Author's Notes
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
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I didn't pick up on a few of the subtleties but not that you've explained them its sorta of a face-palm moment. It's amazing how much thought and effort you put into your story and kudos to you. Something, something, your AWSOME, something, something, write more, something something something.... I'll figure out what point I was making later....
1519215 What gave me the idea? I honestly don't know. I get random thoughts about the MLP universe. Tons of them. Occasionally, very rarely, these thoughts are substantial enough to make the basis for a story, and then I see if I can work out a coherent plot. And then, I have to be in the mood to actually write it, and continue writing it without giving up after putting down three sentences. This story went through all those stages. Well, maybe "rushed" is a better word than "went". Still, that's the process.
Than you for the kind words! That kind of comment really makes my day. (Or night... I really should be asleep right now). I'm so very glad that you liked my story. In the end, that's what this fandom is all about; making people happy.
Ya, you layered the emphasis on way too thick...
Well...as you and others have pointed out, you went overboard on hiding the twist.
Even so, after your explanations it makes sense, and I definitely enjoyed reading it pre and post explanation.
Nice story, nice plot twist, albeit too complicated and layered. But with your explanation and re-reading the story twice, I finally can say that yes, while I think it's too much, nothing you written directly states that main character is a pony or his\her lover is changeling. Few dialogues is not very believeable, but overall it is a good work. Thank you.
1520760 1547867 What I intended is explained in the Author's Notes. Considering how many people I confused, I didn't get my intention across very well.
You may interpret the story however you prefer.
Finally got a chance to review this. Well I liked the fact that the Changelings are more "humanized" in this story. What I mean is they are not depicted as evil monsters. Least from what I got from this. I know in the finale, we only saw them as the antagonists, but I think this left it open for more development and expansion. Personally I like the changelings.
1619378 There are several stories that explore changeling culture. One I particularly liked, The Changeling Brothel (Warning: Clopfic), presents the changelings as a powerful and technologically-advanced nation. I admit that it gave me a couple of ideas. (Though my story does not take place in that "universe".)
1640566 I am honoured, dear sir/madam. I do believe those are the first moustaches I have received. I will treasure them. Thanks for reading and commenting! It always warms my heart.
I hate commenting before reading, but I have to know... Does the title have anything to do with "Pride and Prejudice"?
EDIT Okay, that question answered. Onward to criticism!
... I got nothing.
I mean it. When I see something off in a story, I point it out. This one was rather solid from any point of view, provided enjoyable read and even quite some thought-fuel.
One thing that still buggers me-did that book influence this story?
Reading this Author's Notes made me really happy; most authors would flip out that anyone dare criticize their "perfect" work, but you took it how one is supposed to, and used it to make yourself better. Kudos on you for not ragequitting.
1686898 Thank you! It clearly didn't work for everyone but the number of upvotes tells me I did something right.
Alas, there was no influence. I just grabbed a title at random. My formula for titling my stories: Pick a word in the story that seems kinda important and try to make a title with it.
1692496 Perfect? Hah! There are authors out there in the world and on this very site that make me feel like I'm a drooling illiterate.
I write for fun, but I publish so others can enjoy my work as well. If they don't enjoy it, or if there are things I can do to increase that enjoyment, then it's all on me. I don't like authors who get pissy about criticism, and I hope I never become one.
1719781 Indeed, I confused a lot of people. I won't be trying twists on this scale anytime soon.
1728604 The ending was written first, in fact. I was wrapped up in my own ideas and didn't correctly put myself in a reader's place. (I tried to, but failed.) Believe me, I was headed in the wrong direction and was still trying to think up ways to bury the true situation up until the moment of publishing so that no one would catch on until the end.
There were some very minor tweaks done after I started getting my first comments, so the story was originally even worse.
So, yeah, epic fail there.
I'm surprised how many likes this fic managed to get despite.
This is brilliant and should be taught as an example of a great fanfic about changeling/pony relations. While I prefer a more alien approach to how changelings work (mind expansion, odd tastes, etc.), I think your way of showing the many similarities between the creatures is far more unique.
1780661 Thank you very much, but "brilliant" may be going overboard. This story seems to work for some people, and not for others. I'm very happy you enjoyed it, though.
As someone who has written a twist story myself (and no, I won't say which one), I feel for you. I had to do a few gymnastics myself to keep it for 2/3 through the story.
1870622 OK, then.
I... didn't really want to spark an ethical debate here.
1870630 Heh, yeah. Though after the comments I got I feel like my gymnastics in this one ended up much like th- holy shit her name was Candice?!
Ahah. I have to admit that I was very confused about few parts but this cleared most of them out.
All I have to say now is: Sneaky. Very sneaky. Have a moustache just because of that pure sneakiness and subtlety.
