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Today’s story will ensnare you.
Of Flies and Spiders
[Romance] [Dark] [Tragedy] • 8,065 words
Glitter was banished from her hive because she’s different: instead of feeding on love, she feeds on anger, fear, and sadness. Ponies are easily fooled and more easily manipulated. Staying undetected and sustaining her dietary needs, she goes through life bringing misery to those around her. All changes, though, when he turns up, tearing down walls built throughout a lifetime.
FROM THE CURATORS: Spiders are a common creepy-crawlie, both in the real world—sorry, Australia—and in fiction. Greek mythology gives us the source for arachnid in Arachne, a master weaver who is transformed into a spider; ancient Sumeria’s goddess of weaving was a spider. In some African and Native American folklore, spiders play the trickster role. In modern American mythology, a certain spider teaches that with great power comes… well, you know. Given all this, it’s appropriate that today’s story features a changeling who sees herself as a spider, weaving complicated scenarios to catch her unwitting prey before realizing she’s been responsible for a great deal of pain and suffering.
In his nomination, Soge called it “a very well executed tragedy” and felt that “the main character is despicable in all the right ways, which only makes the conclusion that much more striking.” AugieDog concurred, finding it a “nicely done tragedy where the character chooses the path that she knows will destroy her.” He also appreciated the author’s decision to show rather than tell: “We follow Glitter’s thought process without the author ever having to make the character articulate it for us. The author trusts us enough to let us deduce what’s going on in Glitter’s head, to let us hope along with her that maybe this will somehow work out, and then to smack us in the head with the reality of the situation at the end.”
Everyone enjoyed wYvern’s “unique take on Changelings,” as Soge put it. FOME appreciated both the quality of the story and its culinary flair: “The central conceit is fascinating and explored well; I especially love how Glitter’s taste for suffering translates to favoring material foods with similarly… distinctive flavors.”
Horizon summed things up as only one who is not a changeling can: “The core canon dilemma of changelings — as we see in Thorax et.al. — is being nourished by devouring emotions, and simultaneously having normal sapient emotional needs for those same emotions (and the relationships and friendships that follow). If this were just about that it would have a pretty solid core, but it takes that and turns it up to 11 by also focusing on a changeling allergic to love. That this makes her an outcast from two worlds sets up a powerful tragedy when she finally finds herself in a position to appreciate it, and doesn’t shrink from the resulting tragedy.”
Read on for our author interview, in which wYvern discusses biochemistry, internal conflict, and analyzing what you love.
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