shortly before the Friendship Festival and MLPTM and Virga both start. The exact timing is flexible, but a few days is very reasonable.
Scampy: Mental progress, sure. Physical progress is never that quick, but I think I have a solution. Maybe the final scene of this chapter is Holly reuniting with Wallflower, and going forward she’ll be helping her around.
Dave: Ooh, yeah. That would check the box of Holly reconnecting, even if only tentatively. And Wallflower still is bothered by monopolizing Sunset’s time, even if it isn’t as dominated by her resentment. I’d have to count on my fingers and toes to figure out how much time is involved, but roughly a month sounds right.
Scampy: I think I have an idea for the opening scene too. Of course open with Sunset establishing things are better. At least Wally wants to try, and that’s a huge step forward, but the next thing Wally is despairing over is suddenly having the reality of her situation crash down around her. Specifically her disability, which as far as she knows now will be permanent.
Dave: She’s managed to hold it at arm’s length, but once she reconciles with the idea of living, she can’t keep it at bay any more.
Scampy: Exactly. Before, it was, like, “I don’t care cuz I’ll be dead soon enough anyway." Now she has to live with it. Sunset's first thought is to bring up Rose. I do wanna have a scene specifically between those two where they [Rose and Wallflower] talk about it. But for now Sunset can just throw that out there, like she might tell Twilight Rose is inspiring to her already, so to someone in Wallflower's situation, she might be even moreso.
Scampy: As for the other scenes, I’m all ears. Got any ideas for the two middle scenes?
Dave: The two middle scenes need to bridge the beginning and end, needless to say, so they need to convey Wallflower’s progress. If the first one deals with her first few steps and the crash of realizing she may have permanent disability, the second scene probably would have to talk about how she’s learning to cope with that.
Scampy: Maybe the second scene is something like Wallflower, for the first time, insists on trying to do something on her own—like, take a shower or something—and it does not go well. Sunset has to step in and help.
Dave: That sounds good. Sunset would be hovering, maybe just outside the door or something.
Scampy: Wally tried to rubber-band from “I don’t care” to “I have to do everything myself if I want to get better.” Yeah, and she hears Wally fall down or something and just finds her in tears, which is both sad and kind of a good sign cuz, hey, she's showing emotion now.
Dave: Any alternatives to a shower? I mean, that’s a good idea, and it’s a good call-back, but I also want to see if we have any other options.
Scampy: Fair enough. Getting dressed for herself is similar enough. Like, she’s on the edge of the bed with the clothes she’s supposed to wear that day and insists Sunset step out and let her do it herself. Sunset hears straining and cursing and grumbling and eventually Wally falls off the bed, so she goes back in to help, finds Wally crying. I think Sunset would be proud of her for trying at all, tbh.
Dave: Hmm. It has an advantage that she could fall on a softer surface than shower tiles.
Scampy: If this clinic is anything like [the one we used as a model], the bedroom floors are carpeted but not much, but Sunset would be less “OH GOD OH FRICK” about it probably.
Dave: Worried but not frantic. Also, she could hear the noises and cussing and falling better, without the hiss of a shower running.
Scampy: I imagine there’d be a bit of a yelp.
Dave: Here’s an idea: she gets through the shower fine, using the existing bench and accessibility tools left over from before, and that bolsters her confidence she can handle it. Sunset helps her from the shower to the bed, then as you outline for dressing. How does that sound?
Scampy: I like that a lot better, actually.
Dave: Sunset’s doing a lot of hovering just outside doors now. Maybe she even makes a little joke about it in the journal. And it’s another sign Wallflower’s improving, that she’s insisting on at least a modicum of modesty.
Scampy: So is Sunset using the journal in real time? I always saw it as a sort of pony magic equivalent of texting on a cell phone. Or is this more like letters at the end of the day?
Dave: I’m visualizing it being like the scene in “Forgotten Friendship”, before she turns in for the night. Like a diary, only she actually is writing to someone and not just herself, now that I think about it. For this chapter she still is live-in, rather than commuting, right? At least until the end scene.
Scampy: Yeah, I’d expect so.
Dave: So the last scene really is all about the changing of the guard.
Scampy: Well, in a sense, yes. It’s also Wallflower’s first reunion with her mother since she ran away from home.
Dave: True! Oh, I had a thought about going from shower to bedroom: Wallflower manages to drape a bathrobe over herself before calling Sunset in, which further bolsters her confidence she can dress—but a bathrobe is different from street clothes.
Scampy: Hm. Now I’m curious. BRB, gonna try to put on my bathrobe without standing.
Dave: If it doesn’t work, that’s fine, but I wanted to try to be consistent about Wallflower’s renewed modesty.
Scampy: That wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it’d be. Also, yeah, good point. OK, so something that might also come up: even if it’s numbed for whatever reason, messing with a spinal injury really effing hurts, so when she falls off the bed it’s not just frustration that she’d be crying over.
