After I decided to ship Cheerliee with Big Macintosh and Sugar Belle, I started to reconsider having Amber being an only child. At the time, I wanted to limit the number of kids on Sweet Apple Acres, to give me more time to devote to exploring each apple kid, and my in-universe explanation for this was that Amber was very big when she was born, causing complications for Sugar Belle, which lead to them only having one child. But I have kinda been considering adding just one more apple kid to the roster, I just hadn’t figured out who their parents would be.
 
But now, with the addition of Cheerliee, I can give them one more kid, without having to remove Amber’s origins -I’ll just have Cheerliee and Sugar Belle be the bio parents! Since the reason for the problems came from the baby being too big, which was almost all Big Mac’s genes.
 
So, here’s Ambers brand new baby brother, Crystal Corolla (Chosen by him after gaining his mark; his deadname was Sugar Petals). He’s quite a bit younger than her, being a young teenager/tweenager when Amber’s in her mid-twenties. He still older than the twins, Cameo and Mari, who are something like 8-9 years to his 13-14. Not much of an age difference to adults, but to kids that age they’re generations apart, so he doesn’t really spend much time with them. And he’s also much younger than Amber and Zap Apple, so he’s not regularly hanging out with them either. You know, aside from the normal stuff families do together.
 
He was thought to be a filly when he was born, until he got old enough to articulate himself on the subject and realise that he wasn’t. Now, Apples are very traditional, but above all that, they are extremely family oriented -so they quickly adapted and tried their best to help and understand him. Also, Equestria as a whole are very accepting; when you have an abstract symbol explaining your destiny on your flank, people are much more likely to take your word for and accept that you know yourself best (unlike humans, who often try to make their kids into what they want them to be. I mean, that still happens to ponies, but to much less of an extent), which bleeds over into other aspects.
 
He’s about average size for his age, but feels like he’s really small and slender: he really shouldn’t compare himself to all them giant apple genes surrounding him. He wishes he was taller and bigger, really admiring Amber’s stature. Amber usually doesn’t tease him about it, as she herself wishes she was quite a bit shorter (she’s lost count of how many times she’s smacked her horn into ceilings, branches and doorframes.) except when he’s purposefully being a brat about her size. Then she doesn’t mind using her larger frame to tease him.
 
His mane is curly and poofy, and usually covers his eyes for no other reason than he can’t be bothered to fix it. He has to wear hair-net’s whenever he’s actually candying the flowers, so that’s practically the only time you get to see his eyes. He was gifted the hair-band to try and help him keep it back, but he just wears in on top of his mane. Sugar Belle has to physically restrain herself from fixing it whenever his hair’s particularly messy. Tbh, at this point he’s just tousles it up beforehand to mess with her.
 
His special talent is the creation of candied flowers. Due to ponies being herbivores, flowers are a very popular food for them; raw flowers, fried flowers, salted dried fowers etc. Making a bouquet is an art form of balancing visual appeal with taste. (Yes, bouquets are made for eating in Equestria -think of it like combining chocolate and flowers into one gift.) And candied flowers is the most common candy there is. So his talent is everything from cultivating and growing the prettiest and tastiest flowers, to how to best candy them to preserve taste and appearence.
 
I think I’m happy with his design right now, but don’t be suprised if I decide to alter it or his name down the line. He’s been difficult to get a proper feel of.