• Member Since 14th Jul, 2012
  • offline last seen 2 hours ago

Georg


Nothing special here, move along, nothing to see, just ignore the lump under the sheet and the red stuff...

More Blog Posts479

  • 6 weeks
    Big Leather Egg Sunday

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  • 12 weeks
    New Year 2024- New Projects 1939

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  • 13 weeks
    Merry 2023 Hearth's Warming greetings and fic recommendations

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    2 comments · 241 views
  • 19 weeks
    Quick survey on Letters From a Little Princess Monster

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    11 comments · 427 views
Mar
27th
2017

Had a short question about Buggy and the Beast today and thought I’d share. (Spoilers!) · 3:36am Mar 27th, 2017

I'm loving Buggy and the Beast so far. So much so that it is the very first 'Story of the Month' via 'The Shipshelf' group. (Georg plug)

I wanted to ask, if I may... What gave you the inspiration for it? I haven't read this good of a Ling fic since Kevinltk's 'A Change in Fashion'. (also Georg plug)


(Response below the break)

Cover picture FIM Sleeping Changeling is courtesy of Avarraptor at Deviant Art.


There’s actually two answers to this. First, I had attempted to make an action/romance story between two unlikable characters with Genealogy - Or The Mating Habits of Nocturnes Pegasi a few years ago. It didn’t quite get the reaction I wanted, but that was understandable because the two characters were unlikable. (Imagine a Harry Potter shipfic between Draco and Pansy Parkinson) There were some other significant issues I wanted to try to write around, so I decided to go one more time to the well with a fresh sheet of paper. (I like my metaphors scrambled)

Secondly, I wanted to play with two character redemption arcs at the same time, while maintaining a single Point of View character. I had been playing with changeling stories for a little bit at that point, so when I decided to go for a play on Beauty and the Beast, I stood the whole thing on end and looked for anything that shook out. I had to have a secondary ‘Pancho’ character for reader-dialogue much like Spike, or Beet Salad (Beast) would just wind up talking to himself. I had considered having him talk to the ghost of his little brother, but that would get distracting with ‘Is he sane or is it really a ghost’ questions, so I held Beets up to a mirror and got Nectarine.

So there I have my framework. One ‘Beast’ with sidekick, one wounded bug for him to rescue, the inevitable falling in love, a forced separation, and a reunion chapter (because I *can’t* write a downer ending. Just look at Changelings, Love and Lollipops.) Oh, and since I had already done a Female Pony/Male Changeling story with Lollipops, I flipped genders here.

The important point in character creation was to make the two unlikable characters, likable. So here we have Beet Salad, the terminal grouch, who has tried and failed to save several other wounded pets like cats and dogs who were run over by wagons and such. Go ahead. Try to hate him, you puppy-kicker. Oh, and we have a crushed and battered changeling who is barely hanging onto life. Show what a heartless and cruel person you are by hating the poor, helpless, defenseless innocent girl.

See? Manipulating your emotions inside the first chapter. I’m so evil.

Now, how to turn up the pressure without losing focus on the two primary characters. I added a little ‘hunted’ to the mix by placing it right after the wedding, turned up the volume by having Cadence/Shiny honeymoon there, figured out how to have some interactions between them, and that’s where I decided to have Doctor Bonebreaker and Doctor Idiosyncrasy married. Remember, the complexity of a story increases by roughly the cube of the number of characters, so I tried to keep a light touch on everybody outside of the main two (I don’t really count Nec, because he’s mostly a Spike).

So now I have plot progression: Buggy, Beets, and Doctor Bonebreaker. Beets, Buggy, and Doctor Idiosyncrasy. One for treatment of physical ills, the other mental.

Now for the character arcs.

There’s a few dozen examples of “Boy takes in wounded Girl, nurses back to health, they fall in love” (Harlequin romances have about a thousand of the gender-reversed kind with nurses) but I wanted to walk a narrower path where neither of them had the slightest intention of falling in love. Buggy goes from “I’m wounded so badly I should kill myself so I don’t betray the hive” to “Maybe I can milk this sucker enough to limp home” to “I’m not going to get home and I’m afraid I’ll kill Beast.” Meanwhile, Beet Salad (in his stubborn fashion) goes from dragging another wounded creature back to his apartment in an attempt to prove to himself that he can save a life, even a little one like a dog, to “So she’s a changeling. Big deal.” to complaining about her even while he’s endangering himself protecting her and helping her, to actually admitting that he might possibly just care a little (very important) at about the same time she does.

Note that the character arcs are self-contained. Beet Salad’s character progression is Buggy-focused, and vice versa.

On a side note, this is a good reason to write these longer, complicated stories all out before even thinking about pushing the publish button, because I had to go back to earlier chapters on a daily basis to make little tweaks and changes. I’m a discovery writer, not an outliner, so what you see above here is me going back and justifying my decisions ex post facto. I had a fuzzy idea of the story structure from beginning to end before I started, but I didn’t outline it before I started writing.