Dave: Wallflower will be constantly stiff and pained, I imagine.
Scampy: Something like that, yeah. Before she just didn’t acknowledge it, or tried not to let it show, what with her insistence on stoicism. Ooooh, idea. When she falls and Sunset is trying to make sure if she's okay:
“Are you all right? Does it hurt?”
“It always hurts.”
Scampy: . . . IDK if you can tell, but I really love snap-back lines like this, lol. Something something big emotions don’t come from big words.
Dave: I have an affinity for them too, though I usually put them in narrative rather than dialog.
Scampy: You and [I-A-M] both. I really like that style, though y’all are much better at the narrative stuff than I am.
Dave: I think that’s one reason our collaboration’s worked so smoothly. You have a gift for dialog. Okay. Any details on the first scene? A hook, a narrative line?
Scampy:
Dear Princess Twilight,
Scampy: Nailed it.
Scampy: OK, but for real, I’m thinking Sunset summarizing Wallflower improving in some ways and, as a result, new problems arose. It’s hard to watch her friend appear even more upset than she did before, but Even Keel insists it’s still good progress. Stuff like Wally talking more in group therapy sessions, speaking without being prompted in personal sessions. I think Sunset might’ve had the idea that she’d made a huge breakthrough with Wallflower, like it was all uphill from here. I get why she'd think that, and she's not entirely wrong, just that going uphill doesn't always look like going uphill when it comes to mental health. It’s another dialectic: Wally’s emotional state is improving, and she’s crying a lot more than she used to. For someone like Sunset, that hurts to see. She has to constantly remind herself that expressing negative emotions is an improvement.
Dave: Something popped into mind just now. Sunset went through her own period of depression between the Fall Formal and the Battle of the Bands. Might that help her now?
Scampy: I bet it could. Sunset got through her depressive period with the help of her friends. Oh, an idea for the third scene relating to this, actually. Maybe Sunset brings one of her friends by?
Dave: Oh, sure! Fluttershy, maybe?
Scampy: Yes, I was thinking her too. Wallflower is super anxious, embarrassed even, about being seen in a wheelchair, but it went really really well. The scene could end with Wallflower asking if Fluttershy wants her phone number so they can talk more, which would be a big big step for her.
Dave: Yes! I like that a lot.
Scampy: The first friend she’s made besides Sunset. Something I figured out [. . .] is the difference between friendships of convenience and friendships of choice. When you’re in school, you wind up being friends with people in your class, cuz that’s who’s around. I think Wallflower’s only ever had friends like that until Sunset—just people she'd talk to at school, in the gardening club, but they wouldn’t hang out with her or talk to her much beyond that. Sunset, and now Fluttershy, would be a friend she’s choosing, not out of convenience.
Dave: Another idea: one of the reasons Sunset feels more secure about jumping through the portal is by then Wallflower’s made at least tentative connections, and Sunset knows Wallflower won’t be left alone without any friends. I mean, possibly beyond just Fluttershy.
Scampy: Yep, definitely tracks.
Dave: I could see the connection to Fluttershy being at least partly something along the lines of “I like plants and you like animals”.
Scampy: I think it's also understanding anxiety, even if the root causes for each of them are different. Fluttershy knows how to talk to someone like Wally.
Dave: Good point. I may even be able to bring up your observation about that. And both of them are comfortable with not saying anything, just being there.
Dave:
1. Emotional crash
2. Shower/dressing
3. Fluttershy
4. Reunion/change-out
Does that cover it?
Scampy: yep!
Dave: Okay, sounds good! What I may do is start each scene with the first few sentences of Sunset’s missive, then switch to normal narrative for the rest. Sticking with Sunset writing through the whole scene means framing everything from the viewpoint of a somewhat distraught twenty-year-old, which kind of limits what I can show/tell.
Scampy: I like that idea, actually. [Shortskirtsandexplosions] did the same thing in Background Pony and I really liked it.

Dave: You mentioned you wanted to tell [the epilogue] from Wallflower’s point of view, as I recall.
Scampy: I think that’d be a good way to wrap it up, yeah. This is the end of her part of the story; I think it’s only right we see it as she does.
Dave: Sure. It also would set the epilogue apart from the rest of the story.
Scampy: Another bonus.
Dave: The purpose of the epilogue, if I’m thinking correctly, is to establish where Wallflower and secondarily Rose are now, after the passage of additional time.
Scampy: Yup. Kinda necessary given how much treatment Wally’s been through during the time skip. A few months of inpatient goes a long way.
Dave: So—where is Wallflower by this point, physically and psychologically?
Scampy: Regarding physically, iirc the end-point for her is being able to walk, albeit stiffly and with some pain, possibly needing assistance at times, right? Which isn’t to say she’d be there now; it can take years to really recover from serious back injuries like that.
Dave: I figure by the time of The Campus fifteen years later she can walk unaided, but finds it difficult to run.
