Soul Marked musings · 5:52pm Jun 9th, 2020
I was inspired to write this little* thing after reading AlphaRidley's I'd like to soulmate with you. I thought it was a fun idea, and thought, Oh hey, I'm going to try to put my own spin on that. It'd been a few months since I'd written anything, and I was getting nowhere with the outline for the Luna in Manehattan story.
Then, weird beast that I am, I wrote 1500 words of drama in the form of a buried lede, masquerading an excerpt from a textbook.
That, and the epilogue, were by far the easiest chapters for me to write. I think that says something about me.
*It was only supposed to be like, 7000 words, dammit!
**Warning: spoilers below.**
When I started writing this, I knew that I wanted it to end in angry snuggles–Chrysalis isn't the type to display sentimentality or weakness easily, even if she needs it just as badly as Celestia in this story. Unfortunately, right as I began to write the penultimate scene where Celestia throws down with Chrysalis, I got stuck. This scene ended up doing a ton of heavy lifting: it has to justify Celestia's respect for Chrysalis. It has to give Chrysalis motivation to do anything other than use Celestia. It has to establish Chrysalis wanting to know more about her soul mate, while still being desperately deep in denial about it. And I somehow had to have Chrysalis push Celestia's buttons hard enough to get her to snap.
All of the kudos to TCC56 for bailing me out of that, and another, jam.
Luna stole every scene that she was in, especially in my head. I had to cut down the dialogue of almost every one of her appearances. Writing her as the loving–but slightly bratty–younger sister just worked for this story. The epilogue flowed like water, and remains almost unchanged from my initial draft.
Also, did you know that Chrysalis never actually gets named in the episode she debuts in? I don't think the show refers to her by name until she reappears at the end of season 6. Finding ways to call her "the changeling queen" without sounding like a broken record got old fast.
~EDIT~: I received a wonderfully thoughtful comment on the story from forbloodysummer, which I responded to in the comments, but probably belongs here as well:
...none of Chrysalis' [objections to working with the ponies] have actually been addressed.
...to which I replied:
True! And this is the weakest part of the story's framing, I think: I (almost) never allow the PoV inside Chrysalis' head. That means that unless her actions reveal her thoughts, or she says it outright to Celestia, we have no idea what she's thinking. And her entire decision making process here is internal, and goes something like this:
In canon, she gets blasted out of Canterlot after overplaying her hand, revealing the changelings, and all her work is for naught. She's got no choice but to scramble to find some kind of solution (and presumably does). But here, she flees of her own accord, and remains in (or near) Canterlot because she's
intensely curious now that she's realized who her soul mate isconvinced she can salvage this somehow. But then she meets Celestia who promptly wipes the floor with her, which impresses the hell out of her.Even though she manages to turn the tables on Celestia afterward, Celestia's words still leave her rattled. It's an inflection point; if anything had happened in that moment to send her winging away, events probably proceed pretty similarly to canon. But here, she has a moment where she's alone, desperate, and the consequences of her choices are crashing through her mind...
...and maybe Celestia doesn't seem like such a bad choice.
But! All of this is internal! And it is at best, implied. And it makes total sense that not all of that came through. That's on me!
Anyway, this was a fun piece to write. It was supposed to just be nice and light, and about half the length, but it seems that I'm completely incapable of consequence-free fluff. Even my lightest story has the characters descend into maudlin contemplation for a scene or so.
I also thought it was going to three chapters max, and cap out at around 7000 words. Shows what I know.
Much love to my girlfriend–who is also my editor–without whom the story in general, and the fight scene in particular, would be much worse.
Much love to the Fimfic Discord for help with the title, descriptions, and being a great sounding board.
And to you! For reading things I write! You're great.
That was a very nicely written story. Good stuff, comrades.
I've taken to naming her Cephalon. Although if she'd just fucking taken Starlight's hoof instead of throwing herself out a window screaming RENEGADE FOR LYYYYFE her name of Chrysalis (transformation) would have been utterly apropos for herself and her people.