A Bug on a Stick - Q&A · 3:40pm Sep 14th, 2020
After over two years and about 130k words, I just posted the epilogue. The curtains fall on A Bug on a Stick.
I can barely believe I managed to do it, and I'm delighted and humbled that people seem to love this story about three fillies and the joys and pains of growing up. And while the basic structure I had in mind has remained the same from the inception, many things have taken a life of their own and trashed some of the plans I had when I started. Mainly the one about limiting the story to 50k words.
So, thank you all for staying with me until the end, it is time for me to stop babbling and start to listen to you. Use this post to ask questions, and I will see to answer them as completely as possible and with a complete disregard for spoilers.
Edit:
A quick note about sequels: I have ideas and I have plans, but if anything will come from it then it will be short stories. The time I will have to write stuff in the future will be quite limited.
You're probably already being bombarded with this, but what I'd really like to know is: are there plans for a sequel?
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Nothing that massive, but I think it would probably be a good idea putting it right into the blog post:
I have ideas and I have plans, but if anything will come from it then it will be short stories as the time I will have to write stuff in the future shall be quite limited.
I don’t have any personal plans to do so, but do you mind if anyone else wants to write stories in your alt universe?
Darned good stick there.
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I have no issues whatsoever with other people writing stories in the setting.
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Thanks
Congrats! It's been a long, strange, and thoroughly enjoyable journey.
If this story gets a sequel ill drink it like an oasis. So here my question, when will the story be set to place in the sequel? (If there's a sequel) Formation of equestria or it's where's it left off? And most importantly, what starlight and Trixie reaction!?
It's finished! Woo-hoo!
I've sworn a mighty oath not to begin reading unfinished fics, but this one has tempted me for a long time. Now, I can finally curl up with a good
bugbook!5355232
Starlight is probably just glad that something good came out of her breaking time.
Congrats on completing it! It's been a joy to be along for the ride.
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And you two have been amazing. I wouldn't have made it without you
Cool. Time to re-read it all.
And about the sequel/short stories, well you put them all in a anthology? It'll be easier for you and all the readers to place them all in one place.
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As I said, I can't make promises because I have no idea how my life will shape up in the coming years. It will be an incredibly positive change, but I truly can't make plans.
If I write a sequel, though, there are a couple of ideas I was playing with:
Not all these ideas are or will be good, but I generally think about short stories set in various epochs.
Starlight suspects Mind Magic Shenanigans and will try to uncover the truth. It will probably involve a lot of collateral damage. Trixie is grumpy because Ocellus never told her, and she was the school counselor.
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If I manage to write them, then yes, I will collect them in an anthology.
I am happy you loved writing this story as much as l loved reading it. This story is easily one of my favorite stories on the website.
Any further stories in that you write will be devoured like a starving person in an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Fantastically done. I was enraptured every step of the way. I look forward to owning it in physical form (even if I have to print and bind it myself)!
One question itches away at the back of my mind though. Perhaps this was answered elsewhere but... where did all the other changeling come from then? Did the Great Destructor create life? Or maybe she figured out how to finally appease those cultists with a magic-genetic makeover.
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Chrysalis created them. At the beginning they were simply mindless drones, but with time she learned to make them a bit more independent until she was able to give them individuality and make them real people and her children.
Progenitor didn't appreciate that at all.
I'm still a bit confused about the ending. Did Chrysalis end up consuming Tia and Luna along with the rest of the universe? Are the Tia and Chryssi we see at the end actual reincarnations in a new universe, or just Chrysalis imitating a new universe with new bodies and minds based on the originals? Honestly, I'm a bit weirded out right now.
the one i thing i would have liked to see most is the reaction of the house and all of them when tia and luna brought chryssie back as alicorns now
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Chrysalis absorbed the old, dying universe, but she didn't consume it. She ate a couple of dead universes to get fed, and then created a new, young universe with all the souls and people from the previous one and with herself embedded in the structure.
Tia, Luna, and almost everybody else are a proper reincarnations.
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Having wings made the whole thing a lot easier.
I didn't write that explicitly because I felt that Celestia and Luna, now ascended, inviting Chrysalis to come with them was the proper ending of that phase of their lives.
