Sibling writer and platonic love connoisseur. Cuddlefic Specialist. Analysis and fanfiction in dangerously wholesome G dosages. Support me on Kofi!
When you're a lonely love vampire, you befriend baby dragons. It's what you do.
When you're an alpha bugmoose who adopts an entire hive, you teach reformed parasites how to be cute and cuddly. It's what you do.
Featured 1/19/2022 - 1/21/2022!
* Comedic spin-off based off the Love Bug Continuity fanonverse.
* Story artwork commissioned by myself, created by my good buggo friend CitreneSkys!
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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I’m a simple Fimfiction user.
I see a story that has to do with the Love Bug Continuity, I read.
noice
wonder how much Chrysalis we'll see
...
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!11111
*Prancing around like Celestia did in Horse Play* IT'S BACK IT'S BACK IT'S BACK IT'S BACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!! OH HOW I MISSED THE SUGARBUGS!!!!!!!
Well, most lights are turned on with a switch of some sort, so...
Is your editor accounting for bullet drop?
That always gets me.
*epic squee* They're back!!!!!!
This looks like a worthy replacement/sequel/successor/alternate version/whatever/you get the idea to/of King of Love Bugs
Will be watching for updates more closely than Pharynx watching Chrysalis there 
Oh my, I add a new chapter to my story and what do I find? A buggo story by the buggo master himself! :O
It is unlikely that my opinion will be approved here. And I'm probably going to get a ton of dislikes, but based on the "physical laws of conservation of energy" I think that Thorax's current strategy for solving the hunger problem is leading the hive towards gradual exhaustion and even more hunger. "A consumer can never generate more energy than he consumes." At least Chrysalis led to replenishment of energy at the expense of others, unlike Thorax which essentially depletes the available supply.
Dammit.
Navelcolt, I really do like your writing style and portrayal of Thorax specifically and changelings generally, but this is a sticking point that I am never gonna be able to get over that continuously prevents me from really getting into your stories.
Absolutely nothing in the show or the comics points towards the idea that Chrysalis intentionally let the changelings starve. We can go back and forth on why she cared about feeding them - whether it was a genuine desire to feed her people or just a desire for her greatest assets to be as strong as possible even if she viewed them otherwise as disposable minions - but the fact remains that while she was queen of the Hive, both her stated reasoning and her actual actions point towards someone who did, genuinely, want to keep the Hive fed.
You can at most argue that she thought in the short term (vis-a-vis “A Canterlot Wedding,” apparently fixed by “There and Back Again” since by then she explicitly says her plan will let the Hive feed for generations) or they she wasn’t willing to compromise her personal power in exchange for a glut of food (rejecting the notion of living like Thorax in the Crystal Empire, the downsides to which are obvious).
But she was not intentionally starving her people.
How very Lion King.
11125786
And in our world, you'd be right. But I think the existence of Changelings alone is proof that Equestria's physics are decidedly not our physics.
Look at the corn, it’s on a cob!
I expected to die from the hnnnngs, but I instead found my fate sealed by laughter via the picture in the Author's Notes box.
Regardless, I now am the dead.
bleh
11125790
Didn't she, though? Changelings were always hungry, according to Thorax. No matter how much love was stolen, it was implied to never be enough. In the face of a curse like that, the actual way to end your subject's starvation would be to solve the root of the problem, looking for a way to lift the curse, not enable the curse long-term by chasing satiation futilely, no matter the cost. As we know, the latter is what Chrysalis chose. She told Starlight exactly what Thorax told Spike, that changeling hunger could never be satisfied.
From there is where my headcanons evolved. Chrysalis used the perpetual hunger as a carrot on the proverbial stick, a means to manipulate the changelings into toppling nations for her own selfish goals. If a better way of life did exist out there, it wasn't worth potentially losing her iron grip.
Inaction in trying to solve her species' perpetual hunger is not dissimilar from not feeding them at all, in my mind. They're chasing food endlessly in either scenario, so what's the difference? The only difference is that, in one of those scenarios, Chrysalis personally benefits from her species' struggles. That's my angle and that's what it's always been.
If you disagree on that definition, that's fine.
But it's not as nuanced as yes she did, no she didn't.
11125933
Your name is Mark Watney and you’re stranded on Mars. You have come up with an ingenious method to grow a sufficient amount of potatoes to keep yourself alive for hundreds of sols (Martian days), but it’s going to still leave you deficient in a number of nutrients and they deficiency will, eventually, if not kill you, then at least cripple you. As well, with the best will in the world eventually you just will not be able to grow more potatoes due to the fact that entropy is a bitch and you will never be able to reclaim all the nuttients you will consume.
