It was that moment, that accursed moment when the glass shattered for her and everything went straight to Tartarus. The moment she took it and stood up. That damned moment that doomed her into the life of misery. If only she could stop it. If only she had a moment to tell her that time.
"I don’t want to be…"
Set in an alternate universe where the defeated Chrysalis took Starlight Glimmer's hoof.
Regretting the path she had taken, Chrysalis sets in motion a plan to undo a key point in her past.
Will her attempt succeed? Or is there yet another path to choose?
A contest entry to FanOfMostEverything's delightful ponydox contest: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/915967/contest-a-most-delightful-ponidox
Cover artist:groomlake here's the full
Edit:FEATURED AS OF 18/10! WOOOHOOO!!!
Edit2:I would like to thank Scarheart and kildeez for their editing and their honest emotional support they gave me. Plus my friend Kyle whos last name will not be disclosed as he is only on facebook afaik. His emotional support was invaluable during my writing hiatus.
Λαθάκι in the description ''starlights hoof''
Που σε ρε!
Definetly a really interesting concept and story, i always like when we get those "what if.." and the characterization was quite on point. Extra points for how you did the ending being totally not forced and natural.
10486887
My main observation was that villains never change what they are, they just adapt.
10486921
But here, she is like a Anti Hero or something.
10486934
What I mean is she didn't change who she was as a person even after her redemption. She still has the same dreams, the same mannerisms, the same tastes and likes. She has just adapted to the situation and became friendly to the ponies.
Are you going to make a longer sequel?
10486981
Unlikely. Unless I get real inspired. But I do intend to write about Chrysalis more so why don't you stay and find out?
10486939
Okay good. At least she is "nice" to the Ponies somewhat. What about Thorax and the other Changelings.
Congrats! You get an 8/10 from me for this story as it was quite good.
If I was in Chrysali's situation I would do everything to take control of my future and life.
For example, destroying the crown or taking it away.
And other choices I would have to think about, that generally require action in that throne room
But if all else failed and if my life would be that bad as Chrysalis described, then one last way to have your life in control is to kill your younger self.
If you can't have control of your life and choices, but others in the end, will for their own benefit, then no one will have it
10487686
In the event of Chrysalis killing her younger self, older Chrysalis would pop from existence, Luna and Starlight would be stranded in time (for the time spell would have been terminated with older Chrysalis's disappearance, though their return back to the present might have been possible), with no way home, and no idea why they were there.
Not a wise idea.
10487776
Exactly, why should she care, just to be used for benefit of others and left in the dust?
10487125
She'll probably need time and space to figure out how to deal with the betrayal thing. Regardless of whether or if she understands why they did it, it probably still stings. Moreso than the ponies did.
10487191
Thanks. I'm flattered really. What did you like the most?
10487686
Time travelling stories are already needlessly complex as it is. They are rife with paradoxes and one of them involved killing your own self in the past. It's stupid, and I hate time-travelling for it. It doesn't make sense and tbh I don't like doing that. I figured however If i were to do it I'd go with the "complete time-loop" route like Twilight did in her original time travelling story in Mlp.
Originally the idea was that they fight in an effort to intimidate younger Chrysalis into not picking the crown. Chrysalis uses mirrors both her own and natural ones in the hive to attack her. Much like Archimedes in the Fate franchise.
Hence the original idea was that Chrysalis is not her full name but she is from a hive called "Hive Mirrorhoof" and that similarly named hives exist.
Young Chrysalis struggles with the help of her new friends and manages, fueled by their love, to cast a spell that calls forth the utopian "Black Sanctuary" walls.
Walls that have no limit to their protection as long as the caster never loses their resolve and reflect attacks back. Shocked that her younger self is able to realize her dream, even vizualizing it in a spell the eldest Chrysalis finally relents and is defeated. The fic would go in a similar direction as the current idea after that.
Honestly I had ideas to include even some OCs of mine but tbh I didn't want to force my audience to be so quickly introduced to new characters that they didn't know or my own headcanon that they probably wouldn't like. I do intend to write more stories including my own headcanon so I figured I should probably just focus on a more character-driven story without unnecessary fights, headcanon, or OCs.
