So, Spike has a new potential ship in his newest episode... and it's gonna be another one of those challenge to your tolerances questions.

So, I present to you,

Is this straight?

'

At first glance you'll ask me why I question Sparity. But look closer. Those blue eyes are open.

The gender of Changelings is not exactly known. A drone, if the sexes of bees are any indication, is fully capable of becoming a queen. Bees were a silly and wrong example. One can infer that their gender is neutral. So then, does the current form of the changeling determine if that relationship is straight or gay?

5446388 Luckily, I can bypass the entire issue due to my changeling headcanon: hermaphrodites.

Well, if we want to get technical, it's a bit more complex than that. In a purely biological manner, they are 100% male or 100% female, except that the average changeling has both male and female parts. The funny thing is, according to how my changeling's function, Spike would technically be gay if he dated Thorax... until a few weeks in the relationship. After that time, all the love he accumulated in the Crystal Empire (and from Spike himself) would have turned him into an infiltrator: which are 100% female and produce eggs. Prior to being an infiltrator, they produce sperm only, yet still sport both male and female genitalia.

In short, their relationship would be... complicated, to say the least.

5446396 Good answer.

5446388 huh. that could work with how i've removed spike's chances with rarity (you understand what i mean) and the fact Screwball is helping the changelings blend in.

5446388
Drones aren't capable of becoming queens. Drones are male bees.

Thorax is male and was referred to as such in the episode.

The only way for the picture in the OP not to be gay is to add another pony. After all, we all know the golden rule:

Not that people won't do whatever they want. Because, you know, fanfiction.

5446465 Okay, fair enough, bees were a bad example. I still don't think a changeling's gender identity means much to them if they can emulate males, females, and rocks without any apparent problem. And also, in your proposed scenario, a fake Rarity is the other pony. So... thoughts?

5446473
Wearing a disguise and changing your gender identity are two very different things. If changelings are indeed eusocial, then there's a good chance that the standard changelings we see aren't even capable of reproducing.

I mean, there's a lot of potential routes to take with it. When changelings transform, are they actually transforming, or are they disguising themselves as something else via illusion, which is why they mostly imitate pony forms close in size to their own? We don't really know. People can make up whatever they want, as it is unlikely (though not impossible) that the show will ever address it.

But we don't see any signs of the disguises causing any psychological changes; they still appear to be themselves, even after transforming, which suggests it is more like a disguise as far as the changeling is concerned.

5446476 Well, being that they are a separate species, emulating mating rituals would be unlikely to bother them. Take on the form of somepony's wife, go to their home and find their husband, have a quickie, leave with a full stomach while the husband loves his wife that much more for her visit. I don't think that common changelings (call them workers, drones, what have you) can reproduce at all. We know they come out of eggs, which are presumably laid by the queen.

So yeah, in a society and race where gender means nothing, I am wondering if the concepts of being male matter at all. If they are a blank slate, whatever they transform into is what they are.

5446476 Oh, and since he turned into a rock, and Spike, I think we can safely rule out mere illusion, as interacting with a rock that was actually shaped like a changeling would immediately be discovered. Also, Chrysalis's wings and her chitinous skin would have been a dead giveaway if the transformation wasn't physical.

5446483
Just because you're a separate species doesn't mean mating rituals will become meaningless to you.

We really don't know if they even do that, though; indeed, we saw Thorax pretty much freaking out when exposed to too much love, hissing and such - hardly conducive to seduction, given his disguise dropped after being exposed to Flurry Heart. Seduction may be something that their queens do more so than ordinary changelings; it is hard to know for sure. Heck, maybe even what Chrysalis did was an outlier, and normally they just cocoon their victims and suck them dry.

Of course, that's what fanfiction is for, right?

Maybe changelings aren't natural creatures at all - maybe they're all creations of Chrysalis, who was once an alicorn, before she began experimenting on herself.

Maybe they're a race of insects which have evolved to look like ponies in order to better emulate their prey, and because taking on a form similar to their target is helpful for their parasitism, or simply for avoiding being awkward while transformed.

Maybe they once were ponies, but have been thoroughly reduced due to whatever made them unable to produce love themselves.

Also, Chrysalis's wings and her chitinous skin would have been a dead giveaway if the transformation wasn't physical.

Shining Armor was being mind controlled at the time. But it is a good point WRT the rock, though Spike may not have been paying close attention.

5446493 Excellent points, but to address his feral reaction, I think he actually said that was out of hunger.

I just have to comment that any "Thorax turns into Rarity for the purposes of pleasing Spike" stories have tragedy written all over them...

Not that there isn't some major character building that could take place... but what does it say if someone loves you because of who you're pretending to be?

Sporax could have been okay before he turned into a moose.

I suppose all changelings are genderless. That's how I percieve them. But they can chose to be male or female and present that preference publicly.

There's a fanfiction about that: "Imitation Marshmallows" by LtMajorDude. And (minor spoiler) it ends with Twilight asking "Does this make Spike gay or something?".

But to answer the question: I don't think that would be "straight" or "gay", on Throx's part. Throx is a changeling. He eats love, and he does it by taking the form of loved ones, because that's what Changelings do. He's not straight or gay here, he's hungry.