Chapter 11 - Letters From The Ponyville Jail
Changelings, Love and Lollipops
Chapter 11
Letters From The Ponyville Jail
There was a certain pattern to Twilight's voice that broke through the hammering pain in his head, a panicked stream of consciousness that went straight from the emotions right to the mouth without pausing at the brain for any constructive editing, much the way Pinkie Pie talked, only without the underlying panic and terror he could hear now.
“...but if I write her a letter, she’ll think I can’t handle just one changeling even though we fought dozens of them in Canterlot and lost and she lost and I’ll just remind her of that horrible time that we just want to forget but I can’t forget and I don’t want to use a memory spell because that might get rid of a memory I want to keep and it moved! It moved!”
Taking a long, slow breath, the changeling opened one eye. The jail cell seemed familiar but different in some fashion than his last visit. For one, there were no ropes binding his limbs or his wings, just the blessed firmness of the jail mattress under his battered back. Secondly, the skinny stallion who seemed to run the place was missing. And thirdly, there was a familiar terrifying presence lurking behind the massive oak desk in the main office. His disguise was gone, thrown away in his haste to flee the terrifying little dragon, and now he had to face the terrifying unicorn who had been the center of so many rumors around the hive.
She sounds like a terrified wimp.
Taking a deep breath to brace himself, he opened both eyes and blinked away the spots in order to get a better look at the Immortal Celestia’s student, Bearer of the Element of Magic, the most powerful unicorn since Starswirl the Hairy.
All he could see was the tip of a trembling violet horn behind the solid oak desk, but he could hear a distant rumbling. It was oddly ominous, much like a stampede, and the source became obvious as a horde of little ponies cascaded through the front door.
“Hi, Twilight!” said Apple Bloom, bounding over to the desk. “JB said you were over here with Mister Tolliver and—”
“Stay back!” shouted Twilight Sparkle from behind her desk, a wave of purple magic scooping up the little fillies and colts and dropping them behind the desk, out of sight of the changeling. “There’s a dangerous changeling trapped in that cell, and I need to — You know it?”
“Him,” said Sweetie Belle in her most authoritative voice. “Pinkie Pie says he has a thing.”
“And we was going to have him help fix the clubhouse this evening,” said Apple Bloom. “Since he broke it in the first place. And then Applejack said he was welcome to come over to the house for a piece of pie afterwards. And I didn’t even know she baked one today.”
“We can pay him this time,” said Scootaloo. “Miss Cheerilee gave us some bits if we’d talk him into going by her house and working on her plumbing tonight. Something about a dripping pipe.”
“Aww. I wanted to have him and Snails help look for bugs tonight,” complained a short, chubby unicorn colt.
“Well, I wanted him to show my mom how he can change forms,” said Dinky. “Maybe he can teach us how to do it.”
“Wait a minute!” The top of the desk gained a pair of skeptical eyes, which glared at him from above the intervening paperwork. “How do you know that’s the same changeling? There could be dozens of them in town! How do I know you’re not all changelings!”
The air behind the desk glowed with the violet light of a spell, there was a brief pause, and then Twilight continued. “Well, you’re not changelings. But he is!”
“There aren’t dozens of changelings in town, Miss Twilight,” said the tall gangly colt who the changeling was finally able to identify as Snails. “He said he’s the only one.”
“And that he got throwed here by Princess Cadence’s spell,” added Snips.
“He could still have you all under his nefarious mental influence!” The suspicious eyes made an appearance again and glared across the room at him.
“He said,” Snails paused a little, and the changeling could easily imagine him with his tongue stuck out of one corner of his mouth in concentration, like he had at the party. “Changeling spells to influence minds are only transient—”
“That means short,” said Snips.
“—and that only the Queen has the ability to take control of a pony for more than a few minutes, because of their inherent limitations—” drawled Snails.
“That means—”
“Yes! I know what ‘inherent’ means!” Suspicious eyes glared at him from over the desk again. “I know he’s doing something with mind magic, because I can sense it.”
“Oooooo.” An entire forest of curious eyes peered out from all sides of the desk in his direction before Dinky’s voice quietly asked, “How can you tell?”
“Because!” The suspicious eyes narrowed. “He was using some sort of emotional magic on me in the library. That’s why I dragged him here.”
Getting carefully out of the bed and checking his aching limbs, the changeling gingerly touched the throbbing lump on his head. “Did you go into heat too?”