Besides the fight was already too much trouble for its own worth. I wouldn't be making the deadline either. Also, can you imagine trying to vizualize all that mirror stuff? Manipulating shadows? Light? The #teleportsBehindYou "Nothin personel kid" jokes? Nope. Not doing that now.
10487802
You have a point.
10487802
I wanted to make it clear that Chrysalis was in NO WAY suicidal. It's way too damn depressing and if I know anything from my own experiences with those dark thoughts Chrysalis would NEVER commit suicide. She's way too self-interested to do that. Selfish? Commited to survival? You know what I mean.
10487776
While you are correct about the feedback essentially killing Chrysalis they would likely be able to return by casting the simple unsummoning spell that I mentioned. Also look at my other comment here>>10487804 As you can see I HATE paradoxes and time-travelling risks them to an extreme decree.
10487817
Well, come to think of it, because Chrysalis would have died, the spell would have never been cast, and everything would most likely (hopefully) return to normal.
10487822
Maybe. Maybe not. A world without changelings might have been weaker overall. In which case I would likely give her rule some praise. Honestly however I don't want to give any praise to authoritarianism or tyranny in any form. Most such regimes benefit the people in some way or form to survive or keep their subjects compliant. Besides there's no point in finding the silver lining here. It's not a story of what would happen to the world, but rather that you shouldn't dwell on the past in the first place.
Chrysalis shares the same anxieties as me in this case. She'd rather worry about what she did, than what she didn't do. Giving in to paralyzing stress is NOT healthy. Take it from me.
10487822
Nope, that would have edited the current timeline, making it to remake itself or create a new one.
Either case in that one Chrysalis effects on the world would have been nonexistent and no one would benefit from her failures.
Essentially taking down others with her, who just user her
10487817
But when you know that the sole reason for your existence in the timeline is to exist for benefit of others and then be discarded ,you don't have that many choices .
She couldn't even convince her younger naive self to change
So there are 2 options :
-Continue with everything and be just a discarded puppet who accomplished it's purpose ,who will be just left in the corner ,when others have happy life ,just because that's their purpose
-Or take your own life , while also taking with you lives of everyone else who needed for her to exist and to beat her to succeed
did you use the fate summoning chant as an inspiration for this ?
10487858
Who? Me? I don't know what you're talking about...
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/bcb145ff-b94a-4584-a6fd-ba0ce628b5a6/dc3yo9b-80a9abc4-6bfe-44d6-9e4f-0b1c12d99dfc.png/v1/fill/w_1024,h_1236,strp/king_ao_by_nioniosbbbb_dc3yo9b-fullview.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD0xMjM2IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvYmNiMTQ1ZmYtYjk0YS00NTg0LWE2ZmQtYmEwY2U2MjhiNWE2XC9kYzN5bzliLTgwYTlhYmM0LTZiZmUtNDRkNi05ZTRmLTBiMWMxMmQ5OWRmYy5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTAyNCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.ECSjHyK2NJZiIV2zOgNPl_sv1GQyk_t40-IQTQSxt1Y vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/a/a7/NamelessSaberRender.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20191211035639
It's not like I use Fate as an inspiration for my OCs
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/bcb145ff-b94a-4584-a6fd-ba0ce628b5a6/d9kzk4o-7450a8d4-08e2-4edb-a7e5-3ba610f308d8.jpg/v1/fill/w_1024,h_768,q_75,strp/maelstrom_thunderbolt___king_ao_by_nioniosbbbb_d9kzk4o-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD03NjgiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC9iY2IxNDVmZi1iOTRhLTQ1ODQtYTZmZC1iYTBjZTYyOGI1YTZcL2Q5a3prNG8tNzQ1MGE4ZDQtMDhlMi00ZWRiLWE3ZTUtM2JhNjEwZjMwOGQ4LmpwZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD0xMDI0In1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.wjMUH5OF3FQkWlbySgtwvfvbzmJxpfoPUUhnoOEbYRA steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/528417746344420997/E7D671A0BC9604E01B16D9E35755CC47DD6B7492/
I play both JP and NA version of FGO btw.
10487853
Yeah that wouldn't be very productive now would it? She wanted a solution, not to nuke everything.
10487858
There's a lot of Fate parallels anyway lmao. Wanting to not become queen and all...
10488078
Eh? There are a lot of media out there that feature stories like this imho. I mean even Supernatural went with that plot. It's not exactly unique to Fate.
