Dee stays loyal to Mum, which means obeying all her Rules. Hide when company is over. Keep your sweater tight over your wings. Never speak the name "Rainbow Dash."
The problem with Rules is sometimes they don't help. Like when a scary purple unicorn shows up to ask Mum some dangerous questions.
Dangerous questions about Dee.
This is an entry in the Snippet Series, an anthology of old oneshots that I (and my good buddy Str8aura) wrote based around interesting pics I found. New ones will be posted every Thursday for the foreseeable future.
Chapters (1)
Ay, it's been too long!
I love going into stories I know nothing about. Given my time on the mlp subreddit is scant these days (do people miss me?), I am immune to spoilers from whatever thread may have inspired this. Rest assured I am keeping your last Dash related story, and your affinity for clones, well in mind.
My Little Dashie moment. Or more specifically, Hoffman's interpretation.
Drip fed information! But more Interestingly, realistic dialogue. Real people stutter and trip, and it can be a balancing act to try and write that into font. Nevertheless it's a tactic I'm very fond of.
What could a sweater be for? Blocking wings is my guess.
That settled, the next question is of the nature of Dashization: is Double Dee being pushed along the same path deliberately, or is it a matter of her cloning (for lack of a known word) naturally falling along the pretrodden path? Right now, it can be read either way, which is what makes children such a wonderful unreliable narrator.
You tell us exactly what is going on. Which of course means that's not what's going on. What did you call it? 'Law of conservation of plan'. I will admit it comes off as a tad telly right now. I would have had Starlight's suspicions come up a little more naturally.
Some of Chryssy's tics, like repeating 'they are, they are' or assuring herself of her own lies remind me of a tittering sycophant servant, or perhaps a Gothic lit madman. It's nervousness, of course, but it's a very specific breed of nervousness.
A prophetic dream and a traumatizing memory of even bringing up the name Dash. This is not a crazed fanboy making a mare, but someone saddled with a mistake. Beginning of Sweet Tooth vibes.
I can't say I buy Starlight's hero syndrome. As someone who's been on both sides of righteousness, Starlight seems much more the type to keep to herself and fight where she's needed than actively seek out danger. She certainly loves to show off her power, but her fantasies here strike me as the type developed from deep engagement with fiction- although that description IS very befitting of our Dee, which could make an interesting first encounter. Damn it, I think I've spoiled myself.
Jesus christ, I thought for a second she had Punji Pit'd the fucking house.
Indeed, storybook villain v storybook villain. If a story doesn't question the nature of stories, is it really a story? I seem to recall you quoting your appreciation of The Tale of Desperaux, another story about a tiny inconsequential figure inserting themselves into the role of a storybook hero.
God damn it, I should have known its a sequel. I'm not sure how I feel about this twist, given I quite liked the teen pregnancy metaphor, and the addition of a second child slightly jumbles that. I'm also not sure how the timeline adds up to a minor making both an adult and a fetus out of the cloning process, but perhaps I'm forgetting details from the original story.
(EDIT: For future readers, the first draft of this story featured the twist at the end that Chryssy herself had created the version of Dash from Be Yourself.)
While the story may have been predictable, predictable is not bad. I appreciate you taking dares in putting the everpresent question of 'is a clone a person' in the backseat to a fresher one, about stories and good versus evil. Your snippet series is much tighter woven than mine, a deed your more down to earth stories allow for much better. I'm glad you've made the most of your writing style- were it me, I definitely would have chased the potential for horror in a concept like this. I like this better.
(I'll also admit I expected the twist to be that Chrysanthemum was Chrysalis. So sue me.)
Okay, now I must see how that story goes.
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Ironically not only would Rainbow Dash been more believable in this role, but the dramatic irony would have been sheer perfection.
I can only assume it was to drag out the suspense longer, but I can't help but feel its a missed opportunity.
That being said I think Starlight works well enough in a pinch.
Still a great story all around, minor quibbles about characterization aside.
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mmit! The other guy is totally right that swapping Starlight for Rainbow Dash would have made this this fic's pathos about 20% cooler. Mum's hero worship, Dee's destined confrontation, Starlight's storybook morality... it all maps onto Dash so much better. And it's too late to change it now.
Faust D
What I can change though is that ending reveal. You're right that the teen pregnancy metaphor is too earnest to be undercut by a previous case. But you know what can be done to preserve the metaphor? Having the previous case belong to someone unrelated.
So... yeah. Amending a published plot point is something I've only done once before in Her Bitter Half. But I recognize good advice from a friend when I hear it. And hey, no fretting about catching this ahead of time if you were on the sub; I'm not there much myself these days. Consequently, this Snippet came from the purest place: surfing Derpibooru and seeing an intriguing picture of Sad Baby Nerd Dash.
Sorry for no Chrysalis plot twist. To be fair, she already tried her hoof at cloning Dash in canon. Dee is thankfully not destined to melt like her big sister did.
P.S. I'm happy to be uploading Snippets again. Almost as much as I am to read your comments on them.
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Is it?
Is it?
Is it?!
Is it?
Seems if you're changing one plot point, you could change more.
Any chance we could see any of the clones return?
We've seen some manner of revival magic before in the series, and both the mirror pool and the Chrysalis clones leave behind enough remains that I could see their revival in the near future.
I'm incredibly curious to see what you would make of them.
Another impressive addition to the verse.
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You can always have a sequel where rainbow dash goes to confront her apparent love child everyone in town is gossiping about
This story was beautiful… I’m probably going to spend the rest of the evening puzzling my shattered heart back together, but it’s totally worth it.
Keep up the amazing work!
D'aww, that was a cute ending. Though I do wonder how much Dee is going to be like Dash in terms of personality, since Chrysanthemum seems to think she'll be exactly like her. Kind of a nature verses nurture debate, you know?
Hrrmmmm...
Welcome Dee to your new class of Rainbow Desh copies. Your teacher is Rainbow Dash the first -- the first copy of Rainbow Dash. She will teach you all the tricks of being a real Rainbow Dash!
Starlight just asking her to confess was kinda… out of the blue. What happened to actual investigation?
Also, "what makes you think I'm not recruiting a student? Where do we recruit friendship students? Ponies who've made big mistakes!"
We need more. This is too good just to end.
For some reason, I had in mind she was machine learning a copy of Dash when reading this sentence.
Oh, this was great stuff. A gripping read through and through, and great use of each character’s beliefs and biases when we’re using their perspective. Thank you for it.
(But yeah, cloning Bearers can’t be allowed to proliferate to such a degree. We’d be up to our eyes in them otherwise.)
Squee!
That probably stung even more than she intended.
I don't even know why I post the following video.
Chrysanthemum: "Uhm... no?"
: "Why am I suddenly nervous?"
Starlight: "Darnit!" *storms off, never to be see again*
Yeah! How could you?!
You had certainly proven the latter.
Good story!
I enjoyed reading it.
Also glad to see everything has worked out in the end (at least for now).
An oddball ghost happened across your fic and read it. Have a review!
This genuinely made me tear up a little. I love this so much, I yearn for a story about a secret clone family like this.