Trouble in Tiatarta: Afterword · 2:40am Jan 1st, 2020
Trouble in Tiatarta is in many ways a story that really shouldn’t have worked out as well as it did. It’s directly following on two very short, simple stories that have nothing to do with each other, Queen Chrysalis Reforms (Accidentally) and Midnight Rendezvous. It’s based on like three or four different story ideas I had, each of which could maybe work on their own, but instead I welded them together into what should have been a literary Frankenstein. And of course the main reason why I got started on it exactly when I did was due to anger and anguish over how Friendship is Magic ended, and, well, the last time I wrote a story out of spite, things got...bad. And that is all we will say about that.
Trouble in Tiatarta should probably be an incoherent mess, is my point, but somehow I think I managed to cut out just the right things and edit in just the right things so that everything follows and flows together, and while spite may have been involved in starting it, all it did was make me type the first word of Chapter 1 - everything else after that came from a much better place. Which isn’t to say that it’s perfect or anything like it; even now I can think of a few things I wish in hindsight I had done differently or could have done better going all the way back to the start, and I hope that you guys can point out some other things that didn’t quite work. Because no story is perfect, and the flaws that I can see, and that you’ll be able to that I didn’t see, will help me do better next time.
But before we talk about next time, let’s talk about Tiatarta. Specifically, its characters, since this is very much a character-driven story.
The Shadow - An Unexpected Joy
The shadow is, for my part, the MVP of the story. For being such a last minute addition - I literally only added it as I was typing up Chapter 1 when I realized that Chrysalis wouldn’t think she was talking to a stick even though she was, and that I should probably give some definition to what she thought she was talking to - it really stole the show for me in every scene it appears in, which given that it mostly just spent its time staring at Chrysalis and never really spoke, is kind of amazing. I will never explain what the shadow actually was. The spirit of harmony? A hallucination produced by how lonely Chrysalis was? Chrysalis’ deeply buried conscience? The actual spirit of Mean Twilight? At various times I wrote it like it could have been any of those (although it’s worth taking a moment to point out that it never provides any new information to Chrysalis, it just helps her reach conclusions she could have on her own), and I like all of them, and I refuse to settle on any of them. Not all mysteries need answers; there is virtue to be found in ambiguity. The shadow was there, and that’s enough.
Aside from giving Chrysalis someone to talk to during her solo scenes and thus allowing her to vocalize her thoughts and gesture and articulate and have fun with the environment rather than just continuously narrate them, the shadow ended up being really appropriately named. I don’t know if calling it “the shadow” made me subconsciously steer towards Babylon 5 (it’s really not hard to make me do that, that show is basically my religion), but hands-down my favorite scene with it is the hotel sequence, when it keeps asking Chrysalis, “what do you want?” In Babylon 5 the Shadows ask that question and are presented as the evil ancient race so the question gets negative connotations, but by Season 4 you learn that the Shadows are really at their core lonely and confused and in some ways scared...not unlike Chrysalis. So with the benefit of hindsight and knowing that the Shadows were never really the bad guys, or at least not in the way that we believed they were, it was neat to turn the Shadow question around and show that getting someone to articulate what they want, to keep pushing them to define their desires, can eventually help reveal what they really want - what they need. It gives the Shadow question a positive spin.
Quite apart from that it was also just fun to have a character that Chrysalis, consciously or otherwise, lets her guard down around. I don’t think I could ever see Chrysalis telling her origin story to Ocellus or Smolder or anyone else; at least, I don’t think she’d do it in such an honest, frank, and open way. She’d play herself up and play the ponies down, justify what she did, make herself seem like the hero and the ponies cruel villains for hoarding their love. Instead she just told the shadow what happened, not keeping her feelings out but not distorting the facts, either. And the shadow listened. Shadows are good at doing that.
Deleted Scene
Originally I wanted to try and work in some way for the shadow’s wooden home to be destroyed, with some contrivance involving Chrysalis choosing to destroy it - with the shadow encouraging this action - in order to save Smolder or Ocellus, and then from that point forward the shadow wouldn’t appear again. However it would have been awkward to write out, and the shadow really didn’t need to “die”. It’s enough that it just never shows up again after approving of Chrysalis embracing Reformation and destroying the mirror. As well, I think that if Chrysalis embodies any Element, it’s Loyalty, so it felt better if instead of having to choose between two valid-to-her loyalties (the shadow or one of the teens), Chrysalis instead had to pick between betraying who she is to the changelings by stealing Reformation - stealing food - from them but getting her crown and throne back; or else being loyal to who she is to the changelings by embracing Reformation, even though it would mean giving up her best shot at seizing control of the changelings again.
