Princess Luna finds a visitor at her door who gives her an unexpected gift: a Changeling foal. After agreeing to raise him in Equestria and teach him the magic of Love and Friendship, she finds him quite a hoofful, but also useful to have around.
Follow Midnight Star, a Changeling in the middle of Equestria, a place where revealing your true identity could be dangerous. But, as he learns of Love and Friendship with the help of the mane six and others he meets, can he show Equestrians that Changelings aren't dangerous and deserve to be loved?
This is part one of my Shattered Harmony series, this will also be my focus until it's done. Chapters will not be regularly posted, as I'm busy with work and life.
Edit 1: This story is inspired by one song that I found off of youtube: Never Ending Nightmare. There will be several scenes in here that will be inspired by several songs, well known and by famous brony composers, but the main story has been inspired by Never Ending Nightmare. For those who have watched me from the very beginning, this is the story that will have scenes inspired by Electrokaplosion.
Edit 2: As of now, this story is canon up through the season 4 finale. Hasbro can't do anything in the show to ruin my headcanon!
i love it a lot
and i can't wait to see more chapters for this story when they come out
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Thanks! Chapter one will probably be set in the future, after the show. I've got ideas for it, I just need to organize them and write them down. This story I hope to make my best work, as I've had this one floating around in my head for the past six months, working out kinks and smoothing out ideas. I just hope that I can write down what I have in my head as sometimes it's hard.
3124584 Your welcome and ok
My two favorite things in mlp: Luna and Changeling!
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Glad you enjoy it so far! As Discord would say, "Twists and turns are my master plan."
It lives!
I have to ask though, nothing interesting happened in those those 5 years? Or are there gonna be flash backs?
Yikes, Celestia has some serious anger issues with Changelings. And if she's as quick to fly off the handle about them then Cadance and Shining Armor would probably execute changelings on sight... seeing as how they were the most effected by that Wedding fiasco.
Okay, I like this story, but I feel that the following should be addressed.
First is in the writing style. The spacing is kind of bad and could easily be fixed. It looks like you put a space to start a new line when it'd be less annoying to put a space between
so rather than the paragraphs being connected
there is this much spacing
rather than this much.
Now onto some plot errors. For starters it obvious that time has passed between the chapters but there's nothing about what happened. What happened to the Changeling? Did the guards just go "We're not paid enough to care what happened" and therefor didn't tell Celestia or did Luna pay them not to tell her, because I'm pretty sure that a Changeling running through the castle isn't something you tend to forget. Also Celestia seemed a little overreactive to me; just saying Changeling makes her go crazy and yell at a colt? Also, why would Midnight's magic aura color be suspicious? FFS, Cadance's aura is blue even though she's pink, and Shining Armor's aura is pink even though he's white.
Nonetheless, I shall follow this story.
My Darkness watches you...
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Thanks for the feedback! I'll keep the spacing in mind as I continue to write.
And all things will be answered in time, just keep watching!
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I have a few things planned for Cadence and Shining Armor. Cadence becomes a rather crucial character in this story, what with her background and animosity towards Changelings.
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Cadence is a curious one. One on side she's the Princess of Love, yet, what I assume has happened, she is on the other side almost her evil twin towards Changelings. And Changelings themselves represent antithesis of what she strives to foster in everyone, consuming the very thing she wants to promote. I can sorta see how this might drive her towards anger, hatred, and eventually, madness as the purpose of her being strives to force itself to the front, love for everyone with one exception... and the exception being Changelings. And that detail is where the devil lies.
If this is the fallout from Chrysalys' failed invasion then the Changeling Queen is the worst thing to happen to Changelings in history. Her actions spelling the doom of an entire race. And the worse part is the world can happily go on without the Changelings if they were gone overnight. The bug ponies have everything to loose and only their continued shadowy existence to win. I'm surprised more Changeling hives outside Chrysalys' influence (unless she is some supreme leader rather than one Queen in her little corner of the world) haven't seriously considered bargaining before they're wiped out to the last larvae and turned into a forgotten footnote in history.
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You: All in good time, my little one. *sinister laugh*
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Let's just say that in a few days, Midnight's time, crap will hit the fan.
As king of the Predacons I shall favorite this story
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And I as a Bearer of Corruption, thank you for your fav.
