Chrysalis: SoT Chapter 8 · 7:59pm Oct 6th, 2017
This has been a long time coming, but it is finally here. Tis the first chapter based off of a slice of life episode, specifically based off of Griffon the Brush Off. I present to you all: Get a Griff. More stuff, Including spoilers, after the break.
Get a Griff. It's really just a title meant to be a pun on griffon that isn't the one used in the actual show. Any relevance to things in the chapter are loose. I think it's a serviceable choice for a chapter title, but not much more than that.
Okay, moving on. In this chapter we get a few things early on with the gift basket. The food, while making sense, was admittedly mostly so that I wouldn't have to write a boring section on her going to the market to get food. The love letter...I admit that I don't know much about love letters, much like stated by both Luna and Chrysalis, so I just made stuff up. Did it work? Did it not? I don't know. Regardless, I felt it was warranted for what I want to do to have love letters be sent. There will be future love letters, but I probably won't actually write those ones out, merely referencing that they exist now and again.
Moving onto the wine, or more importantly, my sudden decision to make changelings who are drunk be incapable of holding a transformation. I tend to do that a lot. I've been praised once on having lots of thought being put into some of the tangents I put in revolving around how being a changeling changes how they interact with the world. Specifically I'm thinking of how tight clothes could injure a transforming changeling. I must confess that pretty well all of these were not pre-planned. I just have a bout of inspiration when Chrysalis encounters something on occasion. Regardless, changelings in this setting have the mentioned averse reaction to drunkenness. I do plan on using this in the future, but not for a little while yet. Probably in an original chapter set in the winter, but I'll have to flesh that out later.
I feel like I may have cheated a little by not actually giving detail to Chrysalis modelling for Rarity, but it didn't really seem like a relevant thing to actually describe in this chapter, and it's already over 10 000 words long. Anyway, in that visit, we get to see an explanation for why Sweetie seems to be living with Rarity, as well as just generally introducing Sweetie Belle to Chrysalis. That's two of the three CMC. Not quite sure how I'd introduce Scootaloo, though. It would probably be after the CMC get together as the CMC, though, which is an episode that shall be skipped in this story. Chrysalis as Twilight isn't really involved in that, so it wouldn't make sense to have it around unless I wanted to shoehorn her in, which I don't.
We get to see Time Keeper turn into Snowball. Chrysalis is a bit of a dick to Time Keeper, but he partially deserves it as the one who messed up time by literally killing Twilight Sparkle. Chrysalis displays that there are many things that she is not so skilled at. Among those are general knowledge of makeup, dyeing hair, and drawing. Not too much more to say about that section.
Moving onto the part where Chrysalis actually gets involved with the episode this chapter is based off of...it's not until half way through it that she does get involved. Part of me feels that it takes too long to get there, but there's just so much to deal with first. Oh well, it's not like Twilight was involved in the episode from the start, either. Now, the whole Pinkie and Rainbow Dash getting closer and all the pranking that happened at the start of the episode I'm going to say happened while Chrysalis was in the hospital. It might be a tight fit, but I see no reason why it couldn't work that way.
Chrysalis actually ends up entering into this a little earlier than the real Twilight had. Twilight had been visited by Pinkie after Gilda caused her to crash, while Chrysalis literally had the story crash into her. Needless to say, Chrysalis does not deal with the issue in the same way that Twilight did, both because she has a very different personality and because she literally saw Pinkie crash because of Gilda. The end result is a mixture of better and worse, with lean towards worse. Gilda is humbled by the experience and actually feels some affection to Pinkie Pie (or appreciation, if nothing else) and she doesn't blow up over the pranks at a party, alienating herself from Rainbow Dash because of her temper getting the better of her. On the other hand, Pinkie Pie is really angry with Chrysalis and the means used were undeniably bad.
Initially, I had planned on having Pinkie Pie forgive Chrysalis by the end of the chapter. I had initially had the whole hurting Gilda and broken promise be the primary concern. Both of those flew straight out of the window when I got to that point and realized there was a deeper problem and it was not nearly so easily resolved. Pinkie Pie, being the incredibly friendly and nice mare that she is, would be devastated at the prospect of having become a bully herself, and that's exactly what Chrysalis had pushed her into becoming. It's an identity that goes completely against everything Pinkie stands for. It wasn't fun. It wasn't funny. It was cruel, and Chrysalis had refused to listen to her concerns.
This is the second time I reached a point where my plans completely changed because I realized while writing that those plans just don't fit. The first time was when I chose to have Shining Armor stay in Ponyville for awhile. Initially, Chrysalis was supposed to be left to her own devices just like Twilight was, but then I realized that, given the circumstances, there's little chance that Celestia would leave her alone. She was possibly in danger from the creature that defeated Nightmare Moon, hadn't shown her own abilities by defeating NMM with the elements of harmony as the real Twilight had, and Celestia has suspicions that Twilight might be the mentioned monster. Both cases require me to change future plans. It's for the best in both cases, but it does make things a little more complicated every time it happens. How to get rid of Shining Armor? How to reach a point where Pinkie makes up with Chrysalis? So many questions.
Anyway, I think that's enough rambling about this chapter. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Next chapter will be the Trixie episode. Now I'm gonna go out into the world and see the My Little Pony Movie. Goodbye, everybody!
You've got to know when and where to cut things, I think a sudden smash cut to a frazzled Chrysalis after Rarity descended on her would fit the show, unless important conversation happened during the session.
You do a good job with details, as you say, I liked Chrysalis thinking about how her clothes would fit if she had to resume her (huge in comparison) normal form. Just don't let it take over the story and it's fine. The alcohol thing is a little iffier (it provides a surfire, nonmagic way to catch Changelings) but I assumed you were setting up a plot point for later because you needed Chrysalis to be in danger of exposure at some point.
Shining Armor may be tricky to handle. At some point, perhaps Chrysalis will have convinced him she's safe enough that he's willing to let her travel about without him. In the meantime, I did enjoy his perspective which was "Instead of capturing and threatening Gilda, you should have reported her to the police, so we could capture and threaten/imprison her", showing a third position between Chrysalis and Pinkie.