Favorite Moment
The hotel sequence, no contest. What do you want?
Ocellus - The Pride of the Hive
Ocellus is probably the closest this fic has to main protagonist (though she does jockey with Chrysalis and Smolder, but I think she comes out in first), given that she has a direct hoof and stake in all plot threads. Basically what happened with her is I took her lines from “What Lies Beneath”, the fact that she was worried that her past was bad and inescapable (not changelings as a whole, but her), and ran away with them. It’s pretty common in the fandom to suppose that Ocellus is actually a nascent Queen herself, but for this I wanted there to be and only ever have been one Queen. So instead I came up with the infiltrator-in-training angle.
Ocellus is basically a microcosm of how I view Reformed changelings as a whole. She is dedicated to Reformation with all the fervor and zeal of the newly converted and views it as an unambiguously good thing. And to be fair to her, it is...but that means that she has an extremely negative opinion of her old habits and self and life. She’s filled with shame not only over what she was like, but also over what she might have been, even as she can’t help but continue to practice some of her old habits, namely, eating love at every opportunity. In some ways, interacting with Chrysalis, the former Queen framing the Bad Old Days as being what they were not because of any innate failings of the changeling race but rather because of circumstances no bug could see a way out of, was the best thing for her. She’s not a failure simply because she can’t instantly stop being who she once was (more on that with Chrysalis). With regards to her views on herself, Ocellus ends this fic in a much better place than where she started.
And Smolder helps with that too. Smolder builds up Ocellus and her self-esteem at every opportunity. Dark revelations about her past are met with Smolder both thinking that they sound cool and a certain, sincere reassurance that Ocellus is who she is, not who she might have been. And while part of who Ocellus is does include the infiltration training that she’s so ashamed of, Smolder is always there to remind her that those skills can still be put to other, better uses - like a game of Hoard Seeker, or gym class, or playing in the water. Smolder never judges her. It’s this quality of Smolder’s that Ocellus falls in love with, the utter confidence and sureness. Ocellus isn’t pure or perfect and has old habits that she may never break, but that doesn’t mean that Reformation was a lie - and it doesn’t mean that she’s failing anyone.
Deleted Scene
Originally Cacophony was actually going to mind-slave Ocellus to Chrysalis, use a concoction to force her to obey Chrysalis’ commands and force her to be loyal, as a sample of something that Chrysalis could then use on all the changelings. This really didn’t add anything, though (Chrysalis choosing to turn it down would have been neat but it just felt empty trying to write it up), so I came up with the Deformation potion instead, which works a lot better since it plays into Chrysalis’ perceived purpose as Queen while also embodying Ocellus’ worst fears about herself. Also see above bit with the shadow’s deleted scene and how it plays better into Chrysalis’ Element of Loyalty connection.
Favorite Moment
The fishing conversation with Chrysalis. Even though Ocellus fails to even make a dent in Chrysalis’ ego, it was really neat to have a normal changeling talking to Chrysalis about what they used to be like and force Chrysalis to justify it.
Smolder - the Dragon in Love
Like I said at the start, there’s a few things I wish I had done differently in this fic. With the Nook, Chrysalis, and Ocellus running around this very much became a story about changelings...which meant that Smolder, who is not in fact a changeling, got pushed to, well, not out of the spotlight, but definitely out of the center of it. Still, she definitely has her own major and important role to play at many points. Principally, as a non-changeling, Smolder got to sort of serve as an audience avatar. She’s the one experiencing the changelings and their eccentricities for the readers. So she can be the target of info-dumps or observe how they’re different from what we might expect out of regular people (or ponies). Of course, she does bring a lot of her own stuff to this story, lets me exposit in dragons for a bit. Basically I recycled a fair bit of the lore that I made up for my earlier story The Great Dragon Coronation, but presented it in the context of a young, vibrant, and optimistic member of the doing-just-fine dragon race, rather than an older, morose, pessimistic member of a slowly dying dragon species.
Side note, someone make sure that I add Smolder to the Lunaverse at some point.
