Chrysalis: Saviour of Time chapter 11 · 5:05am Sep 20th, 2018
Hey, guys, long time no see. While I'm sure some people have probably dismissed the story as dead, I assure you that it has not died. To prove it, here's the next chapter, "Swarm of a Different Colour"! Discussion after the page break.
So, yeah. It's been near a year since the last chapter. Thank the user PrinceFive for bugging me about this over the past couple of months, asking me me when the next chapter is coming out, for actually getting me to force myself to get back to work on it. This one is named obviously in reference to the Wizard of Oz with its horse of a different colour, combined with the title "Swarm of the Century".
On a random note copy/pasting from my word processor for some reason turned all of my double spacing between paragraphs into quadruple spacing for some reason. Conveniently, FIMFiction gave me a handy shortcut to fix that. Also, it already had centred the lines I use to break up parts of the chapter and italicized the one thing I had italicized in the original text, which was nice. Pretty sure it did neither of those before.
On the topic of this chapter, I do not personally think it is one of my better chapters. I don't think there's inherently anything wrong with it, but it doesn't feel as good as some of the others. I still think there's stuff in it that's worthwhile having done, in particular stuff involving Luna, the attempt by Chrysalis to fend off her loneliness with a pet, and reaffirming that Chrysalis has learned to trust in Pinkie Pie. Even so, I can't help but feel it's less its own proper chapter, and more a lead in for the next one.
Perhaps one of the things that bugs me about this is how it is clearly a better result than happened in the show itself, which always makes me feel like I'm writing a "fix-fic" where I try to fix the problems I saw in the show. That is not my intent, but I need to remind myself that sometimes things should go better with Chrysalis than it would with the original Twilight. There are still plenty of things that have gone a lot worse, and will go worse in the future as well.
Hopefully my concerns on that matter are unfounded. It wouldn't be the first time I felt anxious about posting a chapter only to have people seemingly find nothing wrong.
Anyway, moving on to the stream of random thoughts as I go through the chapter searching for things to talk about.
I haven't really fleshed out what the future that Time Keeper came from is like, and I really should do that. I guess based on a small, relatively insignificant bit at the start, we can at least assume that robot ponies exist. Also, apparently most books have been replaced by electronic books, either that or it was the only way that Time Keeper had really been exposed to them.
Davenport/Skitter showing up was to indicate that he is trying to do the whole spying business that non-saviour Chrysalis had wanted him to do on Saviour Chrysalis. Clearly, the mentioning of an incoming Princess Celestia would scare him away even more than it would for Chrysalis herself. On a side note, the pet parasprite that Chrysalis adopts was named Flitter specifically because it sounded similar to Skitter, it was meant to represent a subconscious expression of her desire to connect with her changelings. I had completely forgotten about the actual pony named Flitter at first, and wrote in the little dialogue from Spike about her existence after I realized that.
Initially I was going to have the next chapter after this be based off of the one where Philomena was introduced, basing it on the idea that I've seen where that episode was the rescheduled meeting that Celestia had decided on after cancelling the one at the end of Swarm of the Century, but things changed and I have a completely different chapter coming up that isn't actually based on any episode (unless you count Swarm of the Century because its leading into it).
Speaking of changed plans, I didn't initially intend to have Luna show up as early as she did. She was actually supposed to show up not that long before Celestia did, only getting a short interaction with Chrysalis before her sister showed. However, I felt like she should get a little more of a spotlight, so had her show up in the middle of the night in a totally creepy stalker-esque kind of way. She also gets to see a little of how Chrysalis' relationships with the ponies of the town have developed. Also, initially she was supposed to bring Philomena with her in an effort to keep Celestia distracted so that she could speak more with Chrysalis, but that clearly didn't happen. Instead, she is now quite unaware of her sister's coming visit.
Technically, Rarity didn't scream from atop her stool until much later in the day in the actual episode, but I felt it was too iconic a scene to not have in some form, so I tossed it in.