I FOUND YOU... here...
10488096
Sorry I only know Fate well enough, and it wasn't a criticism of your story cause I did enjoy it.
Sorry.
10488197
That's fine honestly. I'm not mad or anything.
10488154
AHAHAHHAHA noice.
She took the crown to help improve the Changling's lot. She succeeded. Going back in time was necessary to make her younger self sure about taking the crown as well as inspiring her to love herself and her friends to help her do so. Yes I like this. To me the whole show was redeeming villains through the power of Friendship and Harmony. From Nightmare Moon to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon and Discord. That they didn't reform Chrysalis and she was stoned along with the other two always seemed wrong. I like your version better.
10489014
If I had a single pic to describe what she did it would be this.
cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0641/1521/products/pins-task-fail-pop-up.jpg?v=1593716752
😂
Dang a fellow Fate fan, I see...
10490752
Eeeyup. Look at my previous comments.
And she was thrown into Tartarus the very next day!
No? Fine.
Your character voicing for Chrysalis and Luna leaves a lot to be desired. Can you really see either of them delivering those lines like that?
... They didn't even lock her windows.
Interesting predestination paradox, but sloppily written. It's hard to even tell what's going on in some area, especially the conflict after Chrysalis completes the ritual. There are some great bits like her conversation with herself, but this definitely needed another editing pass or two. Plus, given Chrysalis's canon history, it would've been helpful if you'd specified which defeat she was coming back from a bit earlier on. Still, conceptually sound stuff. Thank you for it, and best of luck in the judging.
10492743
Ouch, my heart.
Most of the time my editors center their efforts around making the language barrier between Greek and English be... tolerable. I'm not joking when I say the first guy that ever edited for me gave me a nickname "the elipsis murderer". Believe it or not I talked with my British native editor to correct any unfitting descriptions or wrong phrase choice before you read it.
Truth be told I may be putting a lot of "myself" in Chrysalis here. It's kind of hard to reconcile the idea of how she talks and the main themes of the fic. I rejected the initial idea of making Chrysalis a bit more agressive in all of this. As for Luna I guess I haven't written her long enough to be familiar. I haven't been writing enough to claim mastery over these characters. I bet it doesn't help that my imagination is largely occupied with developping my OCs either.
In my previous comments I mentioned that there was a dropped idea in which there is a fight in the throne room rather than just a talk. Perhaps that would be more in character but it would take the fic in a place that imho would disrupt the contemplative nature of the fic. If I'm honest I'm not even sure the whole theme fits Chrysalis in the first place, but I guess I loved the character enough that I wanted to make it work. In the past this idea fit Starlight Glimmer more in my head.
The sloppiness is my own fault. I do have a problem of self-organisation. As I said in pms I used this competition not as a means to win, but rather a way to trick my mind and find motivation to start writing again. My focus is fleeting as much as my motivation and let's just say it's a struggle.
As for specifying the defeat I did this on purpose actually. My thought process was that I would include a vague description three times and expand upon it each time. It would be a journey of discovery for the reader that would notice the details in my descriptions and Chrysalis' words. I actually had two of my editors mention they thought the moment I mentioned was taking Starlight's hoof, which was something I was happy about because I actually pulled off the ruse sucessfully.
As for the windows I guess enough time had passed that there was enough good faith. Besides that wouldn't stop her imho.
Thanks for your feedback. It's rare to get such feedback and I honestly kind of felt ashamed that I didn't notice all this. Do you have any advice as to where I can seek such feedback/like-minded individuals? Perhaps a discord server? I want to get involved in writing again and I figure that doing that includes being involved in the right circles.
10493032
Ugh, I feel you there.
That's actually a very good point. Now that you mention it, I can see Twilight's thought process: "They're not going to stop her, so we might as well leave them unlocked as a sign of trust."
I'm afraid I don't have a Discord server myself, but the Fimfic one usually has folks with higher standards than mine roving the writing channels. In any case I'm glad the contest spurred you to get writing again. And hey, I may have graded it harshly, but it clearly won over the crowd.
10493095
What matters is that this exchange was productive to be honest. I've long since abandoned any strict, to the rules, approach of fiction. I used to be so uptight that I regret it to this day. Honestly I've tempered my expectations in an effort to create something fun. I still have some stuff to clear out but I definitely need some pointers.
