Fireside Chat #2: The Crystal Human Chapter Three · 6:29pm Aug 17th, 2023
(If you want to read the previous Fireside Chat, you can find a link here)
Hello and welcome to the second fireside chat! Today, we will be discussing Chapter Three of "The Crystal Human". As usual, I will be talking about various things that you may or may not have noticed. This will include spoilers, so make sure to read the chapter first.
Without further ado, please grab your watermelon and lets get into:
Chapter Three: Dreaming of Portals, Writing Luna, and Trying to make The Royal Sisters Relatable in One Scene or Less.
Concerning our protag dreaming of a Portal 2 cutscene... well, I'm not gonna say much about what it might imply. I plan on explaining it in a later chapter, so I really don't wanna talk much about it. Just know that, while it did start as a joke (maybe even a future April Fools chapter, if this story doesn't die by then), I decided to use it as a basis for a future explanation of how the dream realm works in this version of Equestria. Plus, the idea of Luna's voice coming out of the recently potatofied GLaDOS was just to funny of an image for me to pass up.
Speaking of best princess (fight me, sun-lovers), I really hope I didn't go overboard with Luna's old ponish speak. It's my first time ever trying to write dialogue like that, so I had no idea what the proper balance would be. I'm hoping I did it right, but feel free to tell me if I'm wrong.
You might be asking "wait, old ponish? Didn't she stop that doing that after 'Luna Eclipsed'?" To that I say: yes, but I don't care.
Ok, no. That's not the actual answer.
The real answer is much more simple and can even be summed up in one word: Intimidation.
From Luna's Point of View, she was dealing with a creature that could very easily harm her niece and nephew-in-law should it decide to do so. So, when Luna entered Jackson's dream, she made the decision to intimidate Jackson by using old ponish speak. Whether or not that actually worked is... very debatable, and it was written as such.
She may be best princess, but even she is not perfect.
Speaking of princesses, let's get to the scene with Sunbutt.
What I wanted to do was show The Royal Sisters behind closed doors. To show what they look and act like without the crown and regalia on. You know, just them acting like sisters, having a casual chat about the fate of an entire empire. I feel like I could've done that scene better, but I hope it at least lays a good groundwork for how I'm going write the sisters in this story. They have a public face that they show their subjects, but in private they get to let loose and have a little fun.
The almost spit take was my attempt at a little humor.
I was originally gonna end it here, but I've got some miscellaneous things here to tell you about:
1: The Frank Sinatra joke is actually a replacement that I added during the editing process. It was originally a FNAF joke, and I cut it cause I thought it was cringe. It went a little something like this:
The fact that I nearly started laughing when he said “it’s me” just proves how I consumed too much FNAF related content when I was younger. Wheatley? More like Golden Freddy, am I right? Am I right?
2: The line "And so, she left" right at the end of Luna's visit to Jackson's dream realm is a cheeky little reference to the story "And so I left" by CrimsonS4ge. Go give it some love!
3: Celestia's comment about the Mirror Portal. Yes, Equestria Girls is a thing. Yes, it will become important to the story later. No, I will not say how. You'll just have to wait until either
A: We get there, or
B: I abandon the story and tell you then. Whichever happens first.
And that's it. Not sure when Chapter Four is gonna be out.
Actually, no. I do know when it's gonna come out. It's gonna come out when it's ready. Release schedule? What's that?
Anyways, I have an early draft of chapter four. Originally, it was gonna focus on Twilight figuring out how to help Jackson with the language barrier while on the train ride north as told from the perspective of Spike, but I decided to make that Chapter Five instead. Chapter Four will instead focus on the enigma known as Jackson Brunner. Both take place at the same time as each other anyways, so it it's not a very big deal.
For those who bothered to read this post, here's a Chapter Four title drop. (Well, the working title at least)
Thank you for reading, and have a good day.
5742716
You win this round, Sunbutt.