However the main thing about her is her feelings towards Ocellus. Here I decided to explore something that I didn’t all that much in Coronation, but in hindsight wish I had: Draconic greed, and the fact that it’s a biological imperative. They want things, need things, and their anatomy and magic actually gives them tangible rewards for taking things from others. This colors everything they do and every emotion they have. The thing is that greed isn’t really seen as a good thing by most races, and for pretty good reason since greed can lead you to do terrible things even when all you get out of it is material stuff, nevermind that dragons get material stuff and a growth spurt. And in particular, what does that greed mean when you consider stuff like friendship...or romance? Here I actually need to credit Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood with helping me (and hopefully a lot of people, that show is amazing and you all should watch it) see that greed can have a positive spin to it. In the case of dragons and love, it basically results in the draconic version kind of being almost “pure”. Dragons just want to be around the things they love. Have them and hold them, yes, but that in and of itself is enough...and that’s sort of the kind of thing that stable relationships are built around. True love isn’t demonstrated in massive romantic gestures, it’s demonstrated just in being there.
And of course, being a dragon, Smolder in some ways gets Chrysalis and her possessive nature better than changelings do, which is also why Chrysalis gets Smolder so intuitively. Smolder is also presented as, well, having a way of getting under Chrysalis’ carapace that she says she hates and yet never really does anything about. Smolder is not intimidated by Chrysalis despite the power gap between them, but at the same time apart from Smolder seeming to love needling her the two actually end up agreeing a lot of the time, with one coming up with a plan and the other helping to refine it or convince the somewhat more reluctant Ocellus to go along. There is a degree of respect there. If Chrysalis made a friend in this fic, it was with Smolder.
Deleted Scene
Ocellus was going to be forced to overdose on false love in the climax, which would be killing her, and Chrysalis would have to drain it out of her (as Queen she can survive larger doses of false love) while Smolder provides actual love to replace it, like in the earlier scene with “Nonchalant” draining love from Smolder and Ocellus. It was here that Smolder was going to embrace the fact that she loves Ocellus. I might have been able to make this work, but I failed to set it up properly by not really doing anything to suggest that it was possible to overdose on false love, so it ended up being cut.
Favorite Moment
Smolder and Ocellus play-fighting in the water. It calls back to an earlier scene with Smolder, Gallus, and Yona; it calls forward to later scenes when Ocellus repeats a few tricks (the entire point of play-fighting in predators is that it’s basically training for hunting and real fighting), and for a few hours Smolder just totally let her guard down around Ocellus while also spending a little time building up Ocellus’ self-esteem. I also love when Smolder was dealing with the love-poisoned Nonchalant.
Chrysalis - the Queen-Mother
Now for me the MVP was the shadow, but I’m willing to bet that for most people, it was Chrysalis. And it’s not hard to see why. Midnight Rendezvous may have helped to bring Smolder and Ocellus into the fic and I did enjoy writing out their budding romance, but everything in the story is principally driven, moved by, and affects the True Queen of the Changelings. And it probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that of all villains in G4, Chrysalis was my favorite. Which means that I have...issues...with the finale. But we’re not here to talk about the finale, we’re here to talk about Trouble in Tiatarta.
The way I see it, Chrysalis has three things standing in the way of her really starting to be a good person. One: for her, Friendship is something that only ever seems to take from her: her home, her subjects, her throne, her conquests, her very role and sense of identity. She has been given no reason, no incentive, to see it as a positive thing for her, at least not in a way that she can understand. Two: Chrysalis has an ego the size of a planet, is utterly convinced that She Is Right And You Are Wrong. Trying to confront her directly on her failures only makes her defensive and makes her lash out, dig in her hooves out of spite. Three: she is old, and unlike Tirek or Nightmare Moon or Sombra, she was active for her entire lifetime, leading the changelings through good times and bad, and simply by the fact that the changelings in spite of their lifestyle remained basically fed and organized, means that she must have been a capable leader regardless of whether she was benevolent or tyrannical...and she knows this full well.
Queen Chrysalis Reforms (Accidentally) was only ever meant to be a short standalone fic, but I always make sure to seed everything I do with points that can be picked up later, just in case. In the case of that fic, it’s something seemingly innocuous: the fact that Chrysalis’ Reformed wings are longer in her new body than in her old one, and longer than Thorax’s, too. Yeah, you thought that was a thinly-veiled dick joke, didn’t you? Well you were right! But it was also included to give her something tangible and visible that has been improved by her Reformation. It’s a tiny, petty, insignificant thing to anyone else, but to Chrysalis, it’s something her ego can latch on to.
