Spoilers for "The Ending of the End" of the brilliant Season 9 Finale ahead! Proceed with caution!
What is a hero?
It's the question all of Lemon Crumble's thoughts come down to. She has made the pegasi realize that they needed to help the earth ponies and the unicorns, that they have to stick together with their fellow pony tribes, because only if they stand united in friendship, Equestria can be a strong and safe place.
She has led them into battle, has fought herself to protect her kingdom. She has fulfilled her duty for Equestria.
But even with all that, something was missing. An answer. An answer on the most important question Lemon Crumble had to ask herself after becoming a hero:
Why did she help?
Please don't debate Lemon Crumble's gender in the comments and please refer to her as a filly only. Otherwise you will be met with an instant block. This is not the place for debates, keep the comments relevant to the story.
This was cute. Have a Thumbs Up!
Coincidentally, I now have a certain David Bowie song stuck in my head.
:)
Forgive me if I'm reading into this too deeply, but are you considering retiring from writing?
I mean... it better at least be some extra credit!
9895693
Oh no, not at all! It's a reference to it that I will soon have Lemon Crumble being called by a different name in my stories, because of the credits of this episode. I will never stop writing ponyfics.
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Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Have a Lemon Crumble Stamp of Gratitude:
i.imgur.com/ihWOFRo.jpg
And you got me curious about that David Bowie song..... A song called "Hero"? Can you give me a link? Maybe I can use that song for making a Lemon Crumble PMV one day.^^
9895743
Whew, that's a relief!
Technically, it's the plural form of hero (the lyrics don't really fit the PMV idea either, I'm afraid), but I think that's close enough:
Wonderful! Simply wonderful! A Great Story. Hope this makes you feel better.
9895721
All of them received tons and tons of rewards for this.^^ Thank you for reading!
9895769
Aww, looks like it fails because of three lines of the lyrics. The rest would fit pretty well. It was worth an idea, though.
9896410
I'm feeling pretty good.^^ Doing the right thing, even if it means a (huge) sacrifice, makes you feel good. Thank you for reading and the favourite!
9896437
Glad to hear it and you're Welcome! Looking Forward to Chat with you when You have the Time And Mood.
The name Thing, i can understand You. I just Use the name that's easy to write and Remember, the other one as nickname
9896444
Also, I didn't know that you have a "Children" bookshelf. That's really cool!
9896476
Thanks! I just like foals' just like you. And i have one for my Favorite Background filly, dinky.
Also, your like for Lemon gave me an idea for you
9896476
Just Let me know when and how you want to hear it
This caught me off guard. I chuckled out loud.
I was worried the pacing was lagging a little in the beginning, but now I see it was building to this line.
So yeah. Good story about what it means to be a hero. Definitely going into my Favorites!
9897037
It's actually not intended to be a joke. It's based on the observation that never anything dangerous happens when ponies go to Zecora's hut, while dangerous things happen so often in other parts of the Everfree Forest. The only exception is the roc during Spike's molt, but that creature came from somewhere else and only got attracted by the molt smell.
Back when I saw Season 2 for the first time, I thought that Zecora's hut is just in a quieter and less active part of the forest when Applebloom wandered into the direction of her hut while being upset over not having gotten her cutie mark. Which got cemented even more in the later seasons.
One of the things that bother me when people talk about the show is how they call that a plothole or inconsistency, instead of thinking about it, so I put that in here. The description of the Everfree's activity differing from day to day and hour to hour builds on that.
I did something similar once before, somewhere. I like to put such little snippets into my stories on occasion.
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Why? Did you expect I would ramble on and on about how Lemon Crumble is a hero and how badass and fearless she is for several thousand words?
Things in my stories always build up to something, even if it isn't always becoming obvious soon after.
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Thanks! I feel I could have delved a lot more into this subject, the philosophic intricacies of being a hero, but while writing, it evolved into Lemon Crumble being plagued by self-doubt about her motivation to help, which fits more to what she did.
I'm glad you like it, though, thank you for the favourite!
This was a real nice story! I enjoyed reading, the entire time.
One thing that could use a bit of work, if you'd like to just touch it up a bit, is that beginning.. the pictures introducing the characters were very informing, and it did make it easier to read. However, if you want to go with show don't tell... it might be best to take those out - and just incorporate the same kind of intro in your writing.
Otherwise, I'll definitely be reading again soon! Nice work!
9904155
Could you be more elaborate about this? What kind of intro do you mean? The very start of the story with the stars and Hyper Sonic lying in the grass and staring up to them or the individual introductions of the rest of the group?
This story is the first one in a rather long time that doesn't just feel good, but also feels good without me being surprised about it that it feels good, and I can't quite see anything that's wrong with it
other than background pony writing, particularly not in the "Show Don't Tell" department.9905039
Oh no... I just meant that instead of using pictures to introduce the characters, so, "tell," it could somehow be weaved into the intro, as more of a "show."
And yes.. heh, I should have probably been more specific about that intro. I meant introducing the characters.
You're right there, as well. There isn't anything really wrong with it, and it really shaped into a real nice read. I enjoyed it very much.
9905233
Oh, you're talking about those pictures! That confused me right now, I actually pondered if I mentioned "pictures" somewhere in the story.
No, these pictures aren't being used by me to merely introduce the characters in the story. They aren't part of the story, they are there as character tags. In the same way you see character tags in the description of a story, but with pictures instead.
There used to be a time on FIMFiction.net, until more than two years ago, when there were character tags with icons. Which knighty, the main admin and programmer of the site, changed two years ago and replaced them with simple colored tags that only show their names.
I made custom character tag icons for some stories I was writing in 2016, because the ponies I wrote about, including some background ponies, didn't have character tags on FIMFiction.net. Some of them, and a lot more ponies/creatures I didn't write about, got character tags with accompanying icons in 2017, after a lot of users asked for them to get added for a very long time. But knighty removed the icons again a few months later and instead made the generic character tags you can see in story descriptions these days.
The character tag icons were visually more appealling and they were more intuitive, because you only had to take one look at a story description and visually recognized which characters star in it, while now you have to actively read the names because all character tags have the same design now, so, I'm still creating custom character tag icons on occasion.
I create them for background ponies, so I don't have to group them together under the "Other" tag, but can actually tag them as characters in my stories, which means they're getting a much better representation to readers, and also for all ponies/creatures who have the bad luck that they were introduced to us after the official character tag icons got removed. It makes everything look a lot nicer to have these custom icons.
There is also a userscript for FIMFiction.net that brings back these character tag icons and I have planned to create tag icons for all characters that don't have any icons anymore or never got any and to offer them to the script's creator so he can include them for the longest time now, but couldn't get around to that so far.
9905258
Sorry for the confusion!
And.. I see. Well... okay then. That makes sense.
Just wanted to offer my two cents, didn't mean any harm. Your writing is just fine as it is.
9905479
Constructive criticism is never seen as someone trying to do harm by me.
Thank you for reading!
That was a good story.
11312523
Thanks and thank you for the favourite!