An interesting twist on batpony lore there while, at the same time, defining and fleshing out changeling lore in this setting. I'm a bit curious what the batponies were doing while Chryssy was trying to sack Canterlot. Then again, I'm curious where Luna was during the entire event; something that has never been answered in the show. Also, I'm pretty sure I've never seen the Elements of Harmony regarded as such in so many formal greetings. In nearly every other case, they've always just been six common ponies. The only one to apparently get any respect or special treatment was Twilight, and usually only after she got her wings. Now that I think on it, it's logical that the guards would address them as such, seeing as how they've saved Equestria multiple times putting them right up there with any major celebrity or high ranking official (they've certainly done more for the nation than any narcissistic noble).
p.s. I gather it's only a matter of time before the rest of the Mane Six find out Luna's entire guard are her own force of changelings as well as this "prince"?
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Only time will tell.
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Pinkie Pie promises on this 'national secret' for all!
Goodness, I wonder what other dark secrets the Castle keeps, deep within those ivory walls...
Shimmer Scales: We do not discharge our weapons in view of the public!
Midnight Star: Shimmer, we ain't got time for this cover-up bullcrap! I don't know whether or not you've forgotten, but there's an Arquillian Battle Cruiser that's about to...
Shimmer Scales: There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these ponies can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!
Shimmer Scales gestures to a group of onlookers, drawn by the curious blasts from the
store. There's smoking rubble everywhere.
Shimmer Scales: Don't worry about the bug. He's not leaving town. We've got his ship.
...yeah, I keep thinking of MIB when you involve Luna and her secretive Batpony force. Although I'd put Luna in Zed's place because I find it hilarious/awesome when you read his lines in Luna's voice.
"You'll dress only in attire specially sanctioned by MiB special services. You'll conform to the identity we give you, eat where we tell you, live where we tell you. From now on you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You'll not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You're a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don't exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name. Silence your native tongue. You're no longer part of the System. You're above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We're "them." We're "they." We are the Mares in Black."
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"Plots within plots, schemes within schemes. There's always another secret." - Kelsier, Mistborn.
That statement holds true, especially with this story.
This chapter definitely needs work.
First, the creeper joke, while funny, really isn't worth the damage it does to efforts to establish a coherent feel. (Up to that point and following it, the story's approach to mood, tone, and atmosphere has been "coast by on the assumption that it's matching canon" but a Minecraft reference yanks the reader's perception into a more contemporary context.)
It's sort of like an anime fanfic mentioning MySpace (or Facebook, but that hasn't become dated yet). Not only does it clash with the typical "anime japan" feel of the setting, it severely restricts its ability to age well.
A much better solution would be to set up a similar joke with Luna reading an unnamed book or watching an unnamed film, since both of those technologies would evoke images of their canon MLP:FiM forms in the reader's mind.
Second, Celestia's reaction was wildly out of character and so over the top that it probably makes no sense for ANY reasonable character. It'd make much more sense for Celestia to stay cool and collected but to still feel enough anger under the surface that, with his ability to sense it, Midnight Star is still terrified and still runs off. (And Luna can explain it away by telling Celestia that she let some of her anger show on her face and that's what scared him.)
Alright! Changed Princess Celestia's part to seem more natural and realistic. Hope things work out better! Give it a read and tell me what you think!
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Much better but it still feels less than ideal. Maybe it's just me but I envision Celestia being a bit more diplomatic in her phrasing simply out of force of habit.
For example, "their pitiful existence". There's something about that specific type of ad hominem attack that just doesn't feel right for a wise, 1000+-year-old regent like Celestia whose job would require her to be a good diplomat.
I'd also probably go with something more along the lines of this instead.
(Your version has her speaking against changelings with phrases like "are a corruption" which feel like factual statements that must be challenged if the listener doesn't fully agree while "those maurauding parasites" is still a very damning thing to say, but the listener has the option of interpreting it as a statement of opinion and is less likely to challenge it because it's focused on indisputable statements of observed behaviour.)
Also, wouldn't you say that anger which shows in someone's eyes but doesn't disturb their neutral facial expression is both scarier (because it's a cold, controlled anger) and more reasonable for a wise, ancient, diplomatically-inclined ruler?
(And sorry for the delayed reply. You didn't use a >> reply marker so the site didn't notify me that you'd responded.)
Well, I guess a mock battle is better than the random chaos of falling statues and rampaging (fleeing) animals from the gardens.
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Everything that she says has meaning. I meant every word of it. I've got a bit of head canon pertaining to the beginning of the Changeling race, which is why Midnight Star is wanting to learn about it. You'll just have to wait and learn in the future.
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I'm just saying that until now, Celestia's behaviour feels consistent with canon, which makes it feel jarring and wrong when you suddenly spring that bit of dialogue (which feels inconsistent with canon) on us.
Yes, your Celestia can be different, but fiction has implicit rules about what approaches do and don't work for recasting elements (people, places, things, events, etc.) which the reader has a preconceived notion of.
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If I sound rude, please excuse me, but how do you come to these opinions? I checked out your page and couldn't find any stories, and so I was wondering how someone could know these things and not write a story themselves.
I should also note that I don't have an editor, these chapters are pretty raw when I post them.
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It's a bit complicated but here's the Cliff's Notes version:
I've always been good with language and non-fiction and for nearly ten years now, I've been working on learning to write fiction.
For the last five or six years, I've been acting as an editor, pre-reader, and/or advisor for friends as time permits and they'll vouch for the accuracy of my insights. (MLP is a fandom I got into relatively recently.)
Through all that indirect practice, plus other research, I've accumulated quite a bit of knowledge. The problem is that, because I have mild Asperger's syndrome, my brain is locked into "me, here, now" when thinking intuitively about how someone will behave. (I don't sense "the mood of the conversation", I have to consciously recognize that I'm merely projecting my own feelings onto others and explicitly watch for cues.)
That means that all my understanding of how a person will behave is done consciously rather than intuitively. I can do it, but it's prohibitively slow to do for a whole written piece. (On the order of 15 minutes per paragraph. If you've ever run a video game in an emulator, there's your analogy.)
My hope is that, when I can dedicate more time to it, I'll be able to buckle down and piece together some kind of cognitive shorthand that'll speed things up. Right now, the effort is on hold while I work on hobbies that'll count toward my portfolio.
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I won't say that I completely understand what you're talking about, but I get the general gist. Thanks for making me aware of this. Now I appreciate your comments even more. At first I just thought it was somepony being picky, but now I see that there is a good reason for it.
Ack, you're right, a lot happens. And too fast. The sudden transitions of locale are almost like new stories with the lack of any consequences following from the previous. And an angry Cadance is scary, yikes. Just whip that axe out and start chopping till the bloody pieces stop twitching. For somepony that's supposed to be representing Love, she sure went to the dark side of Hate in a hurry. Maybe she needs help with a gentle blast in the face from the Elements? Also, good to see Ponyville doesn't mind a Queen strolling around town, teaching their foals about their culture. I imagine that would drive a bugpony-squashing Cadance crazy. And finally that end, what- what the hell? Granted, I've never gotten so emotionally distraught over bullying but, wow. If there aren't any repercussions back on Diamond and Silver after ponies find out why Scootaloo is in the hospital... maybe those two need to get blasted with a Rainbow or just replace them with changelings and be done with that reoccurring problem.
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Oh consequences will happen. I'm just setting up scenes to come back to. I have set several things in motion here.
And a queen walking around? Who said anything about that? It's not like she's taking very large precautions. In fact, she's been around for a time now. We just haven't noticed.
You wanna hear my God-honest opinion here? I can PM you, I don't want to pull any punches here.
4600692 Go for it.
Did Discord have anything to do with this chapter? It's so... random.
Still a fun read.
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A bit. He has a lot to do with the entire story.
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It's just... suddenly the Doctor, as in Doctor Who, shows up. Then we go to Canterlot High of Equestria Girls, pick up Shimmer, pop back to Ponyville, mention something about preventing end of the world as we know it (as if there's anything less for the Doctor to do), and finally Twilight on Shimmer as her own student rather than banish her back to CH. Whew! And we thought TV soap operas were conveluted.
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It's not CH, they actually went into the future, past CH when Sunset is in college. I had hoped that I'd shown this, but it seems that I didn't. The entire story happens several years after the fourth season, so everypony has been aged a few years, including Sunset. And next chapter will start to slow down. I'm running out of exciting scenes to write, so there won't be as much.
Or maybe I should just post smaller chapters....
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My bad, I used CH as an overall metaphor for the "world where all the ponies are mirrored as humanoids and the last time Twilight was there, everything took place on Canterlot High school grounds". Quite a mouthful so I just refer to it as Canterlot High or "CH".
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You're fine. I realize that I didn't actually state in the story that Sunset was in college, so it's all good.
Because this chapter is such a shallow mess of out-of-left-field things and because so many other chapters have followed (implying that no revisions are forthcoming), I had no choice but to trade my upvote for a downvote... and I don't make that decision lightly.
ill proofread for ya! this so far has been one of my favorite fics yet!