IFP - Changelings

Ideas for Projects. If you see anything you like, take it and make it your own. Most of these have probably been done in some way or another, but they might give you a different idea while reading them or you might decide to use it anyway. Just because it's been done before doesnt mean you shouldn't do it. Yours will be different im sure..

3. Birth defect riddled (possibly even crippled) Thorax is ostracized, especially by his secret mother, Chrysalis. Hence the secret. But finds out after leaving/banishment he is the only changeling capable of using advanced pony magic. And he is VERY good at it. Possible Twi-rax ship.

4. Twilight is a changeling princess in an AU where Luna wasn’t banished but she wasn’t cured, villains run amok, and harmony isn't a thing... yet... she needs it to be or they will starve. She runs away after a disagreement with her mom to try to see what's wrong. Friendship happens. 

9. Like, zoinks! Scarab Do, except not a crossover per se. Either existing MLP characters or OCs. Ghosts, ghouls, Windigos, or creatures using magic and science to fool others? "Scooby" (maybe Scarab) is a young-ish changeling in disguise, that can't shapeshift their vocal cords from what they were born with due to defect. Fun fact, all (other) changelings shapeshift their vocal cords to talk to non-changelings because it’s really hard to understand them otherwise.

10. Cadence is secretly a changeling queen, that's why she has love magic. The crystal heart was made by her mother that's why it can take love and turn it into spells. Spells that protect and seal away the Umbrum and windigos. Evil forces seek to unleash said evil again... cadence is going to continue the family legacy and stop them. But first, she has to get the trust of her loved ones back. Her true form was revealed at her wedding by another queen. And the truth won't be known until the return of the empire, the changelings in the empire, and the ancient records in the empire.

15. Can be part of 10. There were changelings in the crystal empire that had technology way beyond even what Equestria has now. When they return, some of that tech is stolen by forces who intend to do harm with it. 

17. Vinyl scratch is secretly a changeling with a birth defect where her eyes can't shapeshift, and she is mute, bet her ears are more powerful.  So the sound is the only thing she can truly enjoy... ***well... that and her soon to be mare-friend. ***Doesn’t have to be an Octavia and vinyl ship.

19. Pony society is in chaos. In most urban areas the changelings are being found to be questioned. Celestia knows there are innocent changelings. In some areas there are changeling (witch) hunts where innocents on both sides are being hurt. They figure no one gonna miss them. Turns out 1 in every 5 to 7 ponies, depending on location, is a changeling, but some think its way more than it is. Celestia finds out, more chaos happens. The mane six are sent to figure out what is going on. They don’t like what they find. (Dark, sad,  Heavy torture) I don’t care much for the death tag though so any story that involves it will be in a small amount.

20. A changeling traveling theater. A series of short stories about the plays they put on and intermissions about what happens backstage and their lives. Until they get contracted for a certain wedding at the end. Celestia sets them up in Canterlot, to help with relations. They are going to have to do their best. The kind and gentle ringleader that started it was a runaway from Chrysalis’s hive for not fitting in… sound familiar?

27. Slice of Life. Changeling life after the wedding.

28. Mystery. Inspired by Rainbow and Daring Do. Twilight seeks out her favorite author, she finds he has been replaced by a changeling... or has he?

29. A good renowned doctor who mostly works on foals is revealed to be a changeling. Parents are worried their children have been replaced. There is no known way to find out. A lot of the children come out more attentive and respectful of their parents and those around them. The children all say the same thing, it's because of the stories he tells while he works.

30. A changeling run orphanage secretly gives young changelings to ponies and young ponies to changelings.

31. An organization for helping changel... I mean... infertile stallions who can't have pony foals find love. Did Cadence start this, or did she just assist? 

32. Opposite to 31. If a changeling is in their form, their child will be changeling or hybrid. If they are in another form then the child will be of that species. Shapeshifting changes their DNA and leaves no trace of changeling...ness... That's why they are impossible to find and have stayed safe for thousands of years.

78. Fancy Pants and Blueblood have a conversation. “How are the loved ones doing?” Asked fancy. "No one is bugging me. How's the business?" Asks blueblood. "it's going well," says fancy. Luna teleports next to them startling both stallions. She puts up a sound barrier and chimes in, “Huzzah! Celestia was worried that the secret assistance for the changelings wouldn’t work out. So far as I can tell, tis still a secret.” Blueblood raises an eyebrow. “Apparently not... How long have you two known?” Luna just gives him a flat look. “Didn’t you think it odd all those requests were approved without question… including the new theatre and orphanage?”

