Chrysalis Saviour of Time Chapter 21 · 1:48am Jan 19th, 2022
Hello folks. Welcome to the blog entry discussing the 21st chapter of Chrysalis: Saviour of Time, aka: Revenge. More discussion after the page break.
So, this chapter has a major break from the canon of the show. It's clearly based off of Magic Duel, which is a season 3 episode, which is by far the furthest out of order episode I intend on doing. I figured that the way the original Trixie chapter ended could reasonably accelerate events. In the show, she was humiliated and made into a bit of a laughing stock. In the story, she was humiliated and made into a criminal that couldn't just take a job on a rock farm to save up to buy the alicorn amulet like she did in the show. Desperation and anger pushed her to break in and steal the artifact instead.
Trixie's return was foreshadowed in chapter 19, Changeling Seasons, right at the start where Chrysalis was reading a newspaper and saw that some antique store had a magical artifact stolen in Canterlot. This did not go completely unnoticed by some of the commenters, which I'm glad for considering it was not meant to be a very subtle hint.
The name of the chapter is something I'm not especially happy with. It fits, Trixie is seeking her revenge, but it's kind of bland. I didn't want to immediately give away that Trixie had returned early in the title, though, so anything relating to Trixie, or the Alicorn Amulet were out, as was naming it after the actual episode's name of Magic Duel. That made it harder and I ended up just using the working title because I never came up with something better.
I had to think of how to get Trixie to remove the amulet, and I both didn't think Chrysalis would come up with the same sort of plan that Twilight did in the episode and that it wouldn't be satisfying if I did have it be the same. Perhaps it was just because it's a kid's show, but Trixie clearly hadn't been turned murderous by the amulet in the episode, so I came up with the idea of getting her to remove the amulet out of shame and fear over what she's become. Enter Princess Luna, who masquerades as Nightmare Moon to frighten, flatter, and bargain with Trixie. She even leans into the rumours of her eating ponies that she was so angry about in the Night Mare Games chapter. She uses the mythology of Nightmare Moon to scare Trixie, then flatters her into being ashamed by suggesting that Trixie is the same as a murderous, cannibalistic monster. Looking into a sort of implied dark mirror shocks her enough to get her to tear off the amulet to deny such a horrible perceived reality.
I think the poison joke may have been an old idea for how to deal with Trixie that I discarded in favour of what I went with, but it was a long time ago I had come up with the plans so I can't remember for sure. Ultimately, it wasn't a great angle because of both the time of year, and the unpredictability of the stuff, and I ended up really liking the idea I went with and instead used the poison joke as a way to get Chrysalis to go visit Zecora. It feels a little of to me, though. On one hand, it felt like a chekhov's gun I introduced that was never fired, which is inherently unsatisfying. On the other hand, having Chrysalis not even have a rudimentary plan without Luna coming in to bail her out felt wrong, too. I threw in it being used at the end as a prank, instead. While I think the idea of Trixie becoming mute and invisible is amusing and a fitting "prank" to play on somebody who craves the spotlight as much as she does, it still feels underwhelming.
Now, let's speak of past Chrysalis as Time Keeper. I had initially intended for her to stay around as him, gathering information, but then I ran into that scene where the two of them argue and "Time Keeper" gets banished. I really didn't anticipate that happening, but it just kind of came out while I was writing and felt appropriate. On several occasions, I had considered rewriting it so that it doesn't happen and that past Chrysalis can continue on as him, but in the end I stuck to what I seemed to spontaneously write. I decided it wouldn't be worth forcing "Time Keeper" to stay and continue spying when it felt so natural and right to do otherwise, even if it meant I had to change some future plans because of it.
Overall, I feel like this chapter is a mixed bag. Though there's stuff I definitely like, I just don't quite feel happy with it overall, but it's hardly the first time that's happened, and sometimes you just need to accept it and push forward rather than going over it again and again forever.
That's enough talk, I think. Next chapter is based off of Ticket Master. I'll see you next time.
Anyway,
Chapter titles aren't a hugely important part of a story (they're certainly less important than story titles) so don't worry about it too much if one of them is lacking a little punch. It succeeded in its intent of not revealing Trixie was going to show up ahead of time.