-Do people actually die permanently in the setting once Chrysalis establishes her abilities? And does she get to bring people back once she doesn't have to keep up the charade any more? I like the idea of some Matrix style stasis facility hidden in the core of the planet where people go at the time of their death, with their body replaced by a perfect replica that was never alive. I'm sure there is some silly explanation she can give her creator.
Daaaaad~ I have to keep them around. Yes, I know it doesn't make sense in most universes but it does in this one. I.... need to harvest their innate magic... because bzzzzz, I think the recep.... is getting worse. Talk to you in a decade, love you.-Does she get an invitation to the former villains society? I wonder how she'd get along with Trixie, Sunset, Starlight, and Tempest. Or does she have to join Gilda and Angel Bunny in the much less exclusive kinda reformed nuisances club?
-Does Chrysalis like kites?
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So, the universe eater created a new universe? And can manipulate souls? How did she manage that?
Does Chryssi ever punch Progenitor in the face?
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I mean, she's literally basically an entity of God tier power. who has feasted on two entire universes, as well as all of the unnecessary stuff in this universe. The new universe is just her taking a dump of everything she didn't digest
no, but the serious answer is she ate three universes, and then created a new universe inside of herself that contains everything. essentially, celestia, luna, and everybody else are kind of part of chrysalis now, or more accurately held within a cavity she has created within herself to contain this universe
at least, that's how I'm understanding it and if kettle says I got something wrong then they can correct me. but yeah, essentially what Chrysalis is done is ensured she can literally spend forever with those she cares about. when they have too many memories and they're tired, reboot the universe and start over, reincarnation is kind of awesome like that
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What Morning Sun said is fundamentally correct. The differences in cosmology between what they said and my vision are irrelevant in the greater scheme of things and, more importantly, weren't inferable from the text.
Chrysalis in her new form can contain the memories, but they won't weigh down on the incarnations if they don't want them. They are free to live their lives unburdened by the past if they want to do so. Nothing is lost and nothing is a unwanted burden.
I like cosmic consequence for kindness and love.
"I can barely believe I managed to do it, and I'm delighted and humbled that people seem to love this story about three fillies and the joys and pains of growing up."
Congratulations. :)
And good luck with the future writing (and the future in general), whatever it may be!
As for questions... hm. Well, a fair number have already been answered in the comments. Other seem to me like they're not so much wanting comments as new stories for their answers, and I think that's a bit outside the scope of this thread. :D
(I'm also low on time at the moment for question composition, but fortunately I don't feel like I'm missing any really important ones because of that.)
So, I suppose, at least for now, just one I thought of: the blocking of Progenitor enabling Chrysalis's depetrification was attributed to to Starlight's mucking about with time, but it seems like the coast wasn't clear until decades after what we saw of that in the show. So, does this indicate that there was additional more recent mucking about with time in the intervening years, or is the delay-from-the-perspective-of-those-stuck-in-normal-linear-time actually just a result of how twisted up the mess was? Or something else?
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While the physical form expires, their essence remains. Once you encompass all and when you can look back through time you can save everything. Sunset is an exception because she went to the new world, so she is the unique one.
As for Progenitor, when they returned they found an unexpected surprise. Immortals (like alicorns) just become more numerous, so they faced a lot of very powerful beings (and Chrysalis) who told it to take a hike.
There has been a long debate between the two groups about where Chrysalis should go. Considering the members things became dangerously sarcastic pretty soon. At the end Chrysalis decided to join Gilda and Angel Bunny. They had better scones.
They are fun, and one Redeeming Quality Starlight saw in Chrysalis is that she could help her building some of the more esoteric designs. Twilight decided to institute a review board with veto powers after one of their successful prototypes poked the concept of Differential Equation in, well, let's call it the eye.
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In a rather metaphorical way, yes.
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The effects of Starlight's mucking about took, ironically, some time to finalize.
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Ah, thanks. :D
(And I've enjoyed and found interesting/informative answers to other people's questions here too. :))
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Thank you.