33. 2 or 3 friends get stranded in another part of the world. 1 or 2 are uneasy because they aren't exactly welcome. 1 is scared senseless because the city is on high alert for changelings. They just want to go home without ANYONE, including their friends, finding out what they are.

34. Twilight and shining armor are royal changelings. Celestia and Luna are shocked. Shining is in tears, afraid cadence is going to call off the wedding. To which cadence is just shaking her head at him extremely disappointed in him. For lying?... or for thinking so little of their bond?... Shining doesn’t know. 

39. A vampony and a changeling fall in love. They make it work..  surprisingly well. Someone finds out somehow and is so happy for them, they help keep them a secret as neither of their kinds are exactly welcomed... 

44. Make cadence a changeling. Give shining armor Entomophobia. Make him get over it so he can love her again.

45. 44 except Make twilight and cadence siblings instead. Make them both changelings. 

54. A changeling and a windigo stumble into a bar... beating the crap out of each other. Friendship happe... "DIE MONSTER! LOOK WHOS TALKING, BUG!... maybe not...

61. A classic Sorin is a changeling in love with rainbow dash fic and/or Bon Bon/sweet drops is a changeling in love with Lyra. Because all the fics that I've seen do this, are painfully short. I'll make it part of another fic.

62. Windigos didn't disappear, they are like changelings and can change their appearance. Can the changelings stop their plot?

80. Twilight gets soul swapped with a changeling. She has to escape and convince everyone she is the real twilight. The former changeling is enjoying her new life too much. WAY too much. Now she feels bad for stealing it, but she MUST continue with the mission. And twilight is enjoying her changeling body after she got used to it, but she HAS to be a princess. Would the elements of Harmony know the difference? Maybe she could get them to try it.

84. Horror. Changeling engineers are sifting through a junkyard, tech and robots come to life. They run across a broken down small pony-like robot with pink and purple hair.

85. There is more than 1 level of queens.
Changelings value 1. Age 2. Strength 3. Continuation of bloodlines

Royal Nymph - 100 years or younger, no changelings. Not considered a princess. Not to leave the hive for any reason, except if the hive is breached and no longer safe.

Princess - must be 100 or older, and must be done with their queen training. Little to no changelings. Not considered a full queen, but is still to attend events that their mothers go to. Especially the council.

Queen - must be older than 500 and have a significant amount of changelings.p

Elder queen - must be over 1000 and have sired at least 1 queen born from them.

Grand queen  - must be over 2000 and have sired at least 1 queen born from them.

High queen - leader of the changelings. There are 3 legal ways to change the high queen.
1. she dies of natural causes, and gets replaced by the oldest queen. (Most common) 2. She is usurped during the council of queens. (Second most common) 3. She has to be usurped by someone who has completed a THE dangerous test and then must face off against the current high queen, possibly to the death. (Not common since the test has an extremely high fatality rate itself, let alone the duel afterward) 

Council of Queens - an even that happens when at least half of the current queens call for it. Only the 10 oldest there plus the high queen herself, actually have any vote on anything.
This is where you would update your status officially, to all other queens. 

To usurp the current high queen. All but 2 of 10, excluding the current high queen being the 11th, must vote on the same queen. (Usually the oldest other than current HQ) this is done anonymously. 
If the high queen dies outside of an official face off for any reason, the council is called, and it automatically goes to the oldest queen. 

That means there is a fourth method. To kill the high queen, outside of an official match. Means you are sentenced to death (only 1 has ever done this), and all those born from you will be banned from the council and prohibited from breeding any further. (1 had this happen to them) If any more are sired from them, they will be put to death along with their child during the larva stage. (No one has done this yet...)

91. Mystery, adventure.
Someone has bugnapped ocellus.

95. In a faraway land, changelings WERE slaves. Sympathizers, lead a rebellion. Now the changelings are in control, and most ponies willingly submitted to them. They do their best to make it up to them. 

A group (maybe mane 6) stroll into the city and are horrified to see the changelings won. When they try to liberate a pony, they explain they do not wish to be liberated. The changelings are far nicer to them than they were to the changelings. The changelings didn't even put foals in chains like the ponies did to their grubs.

110. They took everything from him, his wife, his magic, his girlfriend, his life, and his very soul. Luckily chrysalis needs to help the ponies to keep love in the world, so she steals his soul and his magic back and puts it into a changeling husk. And she will do the same for as many of the others that met the same terrible fate as she can, all of them if possible.