Are you letting yourself starve? Or is it simply that you are trapped in a situation where starvation is inevitable?
“Throw up on each other to stop being hungry all the time” is not a reasonable thought. Even if the changelings looked for a way to satisfy their hunger - and I don’t doubt that they did if for no other reason than a thousand years of existence is a long enough time to get experimental - it’s more than likely that they could try a thousand different methods and never land on that one. You are also assuming that Chrysalis or indeed any Changeling would view it as a “curse” rather than just a natural part of their biology. Anatomically modern humans have been around for 50,000 years but we haven’t figured out a way to just not eat and survive even though it would have been immensely beneficial to do so, and I have no idea why you think changelings would even think it’s an option.
There is no reason to think Chrysalis knew Reformation was an option - she seemed just as blindsided as any other changeling by it. Again, “throw up on each other to stop being hungry” isn’t reasonable. So bearing they in mind, if you’re gonna blame Chrysalis for not thinking it up, there is zero reason not to also blame every other changeling, including Thorax who after all didn’t think it up himself, only resorting to it at the behest of Starlight when they were literally out of options.
To bring back the Martian: “throw up on each other to stop being hungry all the time” is about as sensible an option as telling Mark Watney “just ask the green Martians for help”.
Plenty. No matter what you morally think of the way changelings behaved, there’s no denying that it worked on a fundamental level to keep the changelings fed, if not full. They infiltrated and conquered and moved secretly from shadow to shadow. It was not perhaps ideal but it did work.
The obvious alternative is going up to the other races and just asking for love. But leaving aside that this - begging for aid - immediately puts changelings in a subservient situation where they can be taken advantage of and exploited, what if it didn’t work?
What if changelings threw away the system that was known to keep them fed and asked “help us”…
…and the ponies answered “no”?
Then the changelings would have thrown away their greatest advantages (stealth and secrecy) which had availed them for a thousand years, to no gain but massive loss in ability. Is that worth the risk - the survival of your entire species?
So it’s a pretty big difference. And it bothers me that you don’t acknowledge this.
This is not to absolve Chrysalis of being a tyrant, nor to suggest that she wasn’t evil. It’s just that it ascribes to her an attitude that not only is directly contradicted by both the show (where she encourages her swarm to feast and comes up with a plan intended to feed them for decades) and the comics (where she once abandoned an alliance with another villain specifically because the villain’s plan would result in her changelings starving), but furthermore, experts her to be capable of making leaps of logic they no one would and none of her changelings did either, and then blames her for not doing so.
Or it expects her to be willing to take a risk and rely on the hospitality and kindness of the creatures the changelings been parasitizing for centuries, who would have no reason to aid her and every reason to at minimum force the changelings into a subservient position at best, or exterminate them at worst.
11125969
I acknowledge your points, and that's a very well structured second reply.
Maybe parts of my approach are skewed in a way that demonizes Chrysalis or creates bridges that aren't all that sturdy. I'm not obtuse enough to not see that much. I suppose this is partly why I hardly write Chrysalis—I enjoy her as the irredeemable monster trope she became more and more as the series progressed, and, especially earlier on in writing aspects of KoLB, my lore about Thorax and the changelings thrived most the more she was demonized. I was never popular with Chrysalis fans. You're not the first and you won't be the last.
I'm not flawless, something something, that's what makes me work, yeah. I admit I've put far more effort into building upon the light of Thorax's rule than I have spent on the ramifications of Chrysalis's, and every aspect of how that transition occured, etc. I'm sorry my stories leave that bad of a taste in your mouth. Was never my intention to alienate anybody or portray anything in a way that tarnishes a character for someone, but it's probably a few stories too late for that, evidently.
11126011
I don’t mind if you don’t like Chrysalis. What I despise is people making shit up as a reason to hate someone or something. Blame Chrysalis and demonize her for what she did, not what you wished she had done but in fact there is no evidence for her having done and actual proof against (re: inviting her minions to feast in Canterlot, concocting a scheme to feed the whole hive for generations, (in the comics) abandoning Sombra as soon as she realized his plan vis-a-vis the umbrum would result in her and her changelings starving).
I mean either that or at least have the courtesy of putting an AU tag on the thing and state up front “in this story, Chrysalis intentionally let changelings starve for no actual discernible reason other than I personally dislike her and want changelings to hate her for something she did not actually do and in fact visibly and repeatedly worked against in the show and comics.”
Or at least just the AU tag.
And maybe you could at least have Pharynx or someone point out that for all their grousing about Chrysalis being a tyrant, no Changeling ever was able to come up with a species-wide viable alternative, in a thousand years of existence.
