This story is a sequel to A Nice Cup of Tea
Why would a pony like Derpy Hooves -- good-natured, well meaning, and simple in her ways -- ever dislike such a wonderful season as Hearth's Warming? She has her reasons, and she makes it a point not to think about them. Still, the season gets her down, and the last thing she needs at this time of year is a special delivery for none other than Queen Chrysalis, herself. It might not be the greatest day of her life, but this delivery still might mean more to the mare they all know as "Derpy" than anypony could have imagined. It is a difficult thing to come face-to-face with a creature who truly understands -- and consumes -- hearts, especially at a time of year when one's heart is doing its best to stave off memories of a time not so very long ago.
This is NOT "A Christmas Carol" with Derpy Hooves as Ebenezer Scrooge. That would be inane (and maybe pretty awesome, but still inane.) Instead, it's an examination of love and the nature of the heart, and a look at one of the reasons why some of us just can't help feeling a little out of sorts at a time of year that is supposed to be marked by joy. There are a few laughs here and there, and there might -- just maybe -- be a happy ending. Still, don't come looking for a warm fuzzies dispenser. You won't get it.
A Misadventure of Derpy Hooves.
Or was it Ditzy Doo?
Cover Art by Tarantad0 of deviantart.
Click the source link for the original piece, and be sure to favorite it!
this story is lovely, but terrible because it makes me think of someone I lost years ago.
Thank you.
3626254
Well, thanks for reading it, at least. I didn't really mean for it to turn out this way. I wanted to write a comedy, and Chrysalis is my favorite villain. I figured it would be funny to have Derpy meet her.
I was wrong.
I do think the story has its redeeming qualities, though the first story in this series is still my favorite.
Once again, thanks for reading.
Well I think you did an admirable job writing Chrysalis. Seriously, it genuinely quite touching. Still, I don't think the opportunities for comedy are dead just because of some serious and sad traits. Given the job you've done with her I would love to see you write more of Chrysalis being my favourite villain.
As for the rest of the story? Equally as good and an effort much appreciated. Very bitter sweet.
Well, the thing about comedy is that there has to be an element of the tragic in it somewhere.
3630678
That's one of the reasons that this isn't my favorite in this series. It relies very heavily on subtext, and it's not a straightforward, A to B to C type of plot. It feels a little out of place alongside the other "Misadventures of Derpy Hooves." Most of the time, my stories -- Derpy fics, or otherwise -- have some sort of objective for the protagonist; some set of circumstances under which he or she will "win or lose," so to speak. I go into how the events of a story affect a character's feelings a good bit, but while that may be important, it's not usually the biggest thing at stake.
This one is completely about how the characters feel, and why they feel that way. That goes just as much for Chrysalis as it does for Derpy. That sort of requires the use of a lot of subtext and vagary, or it becomes a dry, boring "So and so felt this," sort of narrative.
Like I said in the author's note on the final chapter, it tries to do way more than it probably should have in so few words, but oh well. It's done, now.
Sometimes stories just write themselves, taking on a life of their own and going in directions that the author never anticipated. For what it's worth, I thought this was great.
3641398
Well, thank you very much. Glad you liked it, and since I saw where you faved it in my Meta Feed, thanks for that, too.
This here, is some solid damn prose. No bullshit, no drawn-out introductions, snappy dialogue, effective characterization. This is solid, and it's cool. I even like the Boxxy OC (must be a Christmas miracle)!
Clap yourself on the back for me.
Aw...
Also, typo in chapter 2: "rolls" should have been "roles".
3645910
Fixed the typo. I'll have to blame that one on the whiskey. I actually have a theatre degree, so it irks me to know I used the wrong spelling of "role."
That said, thanks for the kind words. As for Boxxy Brown, unless they've changed it, that's actually the name (as listed on the MLP:FiM Wiki) of Derpy's foreman, the big, brown pegasus with a crate for his cutie mark, seen in "Feeling Pinkie Keen" when Derpy clocks Twilight with a piano. I generally refer back to the Wiki, and pull background ponies from there. In the rare instance where I create a pony on my own, like Chill Breeze, I tend to build them for what the story needs, rather than according to some ideal of mine. I actually don't love the character of Chill Breeze. He feels like a bit of a rehash, but he was mechanically efficient for what I needed to do within the narrative. Hearth's Warming is essentially a modified Christmas with little horses. So, I forgave myself for getting a little cheesy there. Christmas stories have license to be cheesy.
Also, I restrict myself to "Everyone" ratings for these Derpy fics, and it's hard to avoid cheese within the realm of what this fandom thinks of as "Everyone" material. Just look at the show. I'll go a little darker and more serious than some within that rating, but my rule is that if Don Bluth wouldn't do it, I won't, either.
Thanks again for reading!
Oh, this is interesting. I enjoy seeing Chrysalis as a character, and not as a laughing villian.
Also, how is it that you have so few comments?
You let Derpy grow. That may not have been a goal, but I found it a good end.
3901923
Let me begin by saying thanks for reading.
As for Derpy, she's an easy target for character development in some ways. We know very little about her from the show, except that she's a klutz. Beyond that, you can pretty much fill in whatever you want. If Derpy is ever allowed to speak again in the show, I find it doubtful that she will behave anything like this version of her, but it's fun for me to write about her as something more than a generalized goofball.
Now, Chrysalis, on the other hand... She's pretty much my favorite villain from the series. When she was first introduced, the idea of something that replaces someone you love so it can basically feed on your soul struck me as possibly the most sinister form of evil I could imagine. Unlike most cartoon evil, though, this didn't seem to fall apart or become goofy and trite when I scrutinized it more thoroughly. In fact, it just seemed darker and more horrible.