And everything builds off of that idea, that Chrysalis needs to be shown the benefits of Reformation in a way that her ego can tolerate, how it can benefit her. It’s not enough to get in her face and just shout at her that things are better and try and prove it, because she’s old enough and smart enough to be able to have an answer for everything, to look at things from a different angle so that her way seems better, and her ego demands that she do so. This is best demonstrated during the “fishing” conversation that she and Ocellus had. Ocellus tries to outright tell Chrysalis-as-Nonchalant that the old ways were wrong, but the result is not only that Chrysalis doesn’t listen, but she’s actually able to phrase her own side of the argument in such a way that even Ocellus, a changeling who hates the Bad Old Days, is forced to admit makes sense.
So instead the fic slowly but surely grinds away at Chrysalis’ egotistical certainty in her rightness by presenting her with incentives to change that she realizes on her own. It gives her longer wings. It lets her sleep amongst her people again, in the peaceful quiet rather than the horrible silence that she so hates after a thousand years of always being around her subjects. It lets her feed her ego by leading and teaching Ocellus and Smolder, making her feel like she’s in charge again. And it has Smolder help her out in her time of need when the dragon could have just left her like she was. When Ocellus next tries to reach out to Chrysalis-as-Nonchalant, rather than directly calling how Chrysalis wants things to be wrong, she instead presents the inescapable truth that even Chrysalis’ ego can’t overcome: right or wrong, what she wants is simply not possible anymore, because changelings have changed and everything about them has too, and there’s no going back. And it’s this realization that finally significantly cracks the ironclad mental defenses of Chrysalis, the idea that yeah, okay, as far as she’s concerned she’s a brilliant leader and she’s totally in the right and she will take over the changelings once again and overthrow Thorax and get her revenge on Starlight Glimmer…
...and then? Even she, for all her momentous power and beauty and skill and age, can’t make the whole world just forget about the changelings, turn back time and make things as they were. So what will she do next?
This isn’t to say that she couldn’t have backslid from this point. She absolutely could have come up with reasons or ways to do so. But that’s why I also made sure to provide Chrysalis with one other thing that she would need, something for her ego to clash against, something for her age and experience to recognize as being worse than her, something that is seeking to take still more from Chrysalis: Catrina and Princess Cacophony. Of course it didn’t have to be those two specifically, but still, any enemy or outside force, anything that could threaten all the good things that she’s been presented with, the positive things she’s gotten from Reformation, was what Chrysalis needed. Chrysalis Is Right And You Are Wrong, and as a few readers observed, this means that one of the only ways she’d ever truly embrace Reformation was via an outside force trying to stop her from doing so.
Of course, it’s not like you just flip a switch and now Chrysalis is going to go attend a Pinkie Party and take tea with Celestia and volunteer to help out the animals with Fluttershy. As much as I personally hate to make this comparison, much like Discord in “Keep Calm and Flutter On”, Chrysalis can right now be said to have begun the process of truly redeeming herself. She’s only put a hoof on that road, she hasn’t galloped down its length, and most of her is still on the fork and it would be so easy and so familiar to go down the darker path instead.
But it’s a start. And the best part about that road to redemption is that no one ever has to walk it alone, unlike the darker path...and Chrysalis hates being alone.
Deleted Scene
So many, you don’t even know. While I could personally tolerate weaker scenes with Smolder or Ocellus for the sake of moving the story forward, Chrysalis was a character I felt I absolutely had to get right, and that meant that I frequently would write up 2,000- to 3,000-word sections with her, realize they were crap, then scrap them and go in a different direction. The most prominent deleted scene was that the hotel room sequence was originally completely different; it was going to involve her sending letters back and forth to Thorax, both implying that she had done so in the past since Reformation and suggest that she was much further down the road to redemption than I eventually put her due to Thorax’s efforts, as well as be used as a way to bring Thorax and Pharynx and changelings from the Badlands Hive into the climactic fight. I swiftly realized that this was stupid, however, for multiple reasons, chief among them being that there’s no way to get Thorax and Pharynx and a cadre of changelings from the Badlands to Tiatarta in a timely way without opening up the universe’s command console and typing in “debug_fast_travel=1”.
Favorite Moment
Everything in Chapter 12 from Ocellus’ forced transformation onwards, but especially when she turns to Ocellus and comes as close as she is capable to begging forgiveness for never figuring out Reformation and for letting her pride get in the way of feeding her subjects.