As I said before, one of the important aspects of this chapter was the reaffirmation that Chrysalis trusted Pinkie in some capacity. One could even say that she has a bond of friendship with the pink party pony, not that you'd see Chrysalis admit such a thing. Huzzah!
I tried to keep the instruments being searched for to what was mentioned in the episode, all but one. The obo. It was an instrument I saw back in band class in junior high oh so many years ago by now. I thought it was a neat little instrument. It looked like a clarinet, except smaller and with a double reed you blow into instead of a single reed. Also, obo is just fun to say.
Anyway, I think I've ranted on enough. There's more random junk to say, I'm sure, but that'll suffice. To anybody still reading this far, hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Yes the obo is a neat instrument... Except it is spelled "Oboe".
Fun chapter though.
Absolutely incredible
I felt like this latest chapter didn't necessarily advance the plot but it did a lot of character work, as well as setting up the next chapter. I don't think you want every chapter like this but a few help sell Chrysalis as becoming part of Ponyville in the same way Twilight was. In particular, this one showcased Chrysalis' relationship with Time Keeper, probably advanced her comfort level with Luna a bit by having them team-up, and showed how she's reacting very differently to Pinkie than early Twilight.
And sometimes Chrysalis might not even bother getting involved at all and you can just skip the episode. Obviously it's up to you which ones you might do this with, but there are some episodes that aren't very Twilight centric and are of doubtful interest to Chrysalis. For example, you could probably have skipped Griffon the Brush Off if you'd wanted to or could skip Call of the Cutie (or reduce it to a one line mention) when that comes up. The one that's almost certainly not happening is "Feeling Pinkie Keen" since Chrysalis has clearly already largely accepted Pinkie. If she doesn't wander into the woods while Fluttershy is foal-sitting would Chrysalis even know about the events of The Stare-Master?
I'm not saying you have to skip any of these episodes, of course, just that if you don't need to feel you need to do them, either. You don't need to cover all 26 Season One episodes before having Discord show up (if you even plan on having Discord show up) unless you want to.
4944895
Oh yeah, Feeling Pinkie Keen is definitely one of the first on the chopping block, though I think less because she trusts Pinkie and more that she doesn't want the headache of questioning Pinkie's antics anymore. Also because she's not the type to try very heavily to find proper, scientific explanations for everything. It just doesn't fit her.
There are many episodes that shall be skipped over, though that particular list is not one that is set in stone, some changes can occur. Some are cut because she wouldn't be involved (Look Before You Sleep, Feeling Pinkie Keen as examples), and some because I don't really have much I want to do with the episode (Dragonshy, for an example). Also, it gives a chance for interaction between Flutters and Chrysalis, which is definitely something that is needed for where the story's gotta go.
Stare Master I have plans for. Not big plans, perhaps, and it is mostly there because of one scene I've had in my head from damn near the beginning of writing this story, but it's enough to make me want to do it.
Currently my list of planned chapters that more or less covers season 1 sits at 23. Seeing as I have five chapters out that are original already, and have at least couple more of those planned, that makes for a lot of episodes cut from the list.
Discord is definitely going to show up at some point. He got out the first time because the CMC were fighting each other in front of him, causing some chaos (presumably only as the last straw that allowed him to break free after a millennium of his prison weakening, as it's ridiculous that three kids fighting would be enough to do that by itself). Chrysalis' presence is certainly not going to do anything to reduce the chaos that weakens that prison.
4945103
Also, now that I think of it, Chrysalis may have had some knowledge that Pinkie was weird before showing up in Ponyville, from spies and such. It wouldn't be the same as actually hanging out with her, but she'd be less caught off guard than Twilight was. But you're quite right that Chrysalis isn't as scientifically minded as Twilight. I didn't say 'trusted', I said 'accepted'. As in 'accepted that she's weird and inexplicable and isn't going to bother going past that'. Mind you, the latest chapter shows she may be developing some trust there as well-- at least trust in her competence.
Anyway, while it's one that could be easily skipped, if you've thought of something interesting to do with Stare Master, I'll look forward to it.