Altered Visage Chapter 8

Say hello to the next chapter of poor old Victor/Chance/Visage's story: "Of Angels and Changelings". As always, spoilers for the chapter will be in this blog post.

First I'm going to address something not actually related to this chapter, but instead the last. I had been incredibly nervous about posting a chapter that contained the rape of our protagonist. Much to my surprise, not only did I not get any backlash for it, but it ended up being one of the more popular chapters if you go based on views, additional likes the story received and that it didn't gain a single dislike since I posted that chapter. I wish to thank all of you for proving my concerns unfounded, so....thanks guys.

Now onto this chapter. First, a relatively irrelevant thing. Of all the chapter titles, I think this one is my favourite. "Of Angels and Changelings" just really appeals to me for some reason.

Next up, let's talk about changes and additions to this chapter since I started posting the story. Of the chapters posted so far, this is the one with the greatest amount of changes, though I'd say they're mostly in the form of additions. There are many minor changes, such as having Nutcase mention that Twilight has in the past tried to check up on the MC, Pinkie mentioning that Twilight stopped because she was preoccupied with her abducted brother, and the idea that Pinkie had attempted to sneak into Nutcase's home at night. Then there was a moderate change, such as having the MC attack Nutcase when she goes to open the cage (initially, I just had him resisting by cartoonishly hanging onto the cage door in an effort not to be removed from it until she used the ring to force him out, which I felt was a little out of place tonally). The biggest change, however, was Nutcase's confrontation with the members of the Hive Search and Rescue Squad 13.

Initially, I had named only one of the three in the rescue squad, specifically Webber. Furthermore, I didn't give any of the characters any traits to differentiate them from each other. There was no mention of them being a specialized rescue team, or of having different individual specializations, or of Webber being bigger than the others, or having a deeper voice, or Cocoon's fascination with anything magical, or Doppelganger's "athletic" build, or much of anything, really. The fight between those three and Nutcase? It was literally a sentence or two tacked onto the end of a paragraph, something along the lines of pointing out that Nutcase was injured and outnumbered, followed by "needless to say, it was a one sided fight." I'm not sure if I'm much good at writing action scenes, but I still think this was an improvement on the original. It was certainly less lazy, if nothing else.

The characters of the rescue squad are now at the point where I feel like it's waste that I don't use them more in the overall story. I've actually been tempted to try writing a spin-off of Altered Visage that focuses on their adventures rescuing changelings in need. There's a good chance I won't do it, but the idea is there at the very least.

Lately you may have noticed that more and more changelings are entering into the story, or at least more are interacting with Chance. We've reached a point in the story where changelings are become a major part. Next chapter, we get to see the changeling hive, and how Chrysalis reacts to our MC. This also means that it's where I end up dealing with more of the original characters of the story, and less so on characters like the mane six, as well as putting more focus on Queen Chrysalis. How will people react to my take on her? Will it work out? Will people still enjoy my story at that point? The insecure pessimist in me is nervous about that, but the majority of me is confident enough that I'm just being unnecessarily concerned again.

I wonder if anybody actually cares enough to slog all the way through my ramblings. Regardless, that's enough from me. Hope you guys liked the chapter.