Chronica Dolori: Performative Grief · 6:35am Jun 27th, 2020
Welcome to the first in a series of self-reflective blogs regarding my writing process and assorted trivia. The title translates to either "Chronicle of Suffering," or "Chronic Pain." I don't know which, but both seem equally appropriate.
If you're new here (and I see you back there, all, uh, two or three new readers I picked up through this story), for longfics like this one (by which I mean, this one and Pony Gear Solid, I like to keep a running journal that talks about each chapter. Sort of a director's commentary, I suppose. I like to hear myself talk about my thought process, my intentions behind certain scenes, background elements or inspiration, things like that.
I'm a little behind on this one, since we're already four chapters in, but hopefully I'll catch up before the story wraps up around, say... 2030?
I can neither confirm, nor deny, that this is how the story will end.
Before we get started, I want to thank RoMS and chris the cynic for helping me to workshop the title to this bad boy. It took me a while to come up with something that I liked; I knew I wanted something Latin, and something that referenced PMMM, but I also wanted something that made grammatical sense, not just a weirdly tossed Romance language salad.
Eventually, I just decided to meme the fuck out of it. How do you say "being meguka is suffering" in Latin? And how could I condense that into something that'd look good in a title heading? Thus, "Magica Ex Dolori." Magic from suffering.
And it's still not grammatical.
I actually did try to look up the proper case of the noun "dolor." According to my consults, and my own research, that would have been "dolore," but "dolori" focus tested better, so I went with that.
My focus group.
When I first started considering a Madoka/MLP crossover, I went through a couple of different ideas/scenarios, most of which I can't quite remember. A comedic parody of the series, with Starlight positioned in Homura's role, a straight-up, beat-for-beat recreation of the series with the MLP cast... all of which seemed, uh, terrible? To me?
Eventually, I started sketching out the idea that eventually morphed into Magica Ex. I knew that I wanted it to be EqG, and I also knew that the Madoka setting had enough breadth and potential that I didn't have to ground it in the timeframe of the PMMM series, itself. That's fortunate, because it gave me the creative freedom to develop characters and backstories independent of Madoka and the gang.
And to tinker with the lore, as needed. Creative license, and all that.
Spoilers for chapter five.
Nailing down the principal characters was a bit more of a process. I knew I wanted to position Sunset as the protagonist, but also felt it would be tough (and a little trite) to sell the idea of the Humane Seven becoming magical girls, either in part or all together. So I figured I'd split the focus between Sunset, and a second character, and that they'd be the two anchors for two narrative threads: One representing the Egg Girls side of things, and the other, a prospective, budding young meguka, to be our window into that side of the crossover.
I debated who to use, exactly. It was tempting to use Twilight, but I figured that would be hard to reconcile with the Mane Seven dynamic (it also struck me that she'd be a poor target for Kyubey to manipulate, given her polycule well-developed support network). I also considered using the human counterpart for Moondancer, because she has to suffer in everything that I write.
But, before long, I settled on Wallflower Blush. I will not pretend that Scampy was not a huge influence in my decision-making process.
Having never written the character before in any meaningful capacity, I leaned a fair bit on what was familiar to me: an assemblage of character tropes gleaned from conversations with Scampy, with dashes of Sweetie Belle's characterization from Neither Rhyme, Nor Reason.
I regard this Wallflower as being in an intermediate state between the reclusive, self-destructive shrinking violet we meet in FF, and a slightly more evolved version of the same character, who's a little closer to living as her best self. Not quite there yet, but she's doing her therapy homework, sleeping a little more regularly, talking to people (or trying to), and doing better than before.
Moondancer's death sets her growth back a fair bit. We'll talk about how she comes to cope with that in future blogs.
So, initially, Cadance's appearance in the chapter was gonna be limited to the candlelight vigil, itself. The victim in the alley was just gonna be some rando: either the bus driver, or a disheveled passenger. When I started writing, I realized that I couldn't draw so much attention to Cadance without offering some kind of payoff later on, and the obvious way to do that was to make her the victim during the sequence with Briar Rose.
She comes back in chapter two, obviously, and I plan to do a bit more with her as the story progresses, as the poster child for the grief and despair that witches cultivate and harvest in their victims.
Just pretend that's Moondancer in bed. Don't ask why the chick from Life is Strange is there.
I'm gonna have a lot more to say about Briar Rose and the other witches later on, probably in separate blog posts. I won't say too much about her here.
What I will say is that constructing a labyrinth for her, and conveying it through the written word, was difficult. It's a far more abstract setting than I'm used to writing in my stories, and I leaned again on a lot of imagery that's familiar to me. The yellow void's a throwback to Persona 4, and it's also a teensy bit inspired by the labyrinth from the first episode of Magia Record.
The other obvious inspiration was M.C. Escher, whose "Relativity" was explicitly referenced in the rough draft.
