The thumbnail just makes me feel bad for Twilight.

THIS. A hundred times, THIS. *Read later*

EDIT; Wow, nice job with this. I really enjoyed the whole thing, but there are a few mistakes I'd like to point out for you.

That attacked my friends and I?

Here, it should be "my friends and me".

I... I haven’t even checked to see if she was breathings

Just get rid of the 's' at the end there.

“Uh, actually, could we talk in the hall way?” Twilight answered,

"Hall way" should be one word.

Other than those few mistakes, you did a very good job.

Awesome story. This is the second story I've read with the "I've been a changeling this whole time" theme, but still very well done.

My guess:

Neither of them are changelings.

>>763261763261

Actually, the quote "They attacked my friends and I" is actually correct

Anyways, nice chapter

>>763532763532

Actually, that is incorrect. When the speaker is the direct object, the pronoun is 'me'. Also, it says "that", not "they". Even if it did say "they", it would stll be "my friends and me". When it comes to grammar, I'm almost never wrong.

The trick is to only consider the speaker. That is, think "that attacked [strike]my friends and[/strike] I". "That attacked I" makes no sense. "That attacked me" is the correct way to say it, so we add "my friends" back in: "That attacked my friends and me".

I don't know why but I saw the first reveal coming, the second one I must admit I missed.  Good story.  

I... don't get it.

Either:

1) Celestia knew about one changeling in Twilight's group - which she she knew had to be Fluttershy. So, then why say anything if there's no apparent threat?

2) Celestia knew there were two changelings in Twilight's group. Knowing Fluttershy was not a threat, why not just come and arrest changeling-Pinkie?

3) Celestia wasn't sure if it was one or two changelings... which still leaves Pinkie as the only variable. Why not tell just Twilight that Pinkie might be a changeling?

No, Twilight.  You are the changelings.

Great story, I'm gonna call it right now that this will be in the feature box.  However I can't help to remember that during the last episode of mlp that Twilight used this beam spell that revealed the changeling and knocked it out.  I kept wondering why she just didn't use that spell on both of them.  However this was a fantastic story and it gets a much deserved like from me.

Cheers,

jangledorf

Just one chapter?  I could think of infinite ways to keep spinning this premise.  Sometimes short and sweet is best, though; it took me a while to guess the twist and even when I figured it out, that didn't deprive of it of the impact even slightly!

>>763629763629

The best explanation, which I probably should have given in the fic but it slipped my mind, was that she wanted Twilight to find out her friend was a changeling.

Why wouldn't Celestia tell her star pupil that she needed to find five friends and save all of Equestria from Nightmare Moon?

I thought twilight had a spell that removed a changeling's disguise.

>>763774763774

Because if Twilight considered it her duty to find five friends, the relationships she made (or, rather, forced herself into) wouldn't be true friendships. Celestia had to arrange for Twilight to make friends without realizing it was happening. It was the only way for the Elements to work.

In this story, simply saying "Hey Twilight, Fluttershy's been a changeling the whole time, please don't kill her." would've been infinitely more helpful and safe for eveypony involved.

In terms of Fridge Logic, this story just about drops the whole fridge on my head.

>>763886763886

Well, as I'll explain in a blog post, the time frame for planning and writing this was abysmally short.

I'll see about addressing it in the future.

>>763261763261

Delayed reaction but a reaction nonetheless!  Thank you for noticing these things.  Object and subjects and pronouns always bother me, and you know what the general wisdom is about "my ____s and I" phrases.  Just a default response.

THE REST IS INEXCUSEABLE thank you~

>>765178765178

Not a problem! Glad to help out.

The earth pony, unicorn, and pegasus walked into the bar.

The bartender asks, "Why the long faces?"

Sorry. It just had to be done.

*Prepares to duck incoming rotten tomatoes*

>>766780766780

Considering the SHOW ITSELF did that joke, you get a pass.

>>763774763774

Um, that explanation WAS given in the fic. Was it edited already?

>>767359767359

It has already been edited in (as of around 2 in the morning), but I will say something else for those who are bothered by it's brevity:

The fact is that that idea/concept itself (that Celestia wanted Twilight to find out her friend was a changeling) could take an entire other fic to explore, so a very quick explanation is necessary, as it was indeed not remotely mentioned in earlier drafts.  I apologize for not being as clear.

>>767359767359

Heh. Well, thanks for letting me live.

...and now I'm thinking about a crossover with one of the Changeling Bonbon fics. That, or a "Homeless Scootaloo is a Changeling" sequel.