I enjoyed this story tremendously even though it was a short one. Personally, I'd like to hear more of them (hinthint, makeasequel)
But even though you cleared most of the confusing parts here, there is still one more thing that I find strange. It's a minor detail but still...
Since when do changelings have tails?
I know I didn't notice "anyling" in the season 2 finale having a tail except for Chrysalis.
Other than that, awsome job!
1897674
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19993725/images/1342990798556.png
1897730
Huh.
Well whaddaya know... I admit my defeat, good sir.
I officially declare my argument invalid.
1897674 Thanks for the comment!
Yes, changelings have tails, as 1897730 wonderfully pointed out. They are, in my opinion, "nothing special".
Hmm... a sequel, you say? I tried to write one, actually, and totally stalled after 241 words.
I do like Dragonfly Dreams, though, and I'll try to include her if I ever write a changeling-related fic. There have been so many stories abut changelings living among ponies, but I've never seen one about a pony living among changelings.
First off, I must say, how in the world did I miss a fic labeled with 'changeling' on it... Ah well, I knew following Wanderer D had to be useful for something >:3 ~ I shall commence the reading as soon as I finish commenting!
Secondly, where did you get that picture? If so, it seems I'm not as original as I had thought XD
AHA! Read the story, and above all, I must say, well played! I had to go through it again, but it works! While not the best executed (princess, a concept that seemed pretty native to ponies instead of generic ruler, for one) it was nevertheless written with a great amount of effort and love and its awesome :D
Though, if I were to be brutally honest, I think the reason there is so much negativity in the comments is because it came off somewhat unsatisfying... I'm not exactly sure how, and I do apologize for it, but I just think that the story seemed far too superficial and impersonal to really allow a connection to any of the characters. I'd say this is because you set a deeply-rooted love story through the eyes of a narrator who seemed too analytical, too third person, while I was expecting feelings, such as 'my heart beat madly', 'red-hot anger boiled in my chest' or 'I felt like ____' (though I may just be biased towards particular POVs), while I got things such as 'I answered with certainty', 'I understood' and 'I stared her down' - there just doesn't seem to be a force or reasoning behind these actions, rather 'just because'. Again, I felt as though it was more third-person than first :x
Okay I take my first statement back, I suppose I *do* have more to say on it - which I would, but I fear I'm just rambling on without reason or audience here >.< (Though I'd be glad and eager and all that to give examples or something if you wanted!)
EITHER WAY, this was a great read, and I suppose I'll now do the logical thing and rummage through your stories until I get hooked enough to follow :3
EDIT: Darn it. Already read all your stuff, which was all great. Guess I'm following you, now X_x
1932420
To answer your first question; this story was written before a "Changeling" character tag existed, so for a long time it was tagged "OC" only. I did update the character tags, but only recently.
To answer your second question, I made that picture myself based on a heart image I found somewhere on the Internet. Used GIMP, if you're wondering.
To respond to your review, this was a story I knocked out lightning-fast by my standards (only 5 days!) and I didn't put the effort into it that it deserved. (I truly don't think I earned a mention in Seattle’s Angels; I'm still shocked that happened.) Hence the emotion content is a little low. That said, the protagonist of this story is the closest I have ever come to writing a self-insert. Analytical, nigh-third-person, not sharing feelings, describing actions dryly? That's me.
1932551 I am always happy to hear that someone has enjoyed one of my stories.
That's the point, isn't it?
1933347 Why, thank ya kindly!
But like I said before: "Brilliant" is going overboard. I had the distinct advantage of written medium, where such a twist is relatively easy to pull off. I took the better part of a week to carefully construct the ambiguous narrative - and even so I didn't completely succeed, as shown by some of the comments.
"Brilliant" is pulling this sort of thing off on TV:
This story was just recommended by Seattle's Angels. Therefore, it gains immediate entry into my "read later" list. Let's see if their recommendation was a good one, eh?
I thought the twist was pretty clever. But as you said, it is layered on too heavily and some things simply ruin the suspension of disbelief, like asking us to accept the changelings have princesses who are extremely alike to those of Equestria. Mind you, the idea that they do have princesses is acceptable in my book, but the similarities to Celestia and Luna is simply too much.
Thumbs up and fav for originality though.
Okay, that was clever. I really like a twist ending that puts the whole story in a new light. If this one suffers, it's because when you finish the story the twist seems absolutely outrageous until you go back and reread it, rather than being a perfect eureka moment. I was on the verge of making a comment about X, Y and Z didn't make sense, but then I reread certain bits of it and the pieces fell into place. Some of the said pieces had to be forced into place (changeling princesses are interesting, but a bit of a logical leap), but overall I think you did a decent job of this.