11126018
I'll just edit that one line this started off with. Honestly doubt anything would have come of this if that line weren't there, so, easy fix. It's more polarizing than a realized, and really doesn't need to be here, arguments about what is or isn't true aside. This is supposed to be a comedy fic, after all.
Edit: Tis edited. This reads more smoothly than before, anyway.
Also, at no point did I say I don't like Chrysalis. I just like her as the irredeemable Disney villain she was depicted as. I love to hate her, as you do with any truly vile villain character that's written well within their narrative.
You made another entry in your Thorax-verse!?
And you didn't tell me!?!
Anyway, it is nice to see you still got some creative flow going with these guys. This chapter here is pretty cute, too. I can't figure whether Thorax will buy lamps so that the drones don't go for his antlers all the time, or if he's gonna go cold turkey on his magic for a time.
Looks at author's note:
Tch. Dude, I follow you on this site. You can't hide from me.
Also, your italics aren't the only bad writing habit you've relapsed into.
I'm afraid I'll need to use a bigger
gunfor this.11125969
to be fair, we have seen Color Bug eat food like other creatures, I guess this is another way for them to sustain themself
cdn.twibooru.org/img/2020/7/18/1208253/large.jpeg
I'm still not like this idea, imagine you are a species that eat love, and suddenly Harmony force you to kill and eat bugs to survive
Kind of reminds me of Bug's Life
11126043
now I'm curious about what you write before
11125969
This is the real problem I have here.
Nothing has truly alluded to the idea of ponies or Celestia rejecting helping changelings if they truly needed help or wanting friendship except the fandom's love of exacerbating racism for the sake of a narrative.
If anything it would've made a lot more sense for them to ask for help and friendship rather than launch a full scale invasion out of the blue. If they had been denied then it would've made more sense but...
Maybe she didn't let them starve but she definitely wasn't aiming for what was best for her people as a leader should. She was aiming for what was best for her. Which if I was a changeling after the reformation it would a completely normal ideology for some of them to come to that she was letting them starve.
Just wanted to get that off my chest but as Navel said this is a light hearted fic so I'm one and done on that.
Oh boy she's starting to getting crazy already
rob?
11126113
Ahh, Forrest the Editor, what an unexpected surprise. And of course by unexpected I mean completely expected.
I was going to tell you. Until I forgot.
But hey, at least you're surprised. 
Relapsed is such a strong word. I prefer 'deliberate author flair used in moderation compared to before'. Granted it is a bit wordy, though.
Well then this was a very interesting start of a story so it looks like thorax is having problem with his changelings of paying attention and when makes a very interesting they are all very interested to his antlers that sparkles I guess they got hypnotized by it which to thorax he was slightly disappointed but at least they're kind of listening to him but it looks like Chrysalis is not done with him yet she's trying to find anything to expose thorax and take back her throne but looks like another triple spy pharynx new about Chrysalis spying on them as well he's very clever I'll give him that I wonder what's going to happen next guess we'll find out next time
Well, actually...wouldn't they still? Because equines still do, and changelings are very equine like in structure still, so...
I mean, I realize the insect part applies here still too, but even with consideration for the exoskeletons, given the equine-like layout of their bodies, I'd think that would still leave them with muscles one can safely call glutes.
But enough with the overanalyzing! *sweeps it all off the table in a noisy crash*
This actually kind of reminds me of another changeling-heavy fic called "They're EVERYWHERE!"...except here noling's in any grave danger every other chapter (and yet still managing to stay adorably comical anyway)...but in any case, this definitely sounds like a fun fic. I'm down for a fic that's basically just all random/comical changeling fluff.
11126233
Well there was that time that ponies nearly exterminated themselves via their own hatred for each other feeding windigoes. Which Chrysalis was personally alive for and probably witnessed, remember, given that she and the first changelings were contemporaries of Star Swirl.
There was that time that Celestia and Luna seemingly wiped an entire country and tribe of ponies off the map due to the apparent threat of their leader despite that leader ruling through mind-control and his subjects being innocent victims of his.
Celestia had a student who after the two had a spat just disappeared out of nowhere, never to be seen or heard from again.
There’s also the fact that ponies are perfectly willing to act out of fear towards something they don’t understand, as they did towards Zecora. Ordinary ponies are perfectly willing to lie, cheat, steal, and endanger others for their personal benefit as we saw throughout Season 1-6 with everyone from the Flim-Flams to Lightning Dust to Trixie to Wind Rider. They’re willing to let stupid things like apples verses pears cause rifts in their families.