Actually, forget that first one. A "Scootaling" story using this work's setting intrigues me. The method of Scoots getting "outed" practically writes itself, given what the CMC do all day, EVERY day.

This... is pretty cool.  I like it.  Writing's well-paced, no glaring errors remaining, interesting concept.

Keep writing!  

>>767924767924

Cutie Mark Crusaders Changeling Investigators! YAY!

>>763834763834 that is what i thought before i even read it

lol well that was unexpected

>>771014771014

Actually, I meant the fallout from one of their Crusades, not the Crusade itself. (Read: Scoots gets ruffed up a LITTLE too much one day and shifts back to a form she never remembered having.)

>>774982774982

That was actually my trademark poor attempt at humor. Sorry if I was unclear.

>>776178776178

And as per MY trademark whatever, I forgot to add that your "poor attempt at humor" scenario works too.

Consider: The CMC go out on a half-for-jest Changeling Witchhunt, only to find out that Scootaloo was a Changeling the entire time and didn't know it herself. Yeah, that'd make an interesting "Chapter 1". Add in damaged/deformed wings so she can never fly and suddenly this theoretical story is VERY relevant to my interests. Too bad I'm not a writer myself. Anyone out there want to take up this torch?

Waht a

...and for a moment, I thought Twilight was a changeling, and the letter was meant to confuse her.

Then I read the rest of the story - and rather enjoyed it!

I actually honestly didn't see it coming. I just sort of assumed that it was Fluttershy because she refused to drink much. Well done!

SPOILER

And after reading... I can sort of see why Celestia didn't just come out and say it. If it had been Applejack... then she may have because AJ is levelheaded. But Twilight would've panicked if she'd known too much, overplanned. With no information, she made a fairly good plan. If she'd known about Pinkie ahead of time, she may have tried to force a confrontation-- one she may have lost, with no hope for finding Pinkie. But this way, she didn't do anything *that* rash and on top of that Celestia engineered it so that Fluttershy had an opportunity to reveal herself and lose that burden of dishonesty. Because, let's be frank here, Flutters would NEVER have done that otherwise.

I'm still waiting on the Twilight Zone-esque plot twist where it turns out Twilight was the Changeling Celestia wrote about!

Or...not.

There's a minor continuity error: Twilight apparently both receives the book from Celestia with the letter and rushes to the library to get it herself.

"night to fill—the client ends"

There probably ought to be an "and" before that "the".

>>767464767464

Congrats on getting this on EqD. /)*(\

*Rereading for kicks*

>>10773141077314

Ha what was the same thing I was waiting for!

Still a decent enough twist even though Celestia not telling Twilight that Fluttershy was a changling didn't make sense to me.

Also, being a changling would be badass. You could give yourself whatever body you wanted.

>>10773141077314

Oh, the twilight zone.... That's just perfect for puns.

Not gonna lie, changelings kinda creep me out with their exoskeletons and stuff.

But I'd huggle Flutter-changegling.

One, called the twist from the description.  Knew a changeling was there from the start instead of a replacement, and suspected it would be Fluttershy because hey, she'd be more dramatically nervous about being outed as such.  Also suspected you might have gone ahead and done both.  It was just the obvious direction.  Really I was more surprised that you did a replacement in addition to a changeling-Mane.

Second, so...wait.  If they've narrowed it down to Pinkie and Fluttershy (somehow, out of everypony in the massive wedding reception?), and their detection can trace a changeling within a few blocks, why not just separate them by several blocks and see which one (or as the case may be, both) is still pinging?

Third, if Celestia knew about Fluttershy, it was kind of a pointless to not just straight-up tell Twilight that in the letter.  Especially if she suspected there was an actual threat as well -- hell, it could have gotten both real Manes killed.

Fourth, it just seems wrong to end it there.  I mean yay Fluttershy's outed and Twilight still loves her but uh...Pinkie's apparently been ponynapped and nopony seems to care that much by the end of things.

I dunno, it's an interesting idea, but there's just too many holes.

You made Fluttershy scaried!

I was half-expecting the Changeling to be Twilight...

There of course, is another [potential explanation to why Celestia didn't say anything directly. Even if she knew that Fluttershy was a changling, if hers and Luna's spell couldn't isolate Pinkie from Fluttershy (because they'd spent all day in proximity or something, not unreasonably), then they wouldn't be able to tell whether their Changling detection spell was giving them a false positive from Fluttershy or from her and Pinkie (as  the spell apparently doesn't give you number of changelings, only the presense of absence of same in a given area.)

