Ponyville Noire: Behind the Scenes Part 2! · 1:05am Sep 19th, 2022
Hey, everyone!
As some of you might have noticed, a new chapter of Rising Nightmares was released yesterday. I hope that you're all enjoying this case: I worked really hard on it and just finished writing the last chapter yesterday as well. I'm looking forward to revealing the climax to it to you! That being said, this was a very hard case to write. I had to do a lot of redos and scrapped a sequence I was really looking forward to doing, and was really glad to see the end of this one. Word of advice, my fellow writers: don't do anything related to time travel unless you really now what you're doing.
Also, I just wanted to remind everyone of The Red Parade's fundraiser commission! For $5 apiece, you can get a 500 or 1,000 word commission to be put in a compilation, all to aid a fellow brony in need. Click the link for more details!
So, as to the real reason I wrote this blog. I wanted to do another behind-the-scenes chat about Rising Nightmares, especially the characters and setting introduced in this latest story, as well as talk about a few things that I wish I did differently for this series. Without further ado, let's get started.
There are no real spoilers in this chat, but still, proceed with caution.
The Plague Doctor
The main villain for Rising Nightmares, the Plague Doctor, is someone that I've been looking forward to introducing since I started writing Ponyville Noire, and he's gone through quite a few iterations both before and after he was introduced.
If any of you have read the original Phillip Finder series (which are still available on my DeviantArt page, but not here), you've probably guessed that the Doctor was based off of one of the major villains from that series, Doctor Nevermore. In the original series, Nevermore was more or less a straight-up expy of the Scarecrow from DC Comics, my personal favorite Batman villain (suck it, Mr. J); he dedicated his life to the mastery of fear, using a fear toxin and elaborate costumes and setpieces to torment the heroes.
While I got some good value out of him, when I was rewriting him for Noire, I knew I'd have to make a few changes. As I stated in the last Behind-the-Scenes, one of my rules for Noire was "no comic book stuff," and I also realized that "I'm gonna scare ponies for science and because I'm evil" does not make for a very deep character or a good motivation.
Designing his origin and backstory took a LOT of effort and redoing: I had a general idea for what I wanted to be behind his motivation, but it took me several tries to sort out the details. I'm not going to spoil anything here, but I will say that he and Scarlet evolved to turn into dark reflections of Phil and Daring, and this is something that I'm looking forward to exploring in the future.
"But, Josi, if you didn't want any comic book stuff, why is he wearing a costume like a supervillain?"
Okay, I admit it, I don't really have an excuse for this beyond "I thought it'd be cool," but there's more to it than that. When I was writing the Plague Doctor, what I wanted for him was to almost build a mythos around him, to make him this nearly supernatural threat. That's partially why he's never spoken or shown his face as of yet; like Rorschach before his mask was torn off, I want him to be more than a pony for the moment. If I attach enough symbolism to the mask, people both in-universe and, hopefully, out-of-universe will forget that there's a pony behind it.
Of course, I realized later on that I might be shooting myself in the foot a bit, building up the reader to an inevitable letdown when that mask eventually, inevitably comes off, but there's also a symbol to that: tearing off the mask is meant to represent conquering that fear, stripping away the mythos to reduce him to a pony. It ties into one theme that I want to work into Rising Nightmares: conquering fear.
Doctor Caballeron
Ah, good old Cabbie. When I first wrote this series, he was meant to be the leader of the Family in Daring's backstory and to have been long dead or in prison. Thankfully, I realized that this was a serious error pretty early on and changed it so that Mojo was the leader.
Like the other doctor, Caballeron went through a few rewrites before I got something I was satisfied with. Originally, I considered making him a mere mercenary who was only in it for the money but had a sense of honor that would lead to him turning on his employers. I don't really know why I changed this, but I pretty quickly grew dissatisfied with this one. I was tossing around ideas to make him less stereotypical in my Discord server one day, and one of my friends basically said "Maybe he believes in aliens." And that was that: all of a sudden, Caballeron was the guy from Ancient Aliens.
(picture credit to Jade Dawn)
It was funny at the time, and I still think it's funny now: I really should try to get some more bathos out of that. It would make a pretty amazing Brick Joke if aliens did show up at the end of the series, but I'm not gonna do it. I do have some standards.
One thing I realized later on, though, was that it was kind of easy for Caballeron to become something of a Joke Villain with that. This is something that I'm definitely gonna work hard to avoid: I already have some plans for that in the next case, and other big plans later in the series. Big plans, indeed... 
Ahuizotl
Really, can you imagine Daring Do without Ahuizotl? Of course I had to write him in, and of course I had to make him more than the mustache-twirling bundle of cliches that he was in the show.