Going Forward
In the process of writing Chapter 1 of Trouble in Tiatarta, I decided that Tirek and Cozy, rather than waiting in stasis back at the Legion of Doom headquarters, should go on a camping trip. You all probably thought that this was just intended to satisfy curiosity about what they would do while Chrysalis was in Tiatarta, didn’t you? Well you were right! But also, remember that “seeding” thing I mentioned I do? Well, basically, I now have an idea for a fic based around that. But in the process of thinking up that I realized that Cozy Glow is just criminally underdeveloped. Like, holy shit writers, what the fuck. So before I get to that fic, I have two other fics I want to write that will develop Cozy Glow, the first of which I am considering titling FIENDship is Magic #6 since I intend to style it after those comics, make it a snapshot of Cozy’s life before her first appearance in the show; while the second...well, let’s just say it’ll sort of be like Cozy’s version of Queen Chrysalis Reforms (Accidentally): an irreverent little comedy fic.
I have no timeframe for when I plan on writing any of these, though, and a number of prior projects that demand my attention as-is, namely, the Lunaverse. So this little spinoff universe might go dormant for awhile...but I do intend to get back to it.
See you all later!
You know, I really need to get around to reading this fic. Sounds like the perfect cure to my disillusionment after the finale, and also a good character study to give me ideas on how to handle Chrysalis in my own eventual fic addressing my issues with the series' end.
A Chrysalis fic where she is (somewhat) reformed properly--certainly an accomplishment to be proud of! I really enjoyed reading it!
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Funnily enough it's actually now officially my longest fic at a bit over 99K words (previously my longest was The Return of Tambelon at 85K words). FiMFic estimates that it would take about 6 hours to read, though I suppose that varies significantly from person to person. I feel like I could read 100K words in about 4 hours without deliberately speed-reading.
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Thanks!
This was a really epic story and I'm supremely glad you were able to produce it. I can only envy at the level of thought and detail you've put into all the characters, their arcs, thought-patterns and outlooks. I thought you weaved all the elements together rather well, so much that had you not told me they came from separate, disparate origins, I likely would not have guessed as much.
Thank you again so much for undertaking this. Rest assured, I will be needling you constantly to put Smolder in Lunaverse. XD
Happy New Year and New Decade!
Looking forward to the sequel when it comes
I *really* want to read stuff in Lunaverse, but the relatively gargantuan size has scared me off, at least for the current moment. One of those, not sure if I want to make the commitment right now, things. Maybe one day, one day...
Otherwise, I really enjoyed these afterthoughts and the fic as a whole. Thank you for writing really quality content, and I look forward to seeing more in the future!
An odd choice of words, given that two of your four proposed answers involve some manner of it not being there, at least not in any sane sense.
Something a bit more on-brand for me: those four mutually-exclusive possibilities bring to mind The Elder Scrolls and how later games handled Daggerfall. Namely, instead of actually picking any of the four mutually-exclusive possibilities, they instead created a temporal singularity where all of them somehow happened at once. The closest thing to an explanation of how amounts to "Akatosh and/or Sheogorath exist" not that the series' lore is ever terribly helpful due to being provided solely by in-universe sources.
This was a heck of a ride. As someone who loved Queen Chrysalis Reforms (Accidentally), it was great to see things taken further along. You write a great Chrysalis, and your ending analysis is dead on for a lot of her character.
It's been a great read and I'm very interested about where you're going to go with Cozy Glow - because I agree that she's underdeveloped in canon and has plenty of story potential.
So is Grogar actually Grogar in this setting? Or I he still Discord?
Does anyone else get the idea that Cozy Glow would make a half-decent stand-in for Anakin Skywalker?
Wouldn’t that have been a better story than what we got? Take notes, RDD! Or something.
...
Hm....
I say I really like this story for Chrysalis. It fit her character and make her more then a copy-past villein like they did to her on the show. I hope if you continue this story arc that you can make Grogar stay as Grogar and not Discord in disguise I still think that was the biggest mistake for the finally.
My favourite part was in the hotel when Chrysalis had her... Don't know the word breakdown maybe. That was a big moment for her, and her interaction with Ocellus was close second.
This is now my favourite story with Chrysalis as a reformed changeling and that is something.
Giving this story a Like and Fav.
Well assuming that Spike ends up staying with Cheerilee I could potentially see Smolder being a welp sent by Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs to help him deal with his dragon nature. Maybe just popping in occasionally to start of with but eventually deciding to create a lair there. Given the L-verse Ocellus is lurking about Ponyville as well it leaves open the possibility of them interacting, although I would think it might be better if they have a different relationship.