Twilight Sparkle hissed in reply, hunching farther behind the desk. “That’s not— There are foals here!”
“Oh, we know all about heat cycles,” scoffed Scootaloo.
“It’s when mommy dresses up in her best outfits and goes dancing with our neighbor the clock repairpony,” said Dinky.
“Rarity locks herself in the boutique and eats a lot of chocolate,” said Sweetie Belle.
“My sister writes the weirdest stuff in her diary when she’s in heat,” said Snips. “I’m just glad colts don’t have to go through it.”
“That’s… not important! And I’m not in heat! My schedule is precisely twenty-seven days, and it’s only been two weeks! I c-c-can’t be in heat!”
“Why is your tail sticking up, Miss Twilight?” asked Apple Bloom.
While Twilight Sparkle spluttered, the changeling leaned forward to rest against the jail cell bars. Everything else on his body hurt (except certain thing-related areas), but his aching gut finally had settled down to a relative quiet, probably an indication that all of his cached love had been expended, and the end was quite near. If nothing else, he could spend his final moments laughing at the idea that he had considered this confused and spluttering young unicorn mare a threat. During the fight at the Queen’s wedding, he had specifically avoided crossing her target area, choosing instead to feel the unmerciful pounding of Applejack’s hooves and Pinkie Pie’s cannon. Now it seemed a foolish decision, to be afraid of a wimpy librarian who could not even—
All thought ceased the moment his forelegs touched the jail cell bars. Actinic light flared in a soundless explosion of violet and white runes embedded in the bars, flinging him backwards like a limp doll and into the back wall of the jail cell. Which reacted in exactly the same fashion, only with slightly more enthusiasm and increasing his velocity for the return trip. If it were not for the mattress, he might have rebounded around in the cage until turned into a changeling slurry, but during one particularly panic-filled flyby, he managed to grab onto it with all four hooves.
And upon landing on the floor, which thankfully Twilight Sparkle had not enchanted the same lethal way as the walls, the scorched changeling decided to remain under the mattress like some sort of insectile turtle.
“Please,” he moaned. “Just leave me alone.”
There was a clatter of tiny hooves on the cold concrete floor and he felt a gentle touch of magic on his jagged horn. “Are you hurt, Mister Tolliver?”
“We should get you over to the doctor’s, so you can get a shot and feel better,” said a second little voice.
“Let me go get the keys so we can get you out of there, Mister Tolliver,” said a third.
“No! No, no, no!” shouted Twilight, as a bright flash of violet light yanked the little ponies away from the cell bars.
No, they’re cage bars. I’m just a dying bug in a cage.
“He’s a dangerous changeling!” ranted Twilight Sparkle. “He’s probably using his mind magic on you right now.”
I’m about as dangerous as a dry mosquito. Why are the little ones defending me?
“He broke into my library, frightened Spike, and touched my books! Right there! In my library!”
Pinkie said it was a nice, quiet place where I wouldn’t be bothered. I should have been suspicious.
“He even touched my tea things! There’s a pot of some mysterious potion sitting on my stove right now that probably is—”
“Chamomile tea,” said Sweetie Belle. “He takes it for his tummyache.”
“Oh,” said Twilight Sparkle. “Well, that makes — Wait a minute. How do you know he drinks chamomile tea for his stomach?”
“We had him out at Fluttershy’s for a tea party,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Until Scootaloo put some poisonous toadstools in his tea,” said Apple Bloom.
“Hey!” protested Scootaloo. “We got him to the hospital so he could get his stomach pumped.”
“And then he came to the school for Show-and-Tell,” said Snips. “It was so cool!”
“Yeah,” drawled Snails. “He told us all about his hive out in the Badlands, and how its kinda like an ant hill or a hornet nest, with sentries at the entrances, and little cells where they sleep, and a big creech where they raise all of their little changelings.”
“Creche,” said Twilight Sparkle with a snort of outrage. “That’s where their queen lays the eggs after—”
“They don’t hatch out of eggs,” said Snails, sounding indignant. “They’re more of a live birth gestational mammal than an arthropod. They even nurse their young for two months before turning them over to the… creche so an older changeling can take care of them while the parents go back to work.”
“How do you… When did he… Fine!” spluttered Twilight Sparkle. “He was probably being mind-controlled by his queen when he told—”
Snips promptly interjected, “He said the hivemind only lets the queen communicate in general terms. She has to talk to them directly, ‘cause otherwise she could have just stayed at home and done the whole invasion from her hot tub.”