Pinkie must have held one amazing last party before their original universe went bye bye. Imagine, everybody who is somebody, or ever was somebody, will be there
Poor Tempest, her natural affinity for microwaving things came along a couple decades too early for Equastria's industrial development to catch up in time. That makes me wonder, after ending up in the same club would it be on Chrysalis to take Gilda into her flock? Classic griffon culture seemed to be an early favorite of the changeling. Aside from that, the young one definitely needs some help and guidance.
I just realized how much I need those short stories.
They'll make do. DEs are a chill class of functions, it's hard to make them angry.
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One of my favorite pieces of media recently is Granblue Fantasy, and it's because the producers feel the same way, to the point they'e spent 4 years and 3 events doing their take on Romeo and Juliet - and in the 3rd event there's a bit where Romeo is now Shakespeare himself (it makes sense in context) and has written his first play.
And it was a tragedy, originally, but Romeo changed the ending, and as he explains, 'The world is full of tragic stories, and they need to be told too, but he personally has come to prefer happy stories, and so they've decided it's time for this play to be a happy story' and the play-in-a-play has a happy ending and then Romeo & Juliet get married and the actual event has a happy ending and it's this wonderful meta author-tract.
Basically, any series where Love/Friendship is the ultimate power in the universe is my jam.
Because it is. The moment you teach Friendship to Cthulhu is the moment we need no longer fear the stars going right.
Well, mostly. Friendship to Cthulhu may mean devouring you rapidly with a minimum or horrified insanity, but Chryssi suggests you just need a baby Cthulhu :P
And if it weren't clear Kettle I adore basically all of this. If I had any negative feedback at all it'd be making turning out the lights in the old universe a little gentler but that's so minor <3
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I'm really, really glad it worked so well for you. I see what you mean with the turning out the lights, but then I thought that for the characters this was something that had so long been coming that for them it was really the equivalent for switching off the light in a room. After all, everything important was leaving.
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I think it was the whole odd will it hurt aspect of it, which implied some degree of being killed and consumed. So I think it's mostly just that the ending feels a little too vore ish, lol
Great story, will we get a short story of pirate luna and celista?
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Hmmm, that wasn't really what I was going for. I mean, they are absorbed because then there will be the next part of their voyage, but they were not devoured. I'll have to think a bit more about the formulation.
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Maybe a short story, but I can't make any promise yet. I will try, though.
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Given you are going through that angle, I'd kinda suggest giving Celestia/Luna some alicorn equivalent of becoming One With the Force, perhaps. So at the end they finally do the Yoda thing.
Then she eldritch horrors a new universe into being or whatever.
Though that leads to some odd interesting questions about afterlife cosmology. Though I guess if Chrysalis can eat -Time-, that also means she eats back along the past as well (Or would have) and thus slowly manifests backwards along the timeline.
Had Chryalis told the other changelings about her actual plans, or were they just rolling with her?
Are those her actual children (or something like that), or pieces separated from her goo which gained consciousness?
And will Chrysalis at one point become a colorful beetle?
(What does she think of those anyway?)
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Eating Time would negate the lives people lived, so she avoided doing that. She can manifest in certain forms, though, and she uses it to give people choices regarding where their essence goes. From what she understands of the universe, they remain as reverb and thus experience the afterlife in this new form. When she absorbs the universe she will maintain the reverb. This is non-destructive, so she needs to nibble on death universes to get sustenance.
There have been long discussions if that is the true afterlife and if there isn't some other form of the soul that goes on. Chryssi hasn't been able to disprove it.
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Some of these questions are answered in I Don't Want to Grow Up
So, Spoilers ahead:
The other changelings knew the plans and kept their mouths shut. This was necessary, but it will create some fallout when the truth comes out.
They are functionally Chryssi's children. The first ones were simply mindless constructs she piloted, but then she made them more and more autonomous. Once they became sentient she decided that they were her children and worked to give them sapience.
As for the colorful new design, she isn't too happy about it. It was decided by committee by her children, so she accepted it with a lot of complaining. She will try the look sooner or later, but she won't feel comfortable in it for a long time.
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So I assume she chould just eat everything including souls though which makes her at once curious and yet horrifying lol, as it hsould be