Cycles · 10:10pm Jun 3rd, 2019
I'm reading Chrysalis stories again.
When I enjoy reading about a character, I don't want it to end. So I read everything I can of that character, until I get bored or run out of tolerable stories (almost always the latter).
I came here after Rainbow Rocks, seeking stories of sirens. I looked through everything with Adagio tagged, and read all those. Then Derpy. Then Derpy x Celestia and Derpy x Luna, and so on. Most recently, Limestone.
As the above list indicates, this can happen with pairings as well as characters. Sometimes authors, too, if I really like their take on things and the way they write.
But every so often, something would draw my attention back to a character, and I'd dive in all over again. It helps that I've been here three years, now, so I've forgotten some of the things I've read. Also, when reading blocks of stories about the same character within a short period, they sometimes blur together, so rereading them (or some of them) lets each one stand out more. I reread some of the Limestone ones not long ago, even though it hadn't been long since seeing them the first time around.
I think Cold in Gardez is one of those names that everyone around here knows. And knows is respected, even if they've never tried his work for themselves. I only got into his stories a while ago, but one of my favourites is his collab with GaPJaxie, who I wasn't so familiar with before that.
So when I saw in the feature box a new update for GaPJaxie's short story collection (and that it had a great title), I gave it a shot. I liked it so much I then went through GaPJaxie's back catalogue, ending up on his most recent series of five.
Those five are very good, by the way. They start off as one thing and end up as something completely different, and, while the story descriptions aren't technically inaccurate, they don't make them sound half as great as they are.
Anyway, the point is, those stories led me back to reading about changelings again, which obviously led to wanting to read more of their tyrannical queen. So yesterday I read 120k words of Chrysalis x Shining Armor, which was much more pleasant than I thought it would be. I'm wondering if I should include that ship in a story, now, too.
One of the nice things about Chrysalis, compared to some of the other characters I'm particularly keen on, is how loved she is by the fandom. So not only are there lots of stories of her out there - including many I didn't get to reading last time - but she's often fairly well-treated in them 
So I guess I was just thinking about that, how one goes through phases of being very into different characters and how they sometimes repeat, and decided to make a blog entry about it.
Probably because I'm really good at procrastinating. If only there were a way to monetise that, I (and many, many others) would be so rich. I've been trying to work non-stop on finishing the story I mentioned in the last blog. I wrote a good 400 words of it at 3 in the morning last night, though. Which is more than I managed in the week before, despite sitting in front of it for about six hours a day 
I'll go give it another shot in a minute.
Some of you might know that I run a shipping group. If anyone cared enough to point it out (which they rightly don't), it could certainly be argued that I'm hardly qualified to do so, having written no proper shipping stories on this site. I've written friendshipping, familyshipping, a setup that might lead to shipping if you want it to, a breakup, a subversion, a character study brought out by a ship, ... Even, most confusingly, a story about love, taking a close look at some lovely ships, while not actually being a shipping story. (And was never meant to be left unfinished for this long, and is next on my list of big projects once the current story is done).
But the first story I ever wrote, before FiM was even a thing, was a shipping story. And they've always been the thing I've read most, as comments all over the site should attest to. And the reason I've held off from publishing a proper shipping story here is that none of the ideas I've had have excited me as much as the one I've been working on in the background the whole time, and that's the upcoming story I mentioned in my last blog. So yeah, it's a shipping story, I'm very excited that one's nearly ready, and the final chapter is now more than half-done!
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Looking forwards to seeing it finally happen for realsies
Those gifs are bloody hypnotic
Can’t remember the last episode I enjoyed as much as that one 
... maybe The Best Gift Ever.
5068935 Me too! It's even been over a year now since I commissioned the cover art
So it's so nice to be almost done.
I have been staring at the Chrysalis gif for far too long. After a while she seemed to be spinning in the opposite direction, then I looked away and she went back to normal. Mostly now I'm wondering how she can keep spinning for so long without getting dizzy and falling over.
Best Gift Ever did definitely have lots of fantastic moments, and was a great episode! I was rewatching the bit with Pinkie visiting her family the other day, where Limestone wears a hat. And it had a good song, too!
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I need to rewatch Frenemies, but I've watched A Better Way to be Bad over and over
I really, really hope the rest of what they do with Chrysalis this season is as good to her as that episode was.
If you get a chance (and haven't read it yet), I highly recommend JawJoe's Queen of Queens. It's one of the best Chrysalis stories I've ever read, and definitely the most original.
5069277 I read that one a couple of years ago, and I'm afraid to say I say I wasn't so keen on it. Lots of very interesting ideas on display, definitely, with a mortal queen amongst an immortal species, and their attitudes to names. But the Chrysalis story I've always been very taken with is Pen Stroke's The Enemy of My Enemy, with how it mixes changeling worldbuilding with interactions between familiar characters.
Just reform Chrysalis.... please. ;-;