“She has a hot tub?” asked Twilight Sparkle, her puzzled tone quicking shifting back to suspicion as she continued, “It’s probably full of poisonous slime and ooze.”
“She likes strawberry scented bath salts,” said Sweetie Belle, “so I don’t think her tub would have any slime in it.”
“I don’t know,” said Apple Bloom. “Remember when he went streaking naked through Sugarcube Corner’s main room, wearing nothing but suds? I thought it was because changelings didn’t like baths.”
“Oh, he’s over that,” said Sweetie Belle. “Pinkie Pie said he was in the bathtub with her last night so long that he almost drowned.”
“The bathtub?” said Twilight Sparkle in a near-whisper. “With Pinkie Pie?”
“And she ties him to her bed at night so he won’t run away,” added Scootaloo.
There was an exceedingly long and quiet silence, so long that the changeling could not restrain his curiosity and peeked out from under the mattress. The circle of little ponies around Twilight Sparkle looked concerned, perhaps a little distraught at the way little strands of mane kept popping up along her back, and the somewhat dazed look in her eyes.
“She’s my probation officer,” he whispered. “Can I go now?”
* * *
Once Twilight Sparkle had chased all of the little ponies out of the jail and locked the door behind them, she turned back to the desk. Huddling behind it as if it were armor and retrieving a quill and paper as a sword and shield, she began to write while casting suspicious glances at the quiet changeling who was still trying to hide under his mattress in the cell.
“Dear Princess Celestia,” she started, her quill scratching in a familiar rhythm. “There is a changeling in Ponyville…”
She paused, looking at the paper for a long while before wadding it up and throwing it into the trash. Starting again, she raised her quill over the paper. “Dear Princess Celestia. There is at least one changeling in Ponyville…”
This time she looked at the paper for a long time before the changeling suggested, “You could say I’m in the jail.”
“Right.” She crumpled the paper and threw it away, getting out another sheet. “Dear Princess Celestia. There is a changeling in the Ponyville jail…”
“Shouldn’t that be active voice?” he asked.
“Oh, good point.” Wadding up the paper again, she pulled out another sheet. “Dear Princess Celestia. I captured a changeling today and have him imprisoned in the Ponyville Jail.”
“And I’m going to release him so he can fly home.”
“Good. And I’m going to—” Scowling fiercely, Twilight Sparkle wadded up the paper and stuffed it in the trash. “Dear Princess Celestia,” she started with a growl. “Today I captured a sneaky changeling and have him imprisoned in the Ponyville Jail. I plan to…” She paused, waving the quill in her magic. “Plan to…”
She glanced at the changeling for inspiration, and he shrugged from under his mattress armor. “Don’t look at me. Changelings don’t plan. The Queen makes our plans for us.”
“Well, that’s pretty obvious,” she growled, turning back to the paper. “I don’t know how she expected the sun to rise after she captured Princess Celestia.”
After a few moments of thought, the changeling volunteered, “She must have had a plan. It would have been a pretty dumb idea otherwise.”
Twilight Sparkle took a few more minutes to prod listlessly at her paper before saying, “I suppose she could have taken Princess Celestia’s form in order to raise the sun.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” said the changeling, scrounging around on the bed above him with his weak and flickering magic until he managed to pull over his pillow. “We can just look like ponies. We can’t take over their powers. Otherwise the Queen could have used Princess Cadenza’s powers to make Shining Armor love her instead of controlling his mind.” He cringed, thinking of just whose sister was sitting just a few yards away, but Twilight Sparkle had a look of unbreakable concentration as she played with her quill.
“She had enough power drained out of my brother to beat Princess Celestia and trap her in a cocoon. She could have mind-controlled her to raise and lower the sun.”
The changeling shuddered. “Then we would have needed to fight The Nightmare. Why do you think we attacked during the day?”
Twilight Sparkle frowned. “Could she have controlled both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?”
“Only if she wanted her brain turned to tapioca. Controlling one pony is insanely difficult. Controlling two alicorns…” He shuddered and hid under his mattress except for his eyes. “I better not talk about it.”