Scampy: So at this point I imagine she’s still in the wheelchair, but can stand and walk with assistance, albeit with a good amount of pain. It hurts like hell to get up, but it isn’t that hard to stay up once she’s there. Walking hurts, though, and without help she might go tumbling down, but that’ll get better with time.
Dave: Maybe she has a pair of brace-crutches, whatever those are called?
Scampy: Ooh, I know. Maybe she has one of those walkers with the seat built in, so she can walk if she wants to, or sit when she needs to, and it’s a notable difference between now and pre-time skip. As for psychologically, I think the major difference between when we last saw her and now is how she feels about Holly. I imagine they’ve had a lot of joint sessions with Keel, probably with a lot of crying and probably some yelling on Wally’s part. She’s got a lot of pent-up resentment. But by this point, she does really want her mom to be in her life again. Best way to show that is probably by having her be more comfortable around Holly, acknowledging things are hard and they have a lot of things to work through, and they are working through them and she’s happy about that. I don’t think Wally’s ever felt loved before, and she’s starting to feel that from her mom now and it’s weird in a good way.
Dave: So a little more cheerful in demeanor? A little more ready to smile, or hum, or just be happier.
Scampy: More casual, yeah. She’s not fine, she’s not mentally healthy or anything. Stuff like that doesn’t change overnight or even over months, but her default state of being isn’t depression any more. When she has bad thoughts she knows how to push back and not let herself spiral. Which isn’t to say she’s always successful in that, but she knows how, she has that tool to help herself. Getting a little better every day, and she knows that one day a little better will be good enough.
Dave: That probably was another hard-learned lesson—small steps are the only way to go.
Scampy: Yeah, when people feel the way she did, things months or years out feel like they’ll never really happen at all. So saying “it’ll get better eventually” feels to them like nothing will get better ever, cuz “eventually” is so far away it might as well not be real. Part of mindfulness, the core of the kind of therapy Wally’s been getting, is letting yourself feel present, be present, getting out of your own head. Cuz when you make yourself be a part of what’s happening right now, what's going to happen doesn’t feel so impossibly far away anymore.
Dave: But to Rose, who hasn’t seen her in months, the difference would seem dramatic. And seeing Rose would be a big boost for her, I think.
Scampy: So I just had a thought. The last time Wally saw Rose, she apologized for putting Rose into a situation where she had to save her life. This time, I think she’s less regretful and more grateful. And for Rose, I think hearing Wally say “Thank you for saving my life” is all she ever wanted to hear from the kids in her cases. That final bit of closure she probably didn’t realize she wanted.
Dave: That would mean the world to her. Better than a medal. I think I’ll connect the thank-you to the hug, like she spontaneously throws her arms around Rose right after. That seems like a good way to lead into it, and I was thinking vaguely of making the hug the capper for the chapter. With just a hint of melancholy, since both of them are moving on in their lives.
Scampy: Very yes. I think before, Wally was sorry she had to be in Rose’s life, but now she’s grateful Rose was in hers.
Dave: That’s a good way to put it, and it reflects what you were saying before about connecting herself to the world and people around her. “Thank you for everything. Thank you for saving my life.” I do want to slip it in somewhere that Rose really did miss Wallflower while she was gone.
Scampy: Definitely.
Dave: Is Holly there? For that matter, would anyone else be around? (I guess that depends partly on where and how they meet up.)
Scampy: I think Holly's there, but maybe she steps outside while Rose and Wally talk. I don't think Rose is as fond of Holly as Wallflower is at this point.
Dave: That’s fair; she hasn’t been around as their relationship has changed. But it’s an opportunity to hint at how it’s grown, that Holly is willing to give them that moment.
Scampy: Yeah, I imagine that when she first started being around Wally again, Holly never wanted to let her out of her sight. Hella awkward. Has Sunset already visited at this point?
Dave: I was thinking maybe Sunset visited as soon as she could, but Rose has been tied up with two boards of inquiry, debriefings, new orders, and all the administrivia of being reactivated. It’s kept her frantically busy.
Scampy: So probably just some mention of that, then. Maybe Wally’s been texting with Sunset nonstop since she got back. Like, her phone keeps dinging while she’s talking with Rose, lol.
Dave: And maybe she even has worked herself up to occasional messages to/from some of the other Rainbooms.
Scampy: That too! Oooh, maybe Sunset’s friends have been visiting Wally in her place while Sunset was away. Never all at once, but just to keep her company and let her know people are thinking of her and care about her.
Dave: Trading off. One at a time early on, then maybe a couple at a time.
Scampy: Yeah, something like that. Sunset told them to please take care of her and they figured out a system themselves.
Dave: An echo of Princess Twilight’s request the girls take care of Sunset at the end of the first featurette. Paying it forward.
Scampy: Good comparison.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Another great peek behind the curtain. Thanks for putting this together.