Wow. Thank you for writing this story. The twist made me cross-reread the whole story in order to get everything. And I managed to do that before reading comments or your notes, so it's well written and thought out in my opinion. Thanks again.
For what it's worth, I wasn't as confused by the twist ending as most seemed to be. It took some thinking about the logistics of it all, like the Luna misleading, but I got what the actual twist was rather than thinking there was an unannounced perspective change or something. I thought it was pretty good. There were problems and contrivances to be sure, but you've already heard all about those from other commenters, and I personally didn't think they were really all that bad. They certainly didn't detract from the story or its intended impact in my opinion.
So nice work.
1934795 1935987 1937784 Thanks for the kind words!
The princess thing really seemed to be the sticking point for a lot of people. I get that. I imagine a changeling princess is a "queen-in-training" who will eventually leave the hive, and take a portion of the workers with her to form a new hive elsewhere, becoming their new queen. She may also replace the existing queen if she dies or becomes unable to rule the hive.
1938953
Thanks! You do know the princess isn't really Luna, right? You keep calling her that so I'm not sure...
(Although I never gave her a name in-story, Princess Umbra is the name that comes to mind. But I'm bad with names so I don't know how that sounds...)
I love in-depth commentary on my stories, so thank you!
I hope you don't mind if I try to argue with your points, though. 
1. "That creature" is the worst we get from the princess, and it is during an emotional and somewhat private moment. It's not that bad. Other than that, the princess sees Dreams as a being deserving of the protection of the law, and refers to her as "she" (to the protagonist's surprise), so the princess pretty much checks her own bigotry very quickly.
As for others treating Dreams badly; it's not even close to being a universal attitude. Dreams would be unable to live if everyone she met treated her like an object. She has friends. She faces enough bigotry in her daily life to cause some problems - but not enough to convince her to leave. (She is free to leave; she's not a prisoner in any way.)
2. The princess checks the protagonist because evidence of mind-control would lie in him; he would be the one affected. I'm not sure what checking Dreams would do. I didn't elaborate on how the magic works, but I think "is under influence of mind-control" is easier to detect than "is performing mind-control".
Yes, a pegasus performing this kind of magic is impossible... or is it?
Remember Love Poison? A pegasus can make that easily (Clouds, rainbows, and a feather) as long as they know the recipe.
This wasn't contrived. It was a well written story, then the twist ending came out of left field and the whole thing went audibly "Clack" as all the pieces snapped together. It was brilliant.
1941389 I aim to please.
1942270 While this story doesn't work for everyone, the flip side is that it does work for others. And it seems the latter group outnumbers the former, which makes me very happy indeed.
Thanks!
1947157
You're right. I don't know why you're telling me these points instead of the author, though, because above (or below, if you've got the most recent comment first) I have written my own issues with this story, meaning I by no means think it's perfect.
But it is fun. And interesting to re-read.
1946110 I sometimes talk about groups I belong to as "they" - especially when I talk about humans. But I'm just weird like that.
And this story, and the reactions to it, have taught me a lot. I now have a better idea of how far I can push deception without losing a good portion of the readers.
1947157 Yep. All good points, all acknowledged. With this story, I went "over the line" for a lot of people - though, encouragingly, not all. Seems different readers have different tolerances. Go figure.
Nevertheless, looking back, even I agree it was too much. I'll try to be more careful in the future.
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.
...oh, I interpreted that entirely differently. I saw it as her saying everyling because that's what gust has said. She was just quoting him.
...well that makes the next part about not wanting to hide her true nature even more incongruous
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.
this is kind of an issue from a different perspective. As a species that infiltrates and imitates other societies/species to gain love, they really should know this kind of thing. It would suck for a changeling disguised as a pegasus to cast a spell and think that's entirely normal for ponies.
1980319
Eeyup.
I think you're the second person to tell me this. I think it's very interesting, because even now, it makes perfect sense to me. The problem seems to be that I have a lot of ideas about the way changelings think about each other and about their prey, and this turn of phrase is natural in that context. Unfortunately, I didn't go much into changeling psychology, so the reader is left confused and betrayed. But, you know what? I got rid of it. Even though I said this fic was "done", it's a simple enough change and doesn't alter the flow of the story, so this is closer to being a grammar/vocabulary correction than a plot one. Thank you, and 1879813, for pointing it out.
Actually, that's exactly what she's doing, though she herself is being coy about her precise meaning. She is questioning the protagonist's ability to love a pony, because she wants to use the pair as a tool to change the general attitudes in her society, and wants to ensure she's backing something solid. So, sorry, but this part is definitely the way I want it.
All my best ideas are plagiarised.