119. H.P. Lovecraft was a changeling, and he's seen some shi... a Lovecraft-ish story about all the crazy things that inspired A LOT of his stories. Turns out he didn't want ponies to know that A LOT of his stories are based on true events. As a changeling wandering the world. He goes out of his way to find the weird stuff so he teams up with a pony with a very strange cutie mark, a talent for finding strangeness... apparently the worst part is they all too often have run-ins with the organization trying to keep things under wraps. They are not happy that he is publishing these stories. Too bad they don’t know who he is. Changelings aren't known to the world... or the underworld yet.

123. Trypophobia is an odd phobia to have... especially for a CHANGELING!

130. A changeling gets caught on the day of his marriage. His marefriend thinks he just stood her up, he has been hesitant about the marriage since the invasion. A guard that knows the couple goes to cadence, they put 2 and 2 together. The changeling is being stubborn and denying it’s him until his marefriend shows up, courtesy of cadence. If it is him, and he does love her, they are going to fix this.

135. Chrysalis or Thorax pov. Diplomatic meetings are a pain, especially when everyone hates you. Luckily we changelings have the ponies to stand by us and vouch for us. Hopefully, no one assassinates me before we can prove we've changed.

136. A foreign power that absorbed the former storm empire seeks to expand. They seek to gain allies from the neighboring lands, they are shocked to find that the dragons are allies with the ponies and even... WHAT THE HELL? CHANGELINGS? How did they... the only logical explanation is the changelings have taken over and unified them. Change in plans... 

Meanwhile, Thorax/Chrysalis is having tea with Celestia 
"I'm so glad we're friends now."
"Do you think anyone thinks we replaced you?"
"I hope not, making this peace was hard enough..."

139. There is another changeling queen that survived the disappearance of the crystal empire by committing taboo. Her crime is consuming the souls of freshly born changelings so she can have food for herself AND have loyal servants/army that she doesn’t have to care about.

141. Twilight dies pre alicorn, her soul finds its way to a soulless husk that Chrysalis recently captured in an altercation with an unknown hive. (Lore, no colorbugs, no alicorn Twilight.) 

142. A Twi-rax story. Twilight and Thorax work together to solve all of Chrysalis' problems. Chrysalis thought Thorax was a disappointment, now she is incredibly humbled and happy that Thorax found somepony, (someling if twilight is a changeling from another hive), to bring out the best in him and prove chrysalis wrong about Thorax and ponies as well.

144. Chrysalis is attacked and gets separated from her heir and protectors. She has to relocate the hive. She searches for her child and doesn't find them, thinks they are dead, the attackers "accidentally" left behind a solar guard sigil, she doesn’t know it’s a fake. She moves to the badlands and starts plotting.
Optional add-on: twilight is her daughter and when she sees that Celestia has known what she was all along and still loves her like a daughter, she falls for Celestia as she is a wonderful, loving mother. Change some of the AU to fix some plot holes.
Optional 2: Thorax is the heir and gets raised by Celestia who saves a starving changeling prince and seems a chance to bring ponies and changelings together at last. Twilight grows up with him and later falls in love.

146. A changeling replaces an abusive partner, who was accidentally killed by their mate when they fought back. The changeling knocks them out, hides the body, and the pony wakes up to an injured partner who calms them down, "It’s just a flesh wound". The changeling pretends he is sorry about the abuse and starts to fix the relationship.

149. Thorax has an alternate personality named Shadow Play. (Think of Gollum from LOTR) Thorax thinks he is just a voice in his head from losing his mind because of his abusive hive mates and mother Chrysalis. Little does Thorax know, he is VERY real, and powerful. Good? Bad? He is manipulative that’s for sure... but to what end?

200. Inspiration from 3 different stories that I will link when I am not at work. Also is mostly just a combination of my other ideas.

Twilight is the most brilliant changeling princess in 3000 years. She has created artificial living constructs. Well... semi-artificial at least. It requires 2 "parents" to "donate" DNA and magic. She makes a Magical Artificial Intelligent Dragon. She insists lings call it an AID, not a MAID as it was apparently "born" a "male”. (Optional, the soul for the unit is obtained from... ahem... stillborn eggs and foals (cough dark as hell cough) in this case a dragon egg that failed to hatch, a foal that would have been named Sweetie Belle, and many more.
I am going to make a blog called Clockwork Dragon with more details on how I would run this idea.