New Story, and a Little Musing · 10:05pm Dec 9th, 2020
The Circle and the Cross
Five days ago, the Friendship Map called Rarity to a task. It called her alone. It called her to the middle of an uninhabited swamp.
Today, she's returned to Ponyville, and she's asked her friends to meet her right away.
The Friendship Map never calls without a purpose.
So, this is the last writeoff story I wanted to get polished and posted this year. And wouldn't you know it, it's still "this year!" I made it. Yay me.
Admittedly, I was hoping to get this done rather earlier, but pandemics, personal life, and all the rest will do their number. I'm still in the single-digits of December, so I feel it's not too late to post a non-Christmas Hearth's Warming fic. In any case, this is my first stab--here or anywhere, really--at writing something mystery-ish, and although there's still one big aspect of it that I'm uncertain about, I'm very happy with how the atmosphere turned out.
I'd like to talk about that, but there's one problem: I can't think of any way to meaningfully discuss it without massive story spoilers. Some people don't mind those, some people hate those... but given that many people find that knowing the mystery in a mystery saps their suspense, that seems like it could be a problem.
So anyway, below the next break I'm just gonna talk about The Circle and the Cross as if you've already read it. If you haven't, consider doing so now, and then coming back when you're good and ready for a little retrospective-ing. Don't worry, this blog isn't going anywhere.
Okay? Okay, here we go.
My goal here was, essentially, to tell a traditional horror story from the monster's perspective, with the added element that the "monster" is, well, Rarity. Think about the story from Forbes's perspective: he's out literally in the middle of nowhere (car broken down, no cell reception, etc.), when a beautiful woman inexplicably shows up. Then, a series of increasingly strange/abnormal/eldrich realizations lead him to discover that she's actually a horrifying, shape-shifting, pony-eating monster. I mean, that's a classic horror setup right there.
But of course, Rarity isn't (personally) a ponyvore; just a horrifying(-maybe) shapeshifting(-definitely) monster(-kind-of-a-judgemental-choice-of-words-don't-you-think?). The victims in other horror stories wish they should be so lucky. Anyway, I'm very pleased with how that aspect of the story came out.
I'm also very happy with the voicing, at least, as I sit here and type this (I always sour on my writing once it's been out in public for a few days/weeks/months; someday I'll write something I never stop liking!). I feel like I got enough "Rarity" into the dialogue while still maintaining the foreboding air I was aiming for. YMMV, but I feel pretty good about that at the moment.
The one thing that bothered me when I wrote the writeoff version of this, which I struggled with while revising, and which I ultimately didn't have a good answer to, was this:
At its core, The Circle and the Cross is an "X is a changeling" story.
You know the kind: somepony is a changeling, they worry about coming out of the species-closet to their friends, then they do, and either immediately or after some drama, their friends are some degree of understanding/supportive. Now, there's nothing terribly wrong with that kind of story, but... well there are a lot of those stories already. It made me question if this was really sufficiently unique to be worth sharing, or if I'd just slapped a fresh coat of paint on a car that everyone had already ridden in a hundred times.
But I ultimately decided two things. First, I like that new coat of paint, dangit. Second, and more importantly: although this may be an "X is a changeling" story, it's not just an "X is a changeling" story.
Because that just is what really matters, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with writing a story about a changeling revealing itself to its friends, or about Scootaloo learning to fly, or about immortals dealing with the mortality of those around them. It's when those are the only thing your story has to offer that there's a problem.
There are lots of "X is a changeling" stories that aren't very good, because that's literally all they are: an excuse to get to the warm fuzzies of reconciliation by following a well-trodden (and frankly, pretty obvious even without all that trodding) path. There are some "X is a changeling" stories that are really, really good, precisely because they tell a complete, vibrant story that happens to end in those same warm fuzzies.
Anyway, I hope I've written the second kind of story. But I'm just the author; I don't get to make that call.
That's for you to decide.
It's interesting to see the author talk about this, because it's exactly what I thought after I finished reading the story. He put it much more eloquently than I could.
