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// Author's Notes 
// Story: Pony and Prejudice 
// by Softy8088 
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Author’s Notes


I never thought I’d be writing one of these, but I got a bunch of comments about the twist ending, so I might as well explain myself.

First of all, just to make the point clear, the main, first-person character in the story is a changeling. The princess at the beginning is not Luna, but an unnamed changeling princess. Everyone in this story is a changeling, save Dragonfly Dreams. She is the only pony.

I essentially came up with the twist ending first, then wrote a story around it. As I was writing, I found myself worrying that the twist would be spotted too early, so I kept layering on hints and implications that the story was taking place in Equestria, and never quite feeling it was enough – even up to the time when the story was published. Apparently, I went overboard, to the point that the twist ending became unbelievable.

The ending is intended to change the meaning of previous events in the story, but the goal was to make everything prior to the reveal work from both a pony and a changeling perspective. The pony perspective is obvious, but it seems the changeling perspective could use some explanation.

The changeling princess at the beginning is a blatant parallel to Luna. The idea here is that Equestria and the Changeling Kingdom are similar in ways that the reader didn’t expect; Changelings have their own princesses, and they even have a princess that prefers the night over the daytime, and has a more popular older sister. Luna’s counterpart is meant to show (with all the subtlety of a brick to the face) that changelings and ponies aren’t so different.

The suspicion that Dragonfly Dreams used some kind of mind control magic, despite her being a pegasus (and thus incapable of direct magic manipulation), evidences that changelings have fears and misconceptions about ponies. Ignorance is the basis of racism and bigotry, and this is meant to be an example of that.

The conversation about whether changelings can love takes on a different meaning. The princess and the main character are talking about themselves; discussing whether their own species is capable of selfless love. The main character obviously believes it to be true, because he (or she; the gender is deliberately not stated) feels it himself. The princess eventually agrees, but maintains her suspicions about the main character’s motivation.

The conversation about who is “using” whom is both a parallel and an inversion of pony fears. Changelings don’t want to be used; in this matter they are similar to ponies. Wind Gust used to worry that Dragonfly was using his brother to satisfy her own emotional/sexual desires by having him turn into various ponies/creatures for her. (Therefore, the main character would essentially be a prostitute.) Now, Gust worries that it is the main character that is using Dragonfly, by fooling her into loving him so that he can eat her love. (This is the classic pony fear, but Gust only comes up with the idea now because he is actually starting to care for Dragonfly, which he didn’t before.) The main character argues that both he and Dragonfly care about each other; neither is using the other. They give to each other selflessly and honestly.

The tiny bit about Celestia is a simple inversion of what a pony might do; jokingly threaten to sic Chrysalis (or Discord, or Nightmare Moon) on another pony for whatever reason. And yes, Wind Gust stole Celestia’s cake at some point.

Changelings have restaurants. They enjoy eating food. It’s not necessary for their survival, of course, so a restaurant is purely entertainment for them, like a cinema or a party hall would be for ponies.

The mention of Dragonfly’s speech patterns inverts the original meaning. Instead of her being a changeling that refuses to take on pony mannerisms, she is a pony that is starting to act more like a changeling. The main character had given up on teaching her changeling ways of speaking, but she is now picking them up herself without his prompting.

Well, that just about covers all the main points. If you, dear reader, are looking at all of that and saying to yourself that that is way too contrived, and that far too many contortions of logic are required to interpret the changeling perspective, and that the twist ending does not feel at all believable, then... I completely understand.

For all the flaws in this story, I will not be rewriting it. I grew attached to all those contortions and contrivances as I wrote  it, and ripping them out now would, to me, damage the work to the point where it wouldn’t feel like the story I had envisioned. The fic is done. If you liked it, I am very, very happy. If you didn’t, I still thank you for taking the time to read it, and I hope to do better in the future.

Under no circumstances should that be interpreted to mean that I don’t want continued criticism. I sincerely appreciate every comment this story gets, and telling me what you didn’t like will help me improve as a writer – and maybe even as a person. I won’t be changing this story, but I will keep every critique in mind for the future.

Again, thank you to all my readers, and especially the commenters.

If you’d like to read something else by me, that had a lot more effort put into it, you can check out Dark Rituals. (Especially the first chapter. The second chapter is a bit meh, in my own view.) Despite the word "Dark" in the title and the tags, it's not really so bad.

For other story recommendations, just check out my Favourites list. (Mind the clop, if that's not your thing.)

Happy reading!

-Softy