Director's cut: How About You Eat It? · 5:07pm Apr 25th, 2022
First, a moment of silence for Eric “Buggie” Reed’s, Twilight Sparkle's, and Starlight Glimmer’s stomachs. They will be missed.
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Okay, with that out of the way, on to the background of ‘What About You Eat It?’ and my thoughts about it.
As I said in the bonus chapter’s author’s note, the idea for ‘How About You Eat It?’ came from a comment I made to this similar story,
How most of my stories with my human OC Eric “Buggie” Reed are usually like fit the story premise perfectly, so after having the idea for the story on the back burner for months now, I was finally ready to go with it. I don’t want to say too much about the story that inspired ‘How About You Eat It?’ or I’ll risk spoiling some things, so I’ll leave out more details about it, but it’s a funny story.
There’s not too much to say about the first chapter of ‘How About You Eat It?’: Twilight was being her cheerful, adorkable, but at times annoying self, and Eric, being the slick guy he can be, turned the tables on her. I’m not fully sure why, but something about Eric’s ”Eat up, girl!” line is especially funny to me, and can make me chuckle even now. Maybe it was because I had an unusually clear mental image of Eric trying to force Twilight to eat a cookie as she protested and squirmed to get away.
As for the bonus chapter, I had no plans to write it prior to the story’s submission. Though, I had an idea or two on how to handle Eric trying to trick Starlight into eating Twilight’s cookies if I were to have fun with it.
Next is where I’ll go into the more notable cuts and edits made during editing.
The first was to the story’s opening. Originally. Eric was just chilling in the castle’s library, but felt an urge that he should leave. Then the reason his urge happened – Twilight – came in with her cookies. I thought it was a bit too boring and another story I wrote ‘The Misunderstanding’ started off this way too, so I decided to try to spice it up. The new start of the story was also a way to show that Eric’s both a baseball fan and that he dreamed of pitching in MLB (Major League Baseball). Alas, him being stuck in Equestria pretty much killed his chance of living his dream, but he had made peace with it.
A second, smaller edit to this newer scene was that Eric originally had remarked that Twilight went through a lot in an attempt to learn enough about pitching to be a pseudo-pitching coach. For several reasons, she wasn’t able to do it. In fact, Twilight trying to learn about the fine art of pitching, even to the point of going to the EQG human world to learn it in her human form (and failing adorkably) was even something I considered making into its own story as a prequel to this story. However, I think it may be a little too tough to handle, so, at least for now, I put the idea on the ‘ol back burner. I might write some scenes showing her struggles in blogs at some point for fun.
The third notable change in the first chapter worth mentioning was to Eric half-joking that Twilight should just exercise if she was worried about gaining weight. Originally, he half-joked that Twi had too much free time for a headmare and princess. I made the change because I thought the exercise joke would be funnier, and Starlight making the original joke in the bonus chapter was a carryover from the change.
Speaking of the bonus chapter, it’s a good time to move on to my thoughts about it. I debated a little on what Spike’s reaction to eating the cookies would be; I considered not bringing him in at all. My initial vision of the chapter didn’t have Spike in it and just had Eric and Starlight, but I think bringing him in and having him like Twi’s cookies was a nice comedic touch. I considered having it be part of a counter-prank by Twilight to get back at Eric for forcing her to eat her cookies, but I eventually went against it. How it was never confirmed if Twi was in the castle in the bonus chapter – possibly due to being up to something – is a hangover from this early idea.
Also, I don’t think I said it, but Starlight petting Eric after she tricked him into eating Twiligjt’s cookies is one of my favorite parts of the “big sister” side of her. I’ve seen a few stories when a OC and Twilight gain a sibling bond (even if most of the time it’s either a romantic one or they are friends, but they don’t see each other as siblings) but I don’t recall a story when an OC and Starlight has a sibling bond. My ‘Caught and Punished’ sorta does, but Starlight and the human OC in it never called each other brother and sister. Even if some readers of it wanted them to call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. I know, I kinda wanted to have it happen too.
Lastly, as for notable edits for the bonus chapter, there aren’t any, so that’ll make this part of the blog easier. The only changes during edits are your usual simple grammar corrections and polishing.