Worrying about originality in fiction is something I can relate to. Ideally, every story would be unique enough to stand out, but what exactly does "unique enough" mean? I have my own lines I draw, but I don't think there's a correct answer to this question. A few times in the past I've had some anxiety after I heard about a story that was similar to one I had planned on writing. After all, if someone else did a good job with the concept, then what could I possibly add to it? So far I've never cancelled any stories because of this, because I found the way that I would do it is different enough that I feel that they both deserve to exist.
These kind of questions are only exacerbated in fanfiction. I mean, it's one thing to have two stories about a character who's secretly a monster, but two stories where it's literally the same character being the same monster? At that point, it's hard to avoid people comparing the two. But if it's the story you want to write, what is an author to do?
This is worth thinking about, but it's simply not an easy question to answer.
Though I must say, even if the concept for The Circle and the Cross was a familiar one, I still enjoyed the story a lot. Personally, I found it to be distinct enough from the stories I found myself comparing it to for it to be worth reading. Thanks for deciding to publish it, and thanks for this blog, too. There's plenty of stuff worth thinking about in both of those pieces of writing.
"X is a changeling" seems like such a quaint thing now, when half your audience will turn around and ask, "You mean the creepy black nightmare abominations that swarm all over your cities, or the ones that look like bug-eyed Christmas fairies in a discotheque?"
I wonder if there's an "X is a changeling" story where the changeling in question really is a bad guy? No fuzzies, no redemptions, just an out-and-out monster keeping up a good disguise. Maybe the plot is that they are actively trying to prevent their cover being blown, or they're having doubts but going through with their plan anyway. Could even put in some commentary about how easy it is to mislead people with feel-good words and token efforts at acting nice, while their naive minds leap in and do the rest. It'd be cynical as all get-out, but at least it'd be different.
As for originality, I stopped looking for that long ago. Not only is it a nebulous concept at the best of times, the harsh part is that it's not a synonym for "quality" anyway. You end up shooting at a running target you can barely see, and which doesn't always earn you a prize even if you do hit it. No, I prefer a combination of good functionality/competence and chaotic whim, or to put it another way: I do what I want, but I do it as well as I can.
Yeah, the execution made this unique.
When I did:
"All You Need is Love" for a contest earlier this year, I was essentially given the prompt "Sapphire Shores is really a changeling."
So, yeah. In the end, all we've got is execution. And I've thought since the original Writeoff version that you pulled it off here quite handily.
Mike
5412670
Nice to see our thought-streams flowing in the same direction. I'm glad you enjoyed the story; thanks for letting me know!
5412675
"X is a changeling" seems like such a quaint concept, and yet, people keep writing it! Well, 5412826 (thanks for the kind words, Augie!) and I do, anyway. So that's two right there! Some things we never outgrow, and old-school changelings seems to be one of them.
5412724
Thank you for saying so. That was my hope; nice to see it landing for people.
I agree with the other commenters that this rises above the “X is a Changeling” trope.
The threat of getting eaten in a rather violent way, plus the mystery and horror aspects make it so in my view.
I think it branches off nicely from "x is a changeling" story, though it could still be caught under that umbrella term. The perspective you mentioned, and the unique way that the secret is revealed, does make it a notable deviation.
You did leave some leeway for a sequel, or some follow up chapters. Do you have any plans for that?
A way to make it more not another XiaC story would be to make it longer on the terror angle, make the little things take more to be revealed, make them more shocking for Forbes... But then this was told from Rarity's point of view, so she wouldn't notice it and we'd get pretty much what we did.
A fun way to expand on it could be a story that put the six for a long enough while in a situation where they would think the three monsters are the guilty parties because things match up so well, but they know it isn't so because they're friends (and together the whole time). It'd likely bother them to no end that they can't find the true culprits while somehow having to deal with/use their natural forms. Maybe they're outside equestria and the earth pony and pegasus have to run interference to hide the other three - Twiggles being busy with diplomacy for extra funsies.
Anyway, don't worry about it being XiaC, it was good. And the ending is likely the best one you can get without disappointing people, no matter what reveal it could be (or how curious I am).