Speaking as someone who's been underwhelmed by Chrysalis from the very beginning, it was a delight seeing someone with more more enthusiasm towards her tackle this scenario. Excellently crafted throughout, especially for a heaving, clanking mishmash of narrative threads that had no right to work as well as it did. Those are my favorite kinds of stories! Looking forward to more in this worldline, especially how you flesh out Cozy.
Don't call it that. Think it'll limit your audience. Can say that more in the summary.
Anyway was very nice to read your character impressions here and what you made of them.
I think the intent was that she be a regular pony to contrast all the godlike villains, but they fumbled it so hard that it makes more sense for her to be literally Satan or spawn thereof.
You did a superb job on this, and I shall await any future works with bated breath.
Well, let’s just say I’m happy that you’re going to continue playing in this universe you set up. I did really enjoy this story immensely. Since I’ve only caught MLPFIM on YouTube sporadically, I’ve never seen most of the stories. I’ve seen the movie, though and I’ve seen the statuary in the end and have read some other stories dealing with it, but I did not like what seemed to have happened at the end of the show. I’m glad it ticked you off as much as it did to spur you into writing this fic.
I think you really nailed Chrysalis’ character dead on. Others have done a similarly wonderful job as well, but she fit this story like a well crafted glove and I applaud your results. I of course loved your Smoulder, and Ocellus as well as their interaction. Smoulder’s denial about her feelings was a hoot and I’m glad it was Chrysalis that finally straightened her out about that! Finally!
The only thing I have to critique was the mirror Cadance/Changling antagonist. I think she could have been developed better. As it stands right now I thought she was rather a cardboard villain, much like Cozy Glow seemed in the series from what everyone says. The fact you’re going to flesh out Cozy, might mean our Tyrant Cadance might be fleshed out more in time as well. Like Chrysalis said, “I’d kill to see...”Cadance and Shining Armor meet this version of herself. So I’m looking forward to what you’re hinting at and thanks for the entertainment and since I’ve not seen the “official” ending I’m going to go with this one for my ‘head canon.’
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Oh god yes. The writers didn't fumble the ball with her. They kicked it to hard it exploded and blew their own foot off. Or something. The metaphor has gotten away from me.
Cozy Glow in the show sucked and still pisses me off.
Anyway...
You're right. We're here to talk about something good. [/sincere]
Anyway, overall yeah. I loved this. Chrysalis... eh, you know me by now. :p I think you did great with her. She still just needs a good slap upside the head and 'reason you suck' speech.
There really is nothing more to Cozy than being a bad guy, no backstory, no nothing, she's just evil. Good luck writing in the new year!
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True, but, I personally can't stand that. Maybe if she was more clearly some kind of monstrous creature, an imp or something...but she's not. She's a pegasus filly.
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Cacophony was somewhat deliberately shallow here, since the story isn't about her and I didn't want to distract from Chrysalis, Ocellus, or Smolder more than necessary. I actually deliberately stopped myself from giving her too much development; my natural instinct is to just pile on the worldbuilding so there's about a half-dozen things about the Cacoverse (let's call it) that I almost added but then realized would serve no purpose to this story if they were added.
But on the other hand and to contrast with Cozy Glow, you'll note that the very first thing I had Cacophony do was exposit about her backstory. She's shallow but there's a lot left to work with in terms of adding depth later. Also I got in a not-too-subtle jab at the show in that Cacophony was defeated and at the mercy of everyone...and so Thorax remanded her into Equestrian custody and Cadance is coming down to see about trying to help her. Thorax also makes mention about how the changelings are "helping" the hybrids with false love withdrawal. Y'know. Instead of petrifying them or shoving them into a cage in Hell next to Satan.
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How about FIENDship is Magic: Cozy Glow or Cozy Glow: FIENDship is Magic? I really like "FIENDship".
My other instinct is to go with some kind of chess pun but there's a lot of Cozy Glow fics that use chess puns for their titles already.
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Who is your favorite of the "big" villains, if you don't mind me asking?
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Yeah, in the Lunaverse I'm kind of committed to shipping Snails and Ocellus, but it would be kind of neat to have Smolder and Ocellus interact there. The Lunaverse Ocellus is actually a lot more aggressive and outgoing than the canon one or the one I wrote for Tiatarta, which is also interesting.
