A Storm's Lullaby Page 47
Added 2019-11-03 09:25:56 +0000 UTCWhen nightmares combine.
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A couple of words about Rusty. He will get fleshed out more in the future, but for now I hope you can already guess a couple of things about him: not only that he's a sociopath ( meaning among other things that he has very little empathy ), but that he was also attached to Rye (not uncommon in people with such disorder) and shares similar fate with Lullaby. From the previous page you can already tell that despite his cool Lullaby’s vulnerability irks him so much he feels the need to assert himself.
But why write him as a sociopathic character in the first place?
At first both him and Fireweed were written as "good guy going bad" -- genuinely good ponies who got blinded by revenge. But for me, this version presented certain challanges.
The biggest one (bit not the only one!) was Tempest herself. She is obviously so overwhelmingly OP that nothing those ponies did or said felt truly threatening. There was not enough tension. There was always a room for them to be talked out of it by Thistle or just see the error of their own actions.
With Rusty you have a reckless and unpredictable pony who lacks scruples and feels very little including fear for himself. He’s that kind of a pony who would threaten a child and wouldn't care about Tempest redemption or Thistle's arguments at all.
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