Chrysalis: SoT Chapter 7 · 9:18pm Jun 10th, 2017
Hello again, welcome to the blog post about the next chapter of Chrysalis: Saviour of Time, "Loose Ends". Discussion of the chapter and story in general after the break. As always, spoilers will be present.
As I said in the last entry, I had already written this chapter when I had posted the previous one. It has gone through some considerable revisions in some spots since then, though.
First and foremost, I had completely forgotten about Shining Armor's presence guarding Chrysalis/Twilight just outside of the hospital room door and had Chrysalis and Spike leave the hospital without any mention of him at all. I couldn't believe how inept I was to simply forget about him like that and quickly fixed that mistake, which will result in Shining being present a little bit longer than I had initially planned.
The second big change was the addition of Luna in this chapter. This actually sprung from a comment where somebody had pointed out how angering Celestia and claiming to have put a spell on Twilight would almost guarantee that she would have Twilight scanned for such spells and put her at risk of being discovered. While I think that Chrysalis wouldn't have had her disguise discovered easily, I felt it needed to be addressed (and that it's another thing I should have included in the first place). I also figured that Luna would probably work against her sister on this and try to ensure that Chrysalis isn't discovered, hence her presence and the whole bit of how she had to convince her sister to not do it herself.
Poor Time Keeper, he's really out of his element now, and Chrysalis is taking her sweet time in bringing that promised food and water to him. By the end of the chapter, it's been nearly an entire day, so he's undoubtedly quite hungry and thirsty by that point, and with Chrysalis going back to sleep, he's gonna have awhile longer to wait yet. He might have felt better if he had stayed in prison soon.
In the little spiel on how the changelings have learned to copy Celestia's methods for sending messages instantaneously is a little something that people may either completely miss, or perhaps latch onto, I'm not sure which. Specifically, it's the mentioning of Chrysalis' mother. I have some ideas about her, but I'm not sure if anything is really going to be revealed or relevant. I've already had a flashback that was initially in an early (very early) version of chapter 5 that would have involved her that I completely cut because it really didn't fit well. Who knows if I'll work her in at any other point in the story.
Wiping the memory of Skitter. This should be no surprise, it was mentioned as something she not only planned on doing but felt she had little choice but to do in the previous chapter. Even so, it's something that cuts her pretty deep. Cutting off her only tie to her own people so soon after cutting off her only method of returning to her own time is sure to cause some damage. Isolation is not something she is accustomed to.
Then she goes on to mind controlling Spike, a character who she is in constant denial over caring about despite having an obvious affection for. A character who she specifically mentions reminds her of young changelings she knew. She is cut off from her own time period, cuts ties with the only changeling she was in contact with, and then harms a child that reminds her of her changelings. Follow that up with Spike sleep talking during his nightmare, revealing his greatest fear as being cut off from Twilight, the one he loves, directly paralleling what Chrysalis had just gone through and it's a recipe for being devastated, even. I feel it should be obvious, but that shivering of Chrysalis' at the end had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with a physical manifestation of the distress she is unwilling to admit to. She really needs a hug at this point, and not because she's hungry.
Now here comes the harder part. The first chunk of this story was more or less obvious in the chain of events. Twilight dies, Chrysalis is recruited and replaces her, then there's the events of the series premier and the direct fallout of those episodes. That's mostly over now, and I've got to figure out which episodes from the first season to adapt, which ones to drop entirely, and stories/chapters to add that are completely unique. The worst part will of course be figuring out a proper order for the episodes. The episodes are generally agreed to not be in chronological order. I could do a little research and find a list made by other people, but I'm sure there's a million different fan theories on the correct chronology. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Anyway, that's more than enough rambling. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.
I'm sure, but that doesn't mean they're all equally valid. You could save some time by just looking through a couple and then deciding which one makes the most sense (or adapting one with slight changes to make more sense to you).
I'm curious about time scale of this fic. Will "Canterlot Wedding" be the grand finale, or just beginning? Or it is spoiler?
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Neither beginning, nor finale I suspect. I have ideas that I think I'd want to occur after that even if I didn't want to do any of the episodes following that season finale. Spoiler territory for discussions beyond what I have said, though.