Pony society is no utopia. I’m not saying it’s a dystopia either. It’s just made up of people - and, well, to quote Agent K, a person can be smart but people are dumb and panicky. And when you’re a member of a parasitical species that has been secretly preying on them for centuries, you can see how it doesn’t seem like a good idea to risk coming out in the open when you know for a fact that even if the leader of the land is decent, the ordinary ponies well could not be. Especially since it makes changelings dependent on the mercy of ponies, which could easily start to come with requirements or caveats.
I’m not saying that Chrysalis didn’t personally benefit, but a reasonable argument can be made based just on what we saw from Seasons 1-6 that even if there was a high chance of a positive pony reaction, the (to changelings) horrifying result of a negative reaction, or even a positive reaction that nevertheless reduces changelings to a subservient caste dependent on pony mercy, just doesn’t make it a smart gamble when the status quo is working and has worked for a thousand years.
11126293
Silly Scyphi! Everyone knows changeling exoskeletons are filled with marshmallow! And marshmallows don't have glutes!
Is the description based on those Geico commercials? Because that’s what it reminds me of.
11126351
Just to interject on one point because I too am a lore nerd:
Celestia, The Crystal Empire
It was Sombra's curse that 'wiped the Empire off the map', not Celestia or Luna. All they did was banish Sombrero to the Shadow Realm. It was his choice to flip a hoof and say 'if I can't have the crystal ponies, no one can' on the way out.
11125805
technically, if you take into account the conventions of a fantasy setting, then Changeling does not represent something supernatural or unique. There are quite a lot of similar creatures in other fantastic stories. And even the Mlp world itself showed us that magic in this world has limitations and is not infinite, and not omnipotent.
by fantasy standards, Changeling is the standard kind of emotional vampire. (It's funny that this is already the third type of MLP creatures that are tied to the emotions of others.) And despite the fact that I like this race in other fantastic stories, the main problem of hunger is solved much more interesting and more logical than in the canonical Changeling. In my opinion, this is not only a waste of interesting potential, but also scenario laziness.
throughout the series, we were shown many potentially working ways (starting from a banal symbiosis and the magic of friendship, moving on to a crystal empire that throws kilotons of love into the air or alchemical love potions. Even a whole princess of love is present.) But by the will of the scenario, Changeling turns into a "perpetual motion machine" which provides for itself. If the hive moved to the crystal empire or would actively engage in charity collecting gratitude (love), then I had no questions, but they continue to remotely sit in their old place with little or no contact with the rest of the world. (probably gradually self-depleting itself). Personally, I see only one scenario in which the path of Thorax leads to a happy future - this is an option if initially the whole kind of Changeling was cursed by someone with a spell of eternal hunger, which can only be removed by performing a selfless act ("being a freak, find someone who sincerely loves you", "Dying of hunger, give your bread to another."). But until we are officially told that someone is able to curse an entire species, I will doubt that it was so.
11126527
P.S. I apologize for the carload of unnecessary information and thoughts. If this prevents you from enjoying the story, then I promise not to dump my thoughts here again.
11126489
I am aware, but,
1. Is that common knowledge?
2. Based on how Chrysalis and changelings generally acted (they were hardly reluctant victims of Chrysalis from what little we saw - the changelings were eager participants in Chrysalis’ plans. And why not? She never once on-screen mistreats a changeling), would they believe that? Or would they think Celestia and Luna were lying so that they’d look good?
Remember, we the viewers have access to information that characters in the show don’t necessarily themselves have access to.
11126412
Hmm. I guess that means Rarity never has to worry about exercising her glutes herself then.
11126527
See, the problem I have with assumptions such as this is that it just automatically assumes (without any real evidence I might add) that the changelings aren't still gathering love from outside sources, they're just now doing it through non-aggressive means because...well...reformed and all that. If they are, and I personally think there's not only no reason to assume they aren't but also it presents the simplest and most effective solution, then that resolves that particular problem rather nicely.
It'd also suggest the changelings, in reality, always had more than enough love for the whole hive even under Chrysalis's rule, but because they were all individually trying to hoard it to themselves instead of freely sharing it, it wasn't getting evenly distributed, resulting in changelings going hungry as a consequence, or at least just not getting enough to truly sate them, and thus giving the illusion the hive had too little love when the opposite was true.
11126351
While I agree to the point you're making here, that the ponies have their moments where they are quick to panic or react negatively to a newcomer they aren't familiar with, I should also point out that once that initial hurdle is passed, the ponies are routinely shown overcoming it pretty darn quickly and accepting those outsiders as equals pretty darn swiftly and easily once they actually make the effort to. Take the changelings themselves, for instance. Once they reformed, the changelings were accepted as allies pretty much instantly, and never again was their any real issue of changelings being distrusted or rejected out of hoof because they were different or for their past actions (excepting Chrysalis herself of course, but that's more because Chrysalis continued to be her old self and wasn't hiding it). Same with pretty much every other example you list as well...excepting the Crystal Empire example, which I'd argue doesn't count, because not only was that solely on Sombra as has already been pointed out, there's no evidence the changelings even knew about it, cared about it, or were even still aware of it by the time it returned.