The changeling brothel is something I saw in a couple of other stories. The dialogue about it was rewritten after the story was published because I wasn't satisfied with it at first, and it kept bothering me. I'm glad it came off well in the end.
I'm fine with that.
I can sort of see what you're getting at, but those are unrelated issues. In the company of changelings, using "anyling" etc. is simply custom and politeness.
A changeling sent to infiltrate pony society would probably need to know things like that, or be expected to figure them out quickly. This character is an ivory-tower princess who doesn't get out much, and concerns herself mostly with internal hive matters.
I agree with a lot of other comments that the twist was covered a bit too well making the reveal somewhat confusing and making me feel like the story deceived me rather than that I made an incorrect assumption. And while I guess no one really knows what changeling society is like, it seems pretty far fetched to me that it would be so similar to Equestria.
Something I didn't see in any of the other comments is I felt that the theme of the story and the twist were at odds.
It doesn't matter what race they are, because they love each other. But he's the changeling!
I feel like in this kind of story the prevalent themes in the setup should subtly enhance the impact of the twist, but here it seems to weaken it. In the future you might consider this as a way to guide the audience to a certain mindset where they are likely to make the assumptions you want for the twist rather than sort of force feeding them to us.
Holy shit, that you even thought of this idea is amazing, that you managed to pull it off is ungodly.
I salute you Sir (or Madam, which ever fits)
1982278
If you feel like it, can you elaborate? The theme is "love knows no bounds", or, more bluntly, "interracial couples are fine". Who's the changeling and who's the pony doesn't really matter as far as I see. I'm very curious about how you see the theme and the twist are at odds.
1995190 "Sir", if you insist. I'm thrilled that you liked it! The inspiration came (I think I mentioned it above somewhere) from a Twilight Zone episode. I didn't quite pull it off for everyone, but if it works for you then that's fantastic!
Thank you!
1999787
What I mean is the theme seems to lessen the impact of the twist. As you say, according to the theme, who's the changeling and who's the pony doesn't really matter. Yet revealing who's who is what shocks us as the twist. You get to the reveal and think "OMG he's the changeling, not her! ... Oh wait, that doesn't really change anything about their relationship."
I guess this works to point out a double standard. There are plenty of fics about a changeling falling in love and living among ponies but none that I've seen about a pony living among changelings, much like F/F romance fics are vastly more popular than M/M. It would be sort of like writing a love story about two lesbians, getting the audience to agree that it's OK to be gay, then revealing the story was actually about a male gay couple. The audience may feel betrayed but it may also cause them to reexamine their prejudices.
If you believe that changeling society is really that similar to Equestria and that there's no reason a pony shouldn't be able to live among them then I suppose this is an effective way of expressing that and you may have convinced some people to agree with you. And even for those who remain unconvinced, they have at least had their eyes opened to a new idea.
In conclusion, I think the theme does detract a bit from the impact of the twist but I'd say you created something more than just a twist fic, whether that was your intention or not.
2001445 Thanks for that. I do see the theme and the twist as being rather independent of each other. I could've also done this as a courtroom drama, or a war scenario, or any of a bunch of other things and had the same twist at the end, but this was just easiest. Really, with the plethora of changeling fics I expect nearly everyone to agree that a pony/changeling romance is possible, so the point of using that theme was to set up a cliche plot to lure readers into a false sense of security and hit them with the twist at the end.
What I'm seeing is that opinions on this fic differ greatly, and the interpretations probably do, too. I think that's great. If it made you think, I consider it a success.
Nicely executed twist, there.
How I reacted:
"Wait, hang on-"
*flicks back through story*
"Son of a... I got rused!"
Hmm it took me few minutes to get that is plot twist just because i recheck in head about naming aspects etc
Good work overall. Most confuses is probably because you make it practically identical to pony society and no hints about that can be in other way.
I wanna more stories like that :D fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/365/c/a/clapping_pony_icon___changeling_by_taritoons-d5ps0kg.gif
Ah, and truly does art parallel life. Atm, there is a heated debate about bigotry and some such nonsense on a different thread. Tis the little things. (WHY DID I NEVER GET AROUND TO READING MORE OF YOUR WORK!?! YOU ARE AN AWESOME AUTHOR AND, HOLD ON CAPS IS STUCk. There we go, but I now have to finish reading your works.)
2545908 Ah, it's always nice to get another dedicated online
stalkerfan.You did it wrong. Also, you should use the site_url tag for Dark Rituals.
2569814 What? And what?
2573850 You linked to the story like this:
[url=http://www.fimfiction.net/story/56707/Dark-Rituals]Dark Rituals[/url] -> Dark Rituals
You should do this:
[site_url=/story/56707]Dark Rituals[/site_url] -> Dark Rituals
2578547 I didn't know about that tag. But what difference does it make?