You're talking about a creature that, insofar as she has been presented thus far, has no source of joy except to feed on others. She can desire someone, but never really love them, and she can never really be loved merely for being what she is because that is so utterly unlovely. The only way that she can ever receive the love she craves is to replace whomever was its intended recipient, and even as she consumes it, she is aware all the while that it was never meant for her. Even if someone tried to love Chrysalis, even just out of pity, they would only be destroyed for their effort.
So, fundamentally, in this world based on "the magic of friendship," she is damned to be perfectly alone for her entire life. She can't even have a real friend because friendship is based on love. Worst of all, she is just one of an entire species. There are too many changelings for them to be, for instance, ponies that were mutated by their own selfishness, or some such. They're born into that pitiful existence. Then, they live in it, they suffer in it, and finally, they die in it. That's horrible -- a kind of misery so poignant that it's bizarrely beautiful, if only for the bitterness, the irony, and the perfection of it.
And I can't say why I don't get more views, comments, etc. My guess is that FiMFiction has just become so bloated that the only way you can really get lots of readers is to write clopfics, shipfics, or crossovers with popular universes. Either that, or to have been established since before the site was so flooded with new stories every day.
As it is, the people who find my stuff here find it, and more of them seem to like it than dislike it. So, I must be doing something right.
Thanks again for reading.
I got to ask, are you going to continue this universe?
4112494
Maybe.
I write this series when I get ideas for it, but I can't always guarantee that will happen right when I want it to or even if it ever will, again. Who knows? I might come up with an idea for another one tomorrow, for all I know.
The thing is that right now I'm pretty busy in my day-to-day. So, I'm not writing much of anything, at the moment.
Awwwwww, what a cute story. (In response to the last authors note.) Don't worry about it this story is more than good, its perfect, I actually almost cried (quiet an impressive feat.). I'm very glad that you wrote this story, I definitely love the concept of Ditzy finding love, and interacting with Chrysalis, so thank you for writing.
~TheEmpressEclipse~
4259594
Well, thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to read it, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
4266288
Your welcome.
~TheEmpressEclipse~
Damn, I read the other misadventures before this one.
This one, it hits pretty hard and it has a more real and sad tone, but at the same time, it has to be one of the best so far.
Thank you for writing it!
4984643 Thanks. This one is still my favorite of the four that currently exist. I'm glad people are still reading it.
oooh... pithy.
"This got really, really messy."
But it worked out fine. Damned good exposition on Chrysalis.
5295083
Hey!
Thanks again for reading. There's one more of these Derpy fics on the way -- two at most. Before then, though, I have to warn you; my next project is a bit of absurd comedy based on a concept that nobody but me may even find funny. It's going to be short, ridiculous, and completely unrelated to anything else I've done. So, if it seems odd compared to everything else I've written, don't panic; it's not a long-term change; just a quick one-shot written for my own amusement.
Thanks for taking the time to read these Derpy fics!
*slowclap*
I like it. It's well written. It's almost poetic in it's accuracy. It does well in capturing the knife-in-the-heart pain of loss, but it doesn't get so real that it becomes a reminder of the reader's potential real-life losses, and by extension, become unbearable to read. And of course it has an optimistic ending. Usually that would sicken me in a "people-are-dead-you-can't-just-imply-everything's-going-to-be-fine" way, but like I said, it's not real enough, and the ending was well done.
10/10, in terms of fics that deal with this sort of thing.
Was the thing with the specific posture reacting to the flames a reference to something?
I'd also say that Love can be fought after it dies down... otherwise lifelong marriages couldn't work, because they are a commitment to fall in love with the same time over and over again... or so I hear.
and some of them I should have liked to have playedh a little longer.
-Typo.
She almost passed in complete silence. She almost said nothing. It would have been so easy.
But Derpy Hooves spoke to the near-total stranger.
“You don't have to be embarrassed,” she said.
-At this point I got the idea that it might be Double Diamond, and that his wife and child died in something related to his mark, which is part of why he wasw willing to get rid of it.
“Chill Breeze,” he said.
-...guess not.
6821252 If you mean the point where Chrysalis' head turns a bit too far and such, it's more just to demonstrate that she isn't really an equine; similar in form but fundamentally unnatural. I just really liked the idea of the character, and I wanted to do an alternate take on her that emphasized her more as a character than as a cackling cartoon villain.
I get sick of villains in children's entertainment all being the same arrogant, laughing fool who is always defeated due to overconfidence. I like competent, calm villains who carry themselves with dignity and manifest themselves as real, believable threats -- and who have identifiable, relatable motives. If that makes them seem less "villainous," so much the better. No one needs to believe that their enemies in life will be purely evil. It's much more useful to understand them as fundamentally human with a different viewpoint from oneself. Most often those to whom we find ourselves opposed in life feel they are morally in the right and that they have perfectly adequate reasons for whatever they are doing.
I like blurring the lines of what should be considered "evil." What I was attempting to do was to make the reader question whether something that initially seemed alien and horrible was really a "villain" in the sense we typically like to use the word. Perhaps Chrysalis is less evil and more simply alien; a thing that must be fought because of her very nature, regardless of whether she would have chosen that nature, had she been given the choice, at all.
Thank you for pointing out the typographical error. I fixed it.
And thank you for reading.
Rarity's marketing is certainly … inclusive.
Well, it sure keeps you something.
7317815 Believe it or not, that statement is true. Voicing your thoughts and thinking out loud are not the same as talking to yourself. It is a technique taught to Spec-Ops (among other types of people who don't do it naturally) as a way for them to keep their sanity under extreme stress or isolation. We, as human beings need to hear a human voice even if it's our own, so, this translates well into the depth of the character.
7481906
I'm glad to see that someone gets it. I lived alone for eight years, and I did a lot of talking to myself to keep myself sane. That was part of where the inspiration for that line came from.