High Points
I probably would not have tried another dislikable pair shipfic if not for two specific spots in Genealogy. The first terribly depressing point when Pumpernickel is moping about Laminia:

The night passed, and Celestia’s sun returned to the sky. Pumpernickel did not care, he remained in the house, his bandages changed by the same Aunt as before, his sleeping spot the same as before, his thoughts the same. When Moonrise happened again, he offered no resistance to drawing the family carriage which would take the family Book of Tradition to Ponyville. It did not matter. The elders would bring the Book into the library, and he would remain in harness at the wagon. He would not even have to see Laminia, and she would not see him. It would be better that way.

And the second in which he meets Laminia’s father:

“...don’t understand why Princess Luna would ever select you as her Hoofmaiden. You never knew your proper place when you were growing up, always whining and complaining. Limping around our house like some crippled duck, you were the shame of our entire family! Now you expect us to come to you, groveling on our bellies because you somehow have managed to trick Princess Luna into giving a crippled failure some meaningless job! I will not stand for this, and neither will any other proper family! The insult to the Night Pegasus honor will not stand, Princess Luna should know better than to have us turn over our precious Books of Tradition to a unicorn and a crip—”

It was strange how he first noticed the middle-aged Night Pegasus who was berating Laminia had a faint streak of blue down his mane; it shimmered in the library lighting as if it were metallic. He had never really noticed until now that Laminia had a faint echo of that same streak. He could see it through her entire mane and tail as she stood emotionlessly in front of her relative, probably an Uncle or Cousin. Slipstream, that was his name. Pumpernickel had seen his picture in the Academy long-distance flight record holder’s book; that little streak of blue was as distinctive on a Night Pegasus as if his whole body had been covered in a rainbow mane. The stallion’s voice was not strong and powerful as he had imagined it. Slipstream squeaked when he was excited, and when he made a splintering crash into the back wall of the library with Pumpernickel’s hooves at his throat, he made a very loud squeak indeed.


This led into two character spots in Buggy and the Beast, the first of which I could never have done without a changeling as a character:

There was a faint glare of green magic that Beets could see out of the corner of his eyes while he stared at the ruined carpet. Then a small and frail hoof was placed on his cheek, and a young male voice said, “You never got to say goodbye to your brother, did you? You never let go.”

Beets looked up into the blue eyes of his little brother, who was attempting and failing to blink away tears of his own. Admittedly, the changeling’s disguise was not exactly correct, and her voice was not even close, but for the time being, he chose to overlook the imperfections in her effort and concentrated on the intent. “No, I didn’t,” he whispered back. “Mother wouldn't even let me in the room near the end. I c-couldn’t—”

He broke off and wrapped the disguised changeling up in a cautious embrace, heedless of the tears pouring down his cheeks or the blubbering sobs wracking his chest. For now, the only important thing in the world was that he was able to do what he had not been able to do for years.

Beet Salad held onto his brother and wept.

The second where Beet Salad finds Buggy’s going away forever note:

He read it twice, then carefully folded the paper back up and considered the small, white square before lighting up his horn. It took a few minutes with a pencil to draw her face on the back of the paper, her pony face, that is. Then he picked up the photograph of his family and slipped the paper inside, tucked to one side where it did not block any of the rest of the faces. The picture went back on his bedstand, the alarm clock was checked again, and Beets flopped back down on his bed after his magic turned off the light.

“Liar,” he muttered.

And faded away into dreamless slumber.

Comments ( 8 )

loved the story. And it came along when i was on a changeling kick- did very well too, seeing as i've read it more than a couple times. keep it up, im sure there are others looking forward to more works.

Buggy and the Beast is one of my favorite stories. Very nice to see some insight on its creation.

Wow.... That was detailed... You had an entire strategy gong on. Very impressive. Also, I must say, you are one hell of a writer. The Shipshelf is at your disposal anytime you need it. I would be more then happy to tend to your review personally. But it would be difficult to top this blog. :rainbowlaugh: Good work on both counts. I'm looking forward to your next creation. -Mirth

Unlikable? Come now, Pumpernickel is adorable :rainbowwild:

I really enjoyed Buggy and the Beast, but then again I might be biased since I love stories with changelings in them.

It's always nice to get a glimpse into someone else's thought process. Speaking as an outliner, it was especially fascinating to see such a wildly different approach. Thank you for sharing this with us all. :twilightsmile:

Thanks for giving us some insight into one of my favorites! Your writing skills never cease to amaze.

To me, the most interesting characters in Buggy and the Beast were Bonebreaker and Idiosyncrasy. I kept expecting Luna to think that Idiosyncrasy actually represented a greater threat than Chrysalis, in a Don't Date Robots kind of situation.

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