So Celestia might have been playing very careful, and working on the assumption that while there was a slim possibility that Pinkie was a changeling as well, it - that is the positive reading - might have been only Fluttershy, who is entirely innocent. And that forcing the discovery by means other than this might well have been harmful to Fluttershy. So she sends the letter to Twilight very carefully worded, and hedges her bets that it's only Fluttershy she's picking up, and that - reasonably - if Pinkie is a changing too, her Faithful Student and the Element of Kindness can handle one changeling between them (since they all likely to be equally impaired by the booze). (Not unreasonably, given they way they kicked arse pre-wedding!)

Or it could be that Celestia and Luna simply didn't realise that they could be getting two changlings, with Fluttershy masking the other's signal, and Celestia assigning Pinkie just as the Element most likely to not overreact (negatively, at first) to the discovery.

(I assumed the former, personally, when I read it.)

I would also beg for a continuation or a sequel; I think Fluttershy revealing herself to a her friends would be worthy of a story in itself.

Excellent work.

>>10775501077550

... I am a very silly pony.

>>10779981077998

2. Because she doesn't want to force them to do anything suspicious?

3. The same reason she didn't tell Twilight in episode one that she had to go to ponyville to make friends and defeat nightmare moon.  She would freak out about it.  I think the better question to ask would by why didn't Celestia just arrest Pinkie Pie-fake, and the answer to that is to that Twilight would find out about Fluttershy.  It isn't quite as master-plannerful as Celestia seems to be in canon, but eh, this was written in one night based off a prompt.

4. The original ending was about 2k words longer, but didn't really reveal much else beyond that "they found pinkie okay."  From here, just assume as it was said: that finding her fake will find her as well.

>>10782321078232

You totally forgot to close those brackets.

Maybe.  I don't know if I will as I have lots of other works to continue or work on right now.

This was pretty good, I was really expecting Twilight be the changline somehow.

"Wait?  YOU were also pretending to be a Pony?  So was I!"  

"You too?"  

"WHEEE!!!  No more pretending to be pink!  It's SOOOOOO girly!"  

"B-but, I thought I was the only Changeling!"

"Oh dear me, and here I wasted so much time keeping up appearances!"    *Rari-ling goes and wallows in the mud as she's been yearning to do for years*

"Sooo... we're ALL Changelings?  Wait... does that mean..?"  

"BEHOLD PONIES!!!  I AM REALLY A CHANGELING QUEEN!!"  

And so, it was revealed that everypony was a changeling, and that the pony race had died out several hundred years previously from an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease.  Except for Luna, the only pony left in da world.

(Luna Forever Alone)  

I was thinking Twilight would have been the changeling.

Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQYVUtgK0rTC9DO42NrQsmRxvWztCK27vu4_og_g5kDbSfk6Sv99A

>>10793291079329

...I THOUGHT something was missing at the end...

My mind kept going "This story ended with them finding Pinkie. Am I getting this mixed up with another story? This ended with finding Pinkie".

Is there any particular reason that portion of the story was cut?

That was a rather enjoyable story. I wasn't expecting that particular twist, even though my mind was running through other possibilities ("Is Twilight the changeling? No wait - none of them are changelings! It's all just paranoia on Twi's part!").  Having them both be changelings - while still being distinct from each other (one good, one bad) was a neat twist.

However, my favorite part of the story had to be the stuff that dealt with Twilight's fear and paranoia plus her increasing drunkenness. There was some pretty compelling stuff there in our dive into what she was going through, and I wouldn't have minded a greater focus on that. All in all though, pretty good!

>>10802501080250

The last 2.5k words didn't really do anything other than showing that pinkie was found and that Twilight was okay with Fluttershy.  Considering that I can show that last part in like 500 words, it was just too many words to show too little.

Nice story. I was trying to figure out who was the changeling.

Hmm... an interesting combination of tropes, definitely. From the start it's not exactly the simplest form of the which-one-is-real scene, with the object being to disprove the identity of either of two possibilities rather than discern which of two doppelgangers is a duplicate. The middle is definitely one of the less orthodox resolutions to that puzzle, but cuts off rather abruptly, which does give the reader a shock at first, but is something of a letdown when we rejoin the scene to find that all the action has passed us by. As for the ending, while I will say that the changeling-from-the-beginning idea has been used in fanfiction enough since the finale that it's starting to get old, combining it with the puzzle setup to the story was pretty clever. I also liked Twilight's trick with the book- it was clever of her to realize that a changeling who was lying about having been Fluttershy its whole life wouldn't be able to produce verifiable details to its story like that, and would probably just agree to the first book it was shown.

What I don't understand, though, is much of anything to do with the Pinkie-changeling's actions or motivation. Celestia said that a changeling separated from the hive was likely to be more scared of Twilight than vice versa- and even if she was secretly referring to Fluttershy and didn't know Pinkie really had been replaced, that assessment still makes sense referring to a hostile changeling. If I were not-Pinkie and I didn't know about Fluttershy's situation, I'd be trying to ditch the rest of the Elements and get the hell out of dodge, or at least fake my way through the drinking contest and get accepted as the real Pinkie Pie. If I did know about Fluttershy, I'd be focusing on exposing her to throw suspicion off myself. The not-Pinkie in the story doesn't do any of these things- instead, she tries to take out one of Equestria's most powerful spellcasters while alone, outnumbered, and too inebriated to even maintain a disguise. Or at least, that's what perhaps-Fluttershy's testimony tells us, and although Twilight seems to trust her, all she's proven is that she's a changeling and has some background knowledge of at least one Equestrian text about changelings. We never hear not-Pinkie's side of the story, no explanation is given for why she acted the way she did, and frankly even after hearing perhaps-Fluttershy's story the sane thing to do would be to lock her up until Fluttershy's parents can be located, verified as real ponies (just because one changeling signature occupies a large area doesn't mean you can't take a suspect to an unpopulated area of that size to check them), and asked to verify her story. Heck, for all we know, not-Pinkie's story is the same as perhaps-Fluttershy's (rock farming? Really?) and she just happened to be the one who panicked and tried to shoot her way out when discovered.

>>10782321078232

I just wanted to note that your spelling of the word "changeling" is all over the place. I'm actually impressed by how many different spellings appear in this one comment.

>>10858751085875

Her intention is not made clear pretty much on purpose.  I don't particularly like explaining every aspect of every single little thing, but Fluttershy's testimony is very clear: she was doing something that was causing a lot of pain to Twilight.  Maybe it wasn't hinted at well enough, but the reason her headache lightens up after the blacks out is because the changeling stopped it's magic use.

There's also the possibility that you are digging very far into something that I did on a whim.  The story, that is.

Quite the twist you have there. I'll be tracking this.

Then the next day, they find out Pinkie Pie was out of town at a Sweets & Snacks Convention. At least in my head-canon.

Excellent read! Knew there would be a twist; didn't expect that one though.

An incredibly intqiguing concept here.  And well wirtten, too.  The emotion Twilight shows feels very real, and her trick with the book was clever.  Not sure how I feel about Fluttershy being a changeling.  The fact that Pinkie was still absent confused me a bit.  The entire thing felt like it just needed to go on for a little while longer in that respect, so as to tie everything off.

So, in conclusion, I'd say that while I'm not incredibly happy with the end distination we've reached, the journey there was very exciting.

Good day!

>>764042764042

the time frame for planning and writing this was abysmally short.

And it shows, because this story doesn't uphold to your usual standard. I don't mean to say it's bad or anything, but it certainly feels rushed. Actually, for a night spent drinking in a pub, I believe it could have been shorter and still carry the reader through everything you wanted to tell.

Also, this "one of Twilight's friend is a changeling" topic seems to be a popular thing recently. Either all of the stories I read recently are the result of the same prompt, or there must be some other convoluted reason for it.

I see I wasn't the only one that thought Twilight was going to end up being the changeling. With her repeatedly checking herself in the mirror and experiencing growing physical distress I grew increasingly certain of it. I wonder if this was an intentional red herring or if we were just off base.

I liked the main idea, but this story feels like it lacks a propper ending... I'd very much like to see how ponyville reacts to Flutterchanges comming out...

But I had a good time reading it, so *like*!

Wow, didn't see the reveal coming at all.  Nice going.

I was kind of confused as to how the book-trick made Twilight trust Fluttershy more.  Did she figure that Fluttershy wasn't BS'ing because she didn't immediately claim the fake book was the one her parents used?

Also Celestia's ulterior motivations seem kinda vague to me.  Lemme see if I get this straight...Celestia found out that either FS or Pinkie was a changeling.  She knew that FS had been one her whole life, but wasn't sure if Pinkie was real or not.  So she sent Twi to ferret out whether or not Pinkie was fake or not, but included the line about the changeling being afraid in order to cover for the possibility that Pinkie was real and only FS was exposed.  Was that it?