Escher was a magical girl, and Briar Rose is behind one of these doors.
Chapter One is also where we meet the third member of this ensemble cast of damned girls: the veteran magical girl, Lorelai. Or, as Dubs pointed out when he read her description in my rough draft, Linkle.
Basically.
...I swear, the resemblance was entirely unintentional.
I'll obviously have a lot more to say about Lorelai as the story progresses, but for now, I want to talk a little bit about her as a character. In writing her, I wanted to evoke traits of the three veterans from PMMM: Kyoko, Mami, and Homura.
-I see her as somebody who's been meguca-ing for a couple of years, at least, someone who's done a lot of fighting and killing, and seen a lot of dying. In that regard, she's obviously similar to Mami: a competent vet who's had a long time to hone her skills, although she lacks Mami's motivation and personal commitment to the cause.
Whereas Mami has an ideal that she aspires to, believing wholeheartedly in protecting people, and the hope that magical girls are supposed to represent, Lorelai just sees it as a burden. She doesn't see herself as a force for good, or a protector of hope. Merely, there are witches in the world, and someone has to kill them. In that regard, it's a job to her.
-This aspect of her character is supposed to reflect Homura, as well. Because Homura, as we see from her appearances in PMMM, is tired. At this stage in the story, we're still just kinda getting to know Lorelai, so I don't want to say too much on this parallel too soon, but Lorelai has been in the game long enough to be similarly exhausted with her work.
In short, she's a disillusioned professional, and she doesn't really like her job anymore.
-Which brings us to Kyoko, whose personality Lorelai hews closest to. She's not especially approachable, and loose when it comes to her personal sense of ethics (the cell phone Lorelai's scrolling through at the bus stop may not actually be her own). Like Kyoko, she indulges in worldly pleasures; I always interpreted Kyoko's gluttony as a coping mechanism, and Lorelai is rather the same in that regard. Like Kyoko (and Mami), she takes a measure of pride in her work, though unlike Kyoko, she doesn't especially enjoy it.
And, like Kyoko, she could probably use a friend, and a kindred spirit. Which, deep down, is what she really wants.
It goes without saying that introducing an original character to an established cast is a damned tricky balancing act, and I feel like that's doubled when it's an original character in a crossover story. Lorelai seems to have been well received, which is a relief to me, and I hope that readers maintain their attachment to her as we flesh out her character over the next couple of chapters.
I can't quite think of anything else to add to this blog. Of course, there's plenty I'd like to say, but I'm reluctant to get too deep into spoilers. I guess we'll leave it here, for now, and come back to talk about chapter two, uh, eventually.
I can see it.
I got really excited about the idea of more Cadance, then really sad knowing she's gonna suffer more, and then I felt both at once in a very confusing hodgepodge. Truly meguca is suffering.
I might have a crush on Lorelai, maybe... probably. So yeah, well received I think.
5295427 I can't believe I forgot to mention this, but when it comes to her physical attributes (the ringlets?), I had Juri from Revolutionary Girl Utena in mind.
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Just, you know... blonder. I guess you could also think of that as a reference to Mami.
Scampy referred to Mami as "Blonde Rarity" the first time she saw her... which, like. Yeah, kinda.
I am sorely tempted to make a dumb joke about Celestia, Luna, and/or Cadence here. Though it turns out nailing down Loveape's role in things actually was part of the process, so yeah.
Alternative headcanon: Escher was an otherwise normal person suffering from Naru Osaka Syndrome, a karmic disorder that caused him to encounter monsters of the week with distressing regularity, yet survive all of them. Emphasis on "disturbing," since we're talking about witches.
This should be a fascinating companion series to the story. Looking forward to more.
Requiring particular characters to suffer is perfectly healthy and normal.
5295573 Hey, I don’t make the rules. The archangel Gabriel compelled me to.
I can't believe I didn't make the connection between Lorelai and Linkle until now. Probably because Lorelai is so cold and edgy, in complete contrast with Linkle (at least from what I've seen having only played the vanilla Hyrule Warriors). And I knew there was a reason I was getting Persona vibes from the first chapter's labyrinth.
You've definitely found the right way to do crossovers, minimizing appearances from one series' cast or outright excluding them entirely as is the case here. I think there is a case to be made for incorporating the entire main casts for both series in any given crossover, but I can personally confirm it is a very difficult juggling act if you want to do it well.
I am curious to know more about the mechanics of this world where both EqG and PMMM coexist, in particular with the weird pony naming conventions that the characters on the EqG side of it have. Does Lorelai find names like "Sunset Shimmer" or "Pinkie Pie" weird, or does this take place in some version of the PMMM universe where everything is the same but "pony names" are more common? Maybe some undisclosed time in the future, Madoka and the gang are all doing their thing in Japan, but their names are all "Bright Hope", or "Sad Time". It's equally as possible I'm just thinking too much about things that really don't matter, of course.