The Making of The Crystal and the Mirage (And Happy Birthday to Me!)

For starters, it's my birthday today, and it seems I've already received a nice gift:

I was pretty stoked about that, as I've never had a story of mine pop up in the feature box on its first chapter before. Yay, me! And thanks to you guys for making that happen, by the way.

Anyhow, I promised a sort of "making-of" documentary blagpost, so here we go.

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I know I promised I'd work on Desert Spice next, but sometimes your muse bites down on a particular idea and refuses to let go. This was one of those times.

It all started, oddly enough, with the aftereffects of the Molt episode. Someone or other (possibly FoME, or whoever was doing EqD's followup that week) had suggested that Rarity's cutie mark looked like dragon scales. A friend of mine I like to play tabletop games over the internet with and I got to talking about some cracky stuff as a result. It helps that we both like dragons.

Stuff didn't move forward immediately, but the seed had been planted.

The next day, more crack happened:

(For those of you not up on your D&D dragon lore, copper dragons are fondly referred to as "pun dragons". One of their abilities is to tell a joke so hilarious, that it kills the hearer. Like a certain Monty Python skit, if I recall correctly.)

There was more discussion of the qualities of blue dragons, such as their smell (sand and ozone), alignment (lawful jerkface, though officially lawful evil), and other such things (such as how they make excellent parents, and need to bury their eggs in the sand).

Jury is still out on whether or not Rarity would lay eggs in the universe this fic was set in, but I'm leaning towards no. If only because she would have probably noticed that her period experience was significantly different from those of other mares.

Immediately after that exchange, magic happened:

That's right: This fic was written in a Discord conversation. Over the course of a couple hours. It wasn't even intended to be a fic when I started out; it was just an opportunity for take my muse out for a walk. (A very enthusiastic walk, as it turned out.) That's also how it got its framing device and format of an old dragon telling his story in fairy-tale format.

What took me a couple of weeks to post it was finding time for me and SNAF to sit down together and edit the blasted thing. The editing helped a lot, I feel, and we ended up with the fic that so many of you seem to have enjoyed. Georg also volunteered to help me edit it further, so more changes may or may not be forthcoming. (Georg's a writing genius, and has experience with stories of a similar format, but it's a struggle to both properly apply his advice and still keep it "my" fic.)

Thanks for reading, both the fic and this blag.

And happy birthday to me!

Comments

[BlazzingInferno]

Happy birthday, and congratulations on the feature!
I’ve had a few story ideas pop out of random conversations, but never so directly as this. Thanks for the behind the scenes look

[Georg]

Happy Birthday! And yes, I'm the pushiest editor ever, sometimes in ways that do *not* contribute. Ask Irrespective sometime.

[Viking ZX]

Happy birthday Bugsy! And congratulations on the feature box! It's well-deserved!

It's a fun story too! Thanks for sharing the journey that brought it to the world!

Edit: And that's a pretty good observation on Rarity's cutie mark. It's her destiny!

[Bugsydor]

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Thanks! It was an adventure, to be sure. Not to mention much faster than my usual process.

4883809
Thanks for the high praise! Rarity's Destiny is multiple choice, and there are a number of excellent, dragon-flavored options.

4883796
Thanks!

Yes, you can be incredibly pushy. Hopefully my mining and word-prospecting skills are up to snuff for sifting the universal gems from the tough Georgite it's embedded in.

[RazDelacroix]

Happy Birthday!

[Reese]

Ah, happy birthday! And congratulations on making the box. :)

You're welcome, and thanks for the information. :)

[Bugsydor]

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Thanks.

[DocFlareon]

I'd like to see more of this setting. And allow me to suggest that Rarity will be laying eggs.

[Bugsydor]

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Sadly, this Rarity likely does not lay eggs for plot reasons. It'd be difficult for her to not realize that she was part dragon if she did.

Unless she thought that all mares laid eggs, which leads to some amusing implications.

"Rarity, did you hear?" Spike said, waving his arms frantically. "The Cakes just had twins!"

"That's wonderful news, Spikey-wikey. Hmm... What to bring them as a gift? I could always go with a gold nugget, I suppose. It's traditional, but it's just so impersonal."

"Tradition?" Spike replied, raising one scaly eyebrow. "I guess it is sorta their birthdays, but aren't they a little too small to appreciate presents right now?"

Rarity tittered. "Nonsense, Spike. Every hoard needs to start somewhere, and it's my responsibility as a friend of the family to do my part. At least, that's how it was explained to me when we did this for Sweetie Belle. Friends and extended family crawled out of the woodwork from all over to pitch in for hers. And for mine too, I suppose.

"Come now, Spike!" she said, prancing over to what could only be described as a treasure chest and unlocking it with her magic. "If we pick out something just right for one of the foals, it could end up as their hoard's centerpiece!" And then various beautifully crafted odds and ends began to spill into the air, each one wrapped in her telekinesis's blue glow.

'It's funny,' Rarity mused as she and Spike rummaged through the chest of semi-valuables for something appropriate, 'I never saw any eggs around the Cakes' residence. They must have been keeping them warm in the oven.'

"Aha!" she cried out, holding her prizes aloft: a crystalline mallet and a topaz-encrusted tiara. "They're perfect."

"You sure? How do you figure? And aren't those a little big for foals?"

"In reverse order: Three, they'll grow into them later, and they're going to be kept in a hoard most of the time anyway. Two, a mare just knows these things, Spike. And one, absolutely.

"Now let's go and see these precious foals!" She flounced to the front and slammed the boutique's doors open dramatically, before some of the certainty evaporated from her eyes. "Actually, where are they?"

"They were just born, so, at the hospital?"

"WHAT?!"

Well, that was fun, if not terribly plausible.

[DocFlareon]

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No, it's perfectly plausible for Rarity to believe that it is natural for unicorn mares to be monotremes. She would have been given the talk by her mother, and I rather doubt that Equestrian educational system has Sex Ed as part of the curriculum. Finally, as a prim and proper unicorn mare, she would have found it it to be completely gauche to have such frank and intimate conversations with her customers. There are a number of reasons that certain leftover bits of draconic anatomy and plumbing could stay within the family's female line of descent without comment. I can see Rarity and Sweetie's mother neglecting to mention certain facts about their family history. For starters, she enjoys Sweetie's cooking without irony. So what if they're part dragon? It's not like that's an important detail of biology that makes the family any different from full-blooded ponies in regards to anatomy and instincts. And, as your little snippet of the past shows, it can add a little something to Rarity's character.

So go ahead, make that little detail of draconic biology conserved down the last four generations. It'll be good for the AU. Besides, you know you want to.