Anyway, besides those two little questions, I really enjoyed this one.

>>17801311780131

As possibly misguided an idea as it was, Celestia wanted Twilight to find out for herself.  I wrote this story in literally about 9 hours, and about 9 hours of editing was put into it as well, and it kind of shows lol.

The book thing went like this: Twilight had cast a spell to change the appearence of the book, implying that it's obviously about changelings.  Fluttershy then described the real book, and Twilight realized that Fluttershy's family was the only other one to check it out.

>>17802411780241

Ahahahaha, well for a nine-hour job it's not too bad.

And I knew that Twilight disguised the book...I just wasn't sure how that made her suddenly trust Fluttershy more.  Or is it that she realized Celestia must have known that FS was really a changeling that made her trust Fluttershy?

I enjoyed this immensely, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was ended quite quickly. I want to know the fate of the not-Pinkie, and where the real one is, among other things.

WHAT A !

Fucking GENIUSSSSSS

Interesting...

Aprove!

Hmm... not bad. I really thought Fluttershy would've been the only changeling, though... how did the other one impersonate Pinkie that well? That's never explained, is it?

I found a few more errors:

> Pinke stopped mid-sentence

misspelled "Pinkie"

> she was staring at the ground, shivering in fear

Forgot a capital letter at the start.

Also, on a more general note, you should always separate addressing terms (usually names) with commas. Like in these sentences:

> How about you Fluttershy?

> You okay Twilight?

> This is it Twilight.

There's a bunch more, though.

This should give a clue as to why:

Image: http://images.signals.com/graphics/products/regular/HN3281.jpg

The example I always use is this one:

"I kill, my Queen," the soldier said to Elisabeth. "That's what soldiers do."

"I kill my Queen," the soldier said to Elisabeth. "That's what soldiers do."

Oddly enough, in this fic, you do it about half of the time, and skip it the other half...

>>763556763556 I would actually say that it should be 'I', not 'me'.

Let's try this: "That attacked Rainbow and __." What would you say? Rainbow and me? That doesn't sound right.

"That attacked Pinkie and __." Same.

In case of just 'That attacked me', yes, then it's 'me', but adding someone between 'attacked' and 'me', 'me' becomes 'and I'.

>>24215662421566

Oxford Dictionaries says you're wrong.

Which makes sense, because in "they attacked me", the object is "me", and in "they attacked Pinkie and __", the object is "Pinkie and __".  So __ needs to be the objective pronoun (me), not the subjective pronoun.  If the sentence is [X] [verb] [Y], [Y] is the object.  Making it [X] [verb] [Y and Z] doesn't make [Y] the subject!

I think that the reason "X and me" sounds wrong, even though it is the correct objective form, is that we usually don't put [X and [personal pronoun]] as the object of a sentence.  We usually use it as the subject ("X and I [VERB] Y").  To use the example from Oxford Dictionaries, "Rose spent the day with Jake and me" is correct.  However, we'd usually phrase that as "I spent the day with Rose and Jake", or "Jake and I spent the day with Rose", depending on if we have some reason to want to group "Jake and [self]" (perhaps because Jake is my best friend, and we are always spending the day together, but this time Rose was there too) or not.  Or, say, instead of telling the police that "Sumdood attacked Jake and me", we'd say "Jake and I were attacked by Sumdood". (Sumdood is known to be trouble.)

>>24216932421693 ...

Image: http://www.troll.me/images/yao-ming/screw-that.jpg

>>24215042421504

I often elect to skip Direct Address Commas in dialog because I don't think it would sound proper with the speaker's method of speak.  I generally skip it for Pinkie, thought I may have skipped some non-pinkie ones here simply because, at the time, I did not know about direct address commas!

>>24220522422052

I always get that complaint about commas too.

>>24222942422294

They're important!  They save lives; you can see that image that says so!

I am just bad at commas when it comes to writing.

>>24216932421693 This is completely correct. "Me" is the objective pronoun, "I" is the subjective pronoun.

"That attacked my friends and me?" is the correct form, because the "me" is being used as an object. No question about it.

It might, however, sound a bit more natural if rephrased as "That attacked me and my friends?"

>>24225862422586 there's sometimes a difference between what sounds right and what is right.