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As I said in my big reply post over in the story itself, at the moment I'm not sure whether or not I want Grogar to actually be Grogar, or Discord in disguise. You can head over there and check out the reasoning, though I will assure you that I hate what the show did as well.
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"Golly, I'll try spinning! That sure is a neat trick!"
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I mentioned this when talking about future plans for this continuity while on /mlp/ over on 4chan, but, just so you're aware, I'll probably be using Glow in the Dark, Shine in the Sun as my primary character reference for Cozy's personality - and Three Second Chances. Both are great, and I'm looking forward to Glow's next update.
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Yeah, continuity lockout has become a major problem for the Lunaverse. I've been trying to think of ways to overcome it; the best one that I've hit on so far is I've published a few stories that don't really need much prior knowledge to get into other than the basic premise of "Luna stayed sane, Celestia went evil, and Trixie is Luna's student". The 'Ling From Another World, Ocellus' Ordinary Day, and A Day in Canterlot should all be easy enough to pick up and go with.
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To you (belatedly) as well! And thanks one more time for playing a part in kicking this all off.
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Thanks for the comments!
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Flurry Heart, of course.In all seriousness, Discord. No matter whose side he's on, no matter what dubious things the later seasons did with him, he's always fun and full of potential. Such is the nature of chaos... as long as you're not in the middle of it.
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You have no idea how absolutely flattering that is.
And intimidating. Did I mention intimidating?
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goddammit now thats all i can hear
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See, funnily enough I read all of those due to them being entry friendly. Really enjoyed them!
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It is a damn shame for sure, she needed more. I'll have to check out Glow in the Dark, Shine in the Sun and Three Second Chances in the mean time, haven't read much of Cozy besides one where she's adopted by Tirek and Chrysalis that I can't remember the name of right now
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Well... What would you give Cozy for a backstory? Also, why didn't you make Chrysalis the Princess who took the love poison in the legend from the episode Hearts and Hooves Day?
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I really like the comic's origin story for Chrysalis and the changelings, both in the sense that I think it feels really mythical, and in the sense that it gives a lot to work with for Chrysalis' personality.
I'm not sure what I'll do for Cozy, I'm still thinking it over.
I have got to say not only were your theories on changeling reformation fantastic, but you made me see Chrysalis in a much more interesting light than I previously gave her credit for, and I appreciate that. It is always enjoyable to see characters gain more depth.
Edit: Quick question since Chrysalis gorged on love from Shining Armor was strong enough to beat Celestia arguably the strongest alicorn in terms of raw power how strong would that make a reformed Chrysalis who is now capable of producing her own love in your cannon estimation.
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If I may make a suggestion Glow to the Future by PerpetualMotion does a pretty good job of balancing her inner wrath with some of the patience we see her demonstrate in the show. It's also a pretty detailed analysis of how she thinks by comparison.
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I would also like use this to apologize if I've offended you in any way. It was not my intention and I apologize if anything I said upset you.
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...no? You didn't offend me with anything. Why do you think that?
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Sorry just wanted to make sure we we're all good is all. I tend to view people as being easy to offend, and I worried that it might appear I was monopolizing your thread on Cozy Glow when I suggested some alternate theories on her Cutie Mark. Glad we're all good.
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Also I've been told I talk too much, and I didn't want to be an annoyance to you.
Honestly, after writing (as far into as I have) Never Alone, I feel like I can understand what you were talking about in regards to the sequel that ought to be an incoherent mess, yet works. I actually wrote a story, then an unexpected sequel, then another unrelated story in a contradictory timeline, and somehow wove all of that together with Never Alone. It should be a mess, but by all accounts it's landed properly for readers. Color me surprised.
I guess it goes to show that if you go with your gut, as an author, the readers will pick up on the value you saw in it.
In hindsight I have to say that was a very wise decision.
Thanks for the blog entry.
Reading an story is interesting, but reading the thoughts of the author of said story is even more interesting.
Good work!
Amazing fic and some parts was just hilarious beyond belief but here's a tangent thought both smoulder and ocellus know how much Chrissylis would fight alot of people for that stick so why not have them find it after its revealed she has disappeared which can work to show in there own ways how the grew closer to her that they actually ask someone to look into her dissapering as not her making a escape but being taken by something more powerful then her and that she had just molted so she would be in a vunerble state
Sorry for the tangent there just a random thing that came to me as I was wrighting