I'm going to echo some of what 10492743 covered, and using 10493032 as context as well. At this point, I'm basically going to pile on some more feedback in the hopes that it helps you out going ahead.
The character voices aren't the only thing off – I'll understand if there's a language barrier – but their behaviors are a bit off too. To highlight: when I read Luna swearing at her sister's raising the sun and waking her up while dreamwalking, her choice of words wasn't the only questionable thing that came to mind.
And, yeah, the incident that this story is built around is confusingly ambiguous until too far in, at which point it loses the ambiguous part more than the confusing part. Given what you were aiming for, I would recommend clearly letting us know what the incident that Chrysalis was thinking of was… well, pretty much as soon as you introduce it. After that, you can hold out plenty of the details like – why she thought of it as a mistake – until later, to be shown however you wish at that point.
It's not a group, and it won't give you feedback or proofread your stories for you, but Viking ZX's Being a Better Writer series has a lot of topic-by-topic advice for writing if you want something to peruse.
10493174
I haven't heard character voices as a term before although I know what it is.
I don't follow?
The thought was to be a bit dramatic. Apparently not the best decision? It was supposed to be something that the reader figures out like a Eureka moment. As for the why I thought that it would be explained through Chrysalis' demeanor throughout the fic.
In any case I'll keep your link in mind. It won't do good to dwell on instructions too much. I spent around 10 years doing that in uni. If I know myself as well as I do there needs to be practice... and a lot of it. So I'll try again and check simultaneously. If at first you don't succeed... you know how it goes.
Thank you for your words!
10493354
Regarding Luna cursing her sister for raising the sun: I sincerely doubt that canon Luna would ever be caught by surprise or awoken if she did not wish to be simply by the sun rising. Curtains exist, at the very least, and wouldn't Luna be more likely to be going to bed in the morning anyway? Harping on this one moment aside, little details like that can make a break a great story. It's easier to go along with whatever choice you've made if it's consistent with what I know about the story's setting; if you want to make changes, that's fine, but intentionally setting that up is a good idea.
I won't claim that my suggestion for handling the recurring reference to the moment Chrysalis keeps thinking of is the only path, or even definitely the best path. I just think you'd have had more luck if you more carefully picked what information you wanted us to have a "Eureka" moment with and what information you would supply us from the start to keep things from being confusing. In my suggestion, I think you could hold on to a great deal of important information that we can discover as we go while still letting us know why we're reading the story in the first place. That part is… pretty important.
10493393
Curtains. Right you got me there. But I guess if Chrysalis woke up due to not having placed those curtains so she could look at the thunderstorm would have the same effect.
Btw that feeling of tranquility I described of watching a thunderstorm indoors is called "chrysalism". No joke. There's this YouTube channel that tries to put words into obscure feelings like that.
The more we talk the more I'm getting the idea this was way too short for a oneshot. Believe it or not I had three iterations of this idea in mind before this.
One put Starlight in Chrysalis' place feeling the same things she did. Rest of the plot was different tho. Second had Chrysalis but entirely different than the canon backstory. It was to be called "Chains" and each had a small chapter called "Bound by X". Each had a moment where characters were LOUD about it, even violent to the point of death by cop in order to achieve that freedom of choice. Even this fic had a rejected fight plot.
Anyhow if you got anything more to say I'd like to move this in pms.
10496202
I beg you pardon?
So I saw your request to have someone read this and I like this is a good story with interesting ideas that also throws in a few laughs. Well done.
So chrysalis reformed but she didn't turned into brightly colored changelings like thorax and the others? If so I have no problems with that, I personally liked the classic look. Though do like idea the idea of holes being filled and keep that predatory and lack chitin look they had. Though having alittle more variety.
10505874
You could say she turned a bit more like Pharynx rather than Thorax.
10506472
Okay I was trying to picture it as way you described sounded like it wasn't the color pastel changelings. As said I always been a huge fan of their orignal forms seeing as it what brought me to th fandom. ^^ That and the art and fanfics I read over the years of her and her changelings that constantly always bring me back into the fandom.
whose
You've a review
10639417
Sorry this has been corrected btw.
10650944
Thank you!
Xronia polla!
10738246
Xronia polla.
Was this whole fanfic a fate stay/night reference?
11382485
No.