Looking back on my original notes for Noire, written all the way back in ye olden days of 2017, I found that the idea of Ahuizotl being a prophesied destroyer of the world was something I came up with early on. Guess my obsession with the Cthulhu Mythos had an influence very early on.
The idea that the ahuizotl was actually a race of beings that was wiped out by the Pillars was an idea I quickly settled upon and liked; it sets up Ahui as the massive threat that I truly want him to be. And rather like a certain squid-headed entity that I drew inspiration from, I intend to make him an ambiguous shape behind everything; more than a physical threat, his real danger is to the mind and the soul, wearing down on those who oppose his masters' will.
The issue is, this makes Ahuizotl more of a plot point than a real character, rather like what Moriarty originally was in The Final Problem. However, I don't see this as a real loss; he doesn't need to be more than that, and I can still do quite a bit with that. I look forward to pulling back the curtain a little more on him.
Sombra
The Big Bad himself. I've been building up to this guy for a long, long time.
I'd like to note here that Sombra always struck me as a very competent villain in canon: he didn't have much characterization in Season 3, but his foresight and gambit pileups demonstrated his cleverness right off the bat, and he made a hell of an impression in the Season 9 introduction. If he hadn't been killed off, I feel like he could've run circles around all of the other villains. One thing I wanted for Noireverse was to carry that over and give him the same respect.
Most of you have probably figured out who he is: it's not like I'm really trying to be subtle about it anymore. I actually hinted at him way back in the middle of Kriegspiel with a throwaway line, but it took until Misty Streets for Signor Alba Dorata to finally appear on-screen. I did want for him to have more of a role in Kriegspiel, but it didn't work out that way.
I've found that balancing Sombra with all the other villains is proving to be a bit of a chore; it's tricky giving several bad guys enough screen time to flesh them out and show their character and motivations. I'm hoping to give Sombra himself the spotlight pretty soon; he won't need to hide for much longer, after all.
Speaking of motivations, deciding on Sombra's was pretty easy, as the comics handed me one pretty early on; those of you familiar with Siege of the Crystal Empire have probably figured out who the mare in his snowglobe is meant to represent. It's given me an opportunity to make this version of Sombra a true tragic villain and really flesh out his character more. I'm eager to show you more of him!
If I Had to Do It Again...
No writer is without regrets and things that they wish they could've done differently, and I am no exception. I thankfully haven't gotten to the point of hating Noire like I did my original series, but there are quite a few things that I wish I'd handle better, or that I'd like to do differently if I had to rewrite it.
Chief among them is Daring Do's backstory. Seriff Pilcrow criticized that a lot, and while I didn't and don't agree with everything he said, he did have a few valid points in that Noire!Daring Do doesn't always feel like canon!Daring Do, particularly in that she doesn't have the same drive to hunt treasures and knowledge of ancient cultures and history. This is something that I've worked hard to gently retcon in future stories, but...Daring's backstory still bugs me a little and I'm not really satisfied with it, particularly her connection with the Family. I can't really articulate my issue with it, or how I'd fix it, but...it bothers me. And probably always will. Maybe I should've run her through my proofreaders a few more times.
Other things that I wish I'd done differently:
- Spaced out the cases. The entirety of the first two stories takes place inside a single year, with Part 1 taking place from late summer to early winter. This, in retrospect, feels like a bit too short of a timespan, and if I had to rewrite it, I'd probably space it out so that the stories take place over a longer, more natural span of time.
- Introduced Caballeron way sooner. I feel like I should've, and that probably would've helped with Daring's backstory, but he didn't really fit into my plans for the first few stories; mainly I wanted to focus on Zugzwang's rise to power over Silvertongue.
- Done more with the Student Six, or left them out altogether. I'll be honest, I kinda...introduced the Student Six more or less just so I could have them there and show what I was doing with them in this 'verse. The problem is, now that they're here, I kinda feel compelled to write about them more, even though there's not much room for them in the stories. Yona in particular was hard to settle on: originally, I considered making her a police officer on a transfer from Yakyakistan, but this just didn't gel well. Her in particular I really want to do more with, but it's kind of hard to write her in. I probably should have just left well enough alone.
- Zugzwang's hideout. It still bothers me that the heroes were never able to find it in the story, even though Roaring and Caballeron both could. It feels like a plot hole and I'm struggling to close it with some retcons. Really should have planned that out better.
Okay, I think we've all had enough of me rambling. In any case, I'll see you when the next chapter is posted this Saturday. Hope you're as excited for it as I am!
Josiah
Happy to provide the Cabbie sketch.