Personally, I think the REAL core issue of this argument isn't on the changelings or the ponies at all but rather on us the fans and which we choose to blame more, but I think if any blame really needs to be assigned at all, it's at most just equal blame on both sides, since obviously the argument can be made that mistakes were made on both sides, and neither side tried harder to overcome it until Thorax came along and showed why continuing that trend was in error (hence why Thorax truly IS best bug pony
).
And even that might be a bit unfair, on the simple grounds that, by all accounts, Equestria and changelings had fairly limited contact with each other until the Canterlot Invasion, since it was clear the pony populace at large was mostly unfamiliar with the concept of changelings at all, only knowing them at best as more legend than fact (like most other long-time threats Equestria faced), and that seemed to be the first time the changelings had, as a race, mounted such a direct and obvious attack on Equestria in at least recent memory (I know the comics list a few other example invasions, but not only is that backstory the comics presented of dubious canonization these days seeing the show has since rendered whole aspects of it effectively non-canon, those invasions seemed contained to solely small city-states that may not have even been directly affiliated with Equestria properly, and anyway it seemed like a long stretch of time had passed before those and the Canterlot Invasion, ensuring the newer generations of both sides had nothing but a fuzzy memory of the other at best).
In any case, it really doesn't seem like either side had been given much chance to seriously meet each other long enough to even try to find a peaceful solution, more remaining largely isolated from each other, until Chrysalis finally got too ambitious for her own good. So really, instead of trying to assign the blame to just one side over the other, better to just concede both sides deserve the blame equally and leave it at that, as then there's not much more needed to be disputed after that.
Love bugs, huzzah! Give me more, I NEED IT!
Don't mind me, just a random inspiration and sorry for the shitty scanner
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/2510c5e4-55f5-48fb-a488-16d3cb8cdede/deyhlme-750a9c44-92f3-413d-8bb7-c64e1cde41d6.jpg/v1/fill/w_1280,h_772,q_75,strp/intruder_alert__by_theowtcast_deyhlme-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NzcyIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvMjUxMGM1ZTQtNTVmNS00OGZiLWE0ODgtMTZkM2NiOGNkZWRlXC9kZXlobG1lLTc1MGE5YzQ0LTkyZjMtNDEzZC04YmI3LWM2NGUxY2RlNDFkNi5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.PgJGmIGHHYkmWzwmCdvlgoQrK92GAhaH-96QC3f3Bjk
11126018
I hate to say it, especially because I genuinely believe there's good cause for discussion over everything here, but I have to wonder if you're crossing a line with this. You've already made Navel practically beg for mercy — all of it instigated by half a line of dialogue, may I remind you — and yet you're continuing to antagonize the everloving shit out of them while they're still down.
I don't want to rock the boat much more than it's already been, but that seems excessive.
11127015
I’d actually already resolved to stop commenting for exactly that reason. You’re probably right.
Any conversation about Chrysalis inevitably in my mind starts to skew towards the mistreatment (in both the sense of Chrysalis facing physical, mental, and emotional abuse in-story and the sense of Chrysalis being misused as a character) that she received in later seasons, something that NavelColt outright stated he enjoyed (or at least the latter kind of mistreatment, where the most complex and legitimate villain in MLP was reduced to little more than a wicked witch to no one and nothing’s benefit), which I just can’t comprehend, and that enjoyment of mistreatment influenced my tone.
I have intense feelings concerning Season 9 and Chrysalis that even more than two years on are still close to the surface - I didn’t invest ten years of my life into this franchise to not feel strongly about it.
That being said, I’m out.
11126966
That is adorable. Excellent job!
Somehow missed this amidst the drama.
11127119
and I think 'drama' is an understatement. Hardly surprising that it got kinda lost in the crossfire
Thanks
love how chryssi is just in the background, hiding in the bushes like- im watching you!
"Bugmoose"...
11126966
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
i like this image, but shouldn't there be 4 observers? :3
11127875
Rob is a new recruit and hasn't yet learned that when Pharynx stares at a threat, you stare at the threat too. Therefore, he's behind the rock, waiting (kinda) patiently for the others to stop staring
I love these stories sm!! hoping that calor makes more appearances, he's def my favorite bug
Oh I guess you decided to cancel your story that's unfortunate