"They attacked my friends and I." - sounds right, is wrong

"They attacked my friends and me." - sounds wrong, is right

"Is that the book he was looking at?" - sounds right, is wrong

"Is that the book at which he was looking?" - sounds wrong, is right

I could go on, but I think you and I both understand the logic with which I'm bombarding you.

Trust me. I can grammar nazi with the best of them.

>>24231212423121

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_English_usage_misconceptions#Grammar

Fluttershy fighting? Must have been the booze. Also they seem a bit unconcerned about the missing pony at the end there.

>>763261763261it is actually my friends and I

>>24232002423200 Ownage. Pure ownage.

>>24220522422052

simply because, at the time, I did not know about direct address commas!

I kinda gathered that when I read Faith - that one has no such errors

>>24233772423377

In the context of "my friends and I went somewhere" that would be correct. However, in "they attacked my friends and I", it isn't. The trick to getting it correct is leaving out the "xx and" part, and seeing if it is still correct. In this case, "they attacked (my friends and) I". As you see, "they attacked I" is clearly not correct, whereas "I went somewhere" is.

The first sentence sounds like the beginning of a bad joke!

I'm so gonna read this now!

>>763629763629 At first I thought that didn't make sence too. But then it hit me - just because Fluttershy was a changeling all along doesn't mean she couldn't have been replaced by a spy.

I don’t think... I’ve drinken that many... wait

drunken

>>24231212423121

Image: http://katiedozier.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/haters-gonna-hate.jpg

Image: http://icanhasinternets.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/haters14.jpg

Image: http://www.just-eat.ie/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/haters_gonna_hate_elephant-14272.jpg

>>24231212423121 The first part is correct, and it's what I said. No disagreement there.

The second part is about "ending a sentence with a preposition" and it's a stupid rule that makes no sense, and is controversial at best.

>>24245142424514 Precisely.

Nice read, now on to the sequel.

My only critique is that Twilight isn't really reacting that badly to Pinkie Pie being the one who was replaced.

>>763652763652

AND TEHN TWILIGHT WAS A CHANGLING

TEH EDN

What tipped me off to Pinkie Pie being a changeling was the incorrect response to Fluttershy revealing Rarity's secret... We know what the real Pinkie would have done in that situation.

Well written, enjoyable little story.

Now, lets check out the sequel.

Perhaps this has already been brought up, but I find it sort of odd that Twilight doesn't seem to want to question the other changeling. She has only the word of Fluttershy—a very, very drunk and exhausted Fluttershy—that this other changeling was trying to hurt Twilight. For all Fluttershy knows, this other changeling had been Pinkie Pie all along. That the thought doesn't even seem to enter Twilight's head was strange to me. Felt almost as though you decided to just end things there because you knew, as the author, that that other changeling was just a changeling. Not a great feel.

>>24798112479811

I tried to make it clear that the other changeling was the one who attacked, and the one hurting Twilight.  Obviously, real Pinkie Pie wouldn't do anything to hurt her friends?...

>>24810752481075

Again, the only one saying that the other changeling was attacking was Fluttershy, who didn't even sound entirely sure herself. I suppose it just doesn't speak to my view of Twilight as a near rationalist that she'd hand over the other changeling to the guard without questioning it. Heck, I'm not even sure I really comprehend what the changeling was doing to Twilight in the first place and why. Was it forcibly taking love somehow (and can changelings even do that with no base of love to work from)? I don't see why it wouldn't have just focused on the fight, Twilight having slumped down and been useless from the moment the changelings revealed themselves.

>>24810972481097

It is not supposed to be clear what is being done, except some of the third-person rambling thoughts Twilight has are relevant.  The fact was, it was bad, and Fluttershy stopping the changeling stopped the bad.

The fact is, situations in this story aren't 100% sure.  Twilight figures out it's really Fluttershy by asking her if she knew a book.  That's pretty vague too.  What matters is how Twilight reacts to it, not that the audience has 100% closure on every aspect of the entire story.

>>24811212481121

I understand. I suppose it just comes down to a difference in opinion on how Twilight might have reacted. Good read, at any rate; moving on to the sequel now.

I chose to read this right before bed and as the story progressed I could feel Twilight's pain.

Good read by the way. Onward to Faith... tomorrow.

I didn't know faith was a sequel to this!

I've  already read it

Well.

Yeah.

So I've found my first mane-six-pony-is-a-changeling story.

Off I shall go to read Faith, tomorrow. When I'm not studying. Or writing.