“Well, I…” Twilight Sparkle shook herself out of her reverie and glared at her prisoner. “You’re doing it again! You’re influencing my mind so I’ll let you out of your cell and help me write my letter so that afterwards we can go over to the library and you can check out—” She snapped to a halt, grabbing her inkwell and papers in a flurry of purple magic that knocked over the trash can and upset several nearby chairs. “I’m not fooled by your smooth words,” she snarled, backing for the jail door. “I’m going to tell Princess Celestia all about you, and she’s going to be so proud that I caught a changeling. She’ll send the Royal Guard to drag you back to Canterlot and get the truth out of you! She’ll keep you in her deepest dungeons, chained to the wall, except I don’t think the castle has any dungeons for prisoners, so we may have to keep you in a guest room. A cold, unfurnished guest room. With a draft. And no maid services! And we’ll question you every day, just the two of us alone in a room with you. And we’ll ask questions! About military stuff and your evil schemes over tea and biscuits. She has the most amazing biscuits. And cake. And tea! Yes, we’ll have tea while we question you, just the three of us, nice and close for hours and hours. What do you think about that!” she snapped, her rear end against the jail door and her mane in a springy halo of curled hairs around her face.
“Sounds… nice?” he volunteered.
“Nice? Nice!” With a whinny of frustration, Twilight Sparkle vanished out of the doorway, slamming the heavy steel door behind her with a solid clang. The heavy locks on the door clunked and clanked, then he could faintly hear the sound of departing hooves outside on the street.
After a few moments of silence, the hoofsteps returned, growing in volume until the door clunked and clanked again. Opening just a crack, a quill levitated up into the air from the desk Twilight Sparkle had been writing on. It flew through the air, wrapped in a purple magic field until it vanished out the door, which closed with the same clunks and clanks as before, and the clatter of rapidly departing hooves.
* * *
The concrete floor of the jail proved far too uncomfortable for his back end to meet his final end on, so with a muttered curse, the changeling lugged the mattress back onto the steel-framed bed, tucking in the jail sheet under the jail-comforter⁽*⁾.
(*) With a hoof-stitched title of ‘Ponyville’s Model Prisoner,’ embroidered by the Ponyville Retirement Home Quilting Society in recognition for Jailbird’s community service over the last five years of his sentence including his participation in Meals on Hooves, Homes for Equanity, and the bi-monthly blood drive.
“If I’m going to die, I don’t want to go like a bug on the floor. What happened to the changeling, Twilight Sparkle? Oh, we found it all shriveled up in the corner and threw it into the trash. They’re going to drag my dead corpse onto that wagon and throw it into some gulley in the Badlands and nopony will care.” He gave the covers one last vengeful tuck with a subdued grunt before flaring bright green with changeling magic. In moments, a familiar yellow unicorn, somewhat battered and bruised, slipped under the covers and tried to make himself comfortable for the end.
“I’m going out like a proper changeling, looking like a pony until I die. I don’t care what that crazy unicorn thinks, I don’t care if the teacher wants to examine my plumbing, and I don’t care to see another apple, be it the pony or the fruit, ever again. The world doesn’t care about me, and I don’t need to care about the world. Changelings take from the world, and I certainly don’t need anything given to me.”
With a final tug of his covers, he snuggled down and waited for the end. Despite the comforter, the chill of the evening made him tremble in the dull red and oranges of the sunset reflecting in through the cell window. He was cold, all of his limbs ached from his ping-pong match against his cell, and the lump on his head where he had smashed into the unyielding oak door was giving him such a headache.
“Here you go.” Two small aspirin pills on a pink hoof appeared in front of him when he opened his eyes, and he swallowed them with the glass of apple juice Pinkie Pie provided.
“Thank you, Pinkie Pie.” He settled back down to rest, then opened his eyes. “Pinkie Pie?”
“Yes?” The pony in question was barely a nose away, looking straight into his eyes and fluttering her eyelashes.
“How did you… What are you… Why are you in my cell?”
“Well,” she started with a deep breath, “you and Twilight were having your nasty argument, and you sounded like you were so much in pain that I ran back home and got two aspirin and then ran over to the hospital to check if it was okay to give you aspirin after mushroom poisoning and they said yes so I came back over to Sugarcube Corner to get the apple juice because when I take pills, I always take them with apple juice so they don’t get stuck in my throat and darn! I forgot my medicine at Zecora’s. Anyway, then I came over here and used the oven mits to open the door and here I am.”
He blinked. Pinkie Pie held up the pink ribbon.
He stuck out one leg.
Later that evening as the freshly-bathed changeling was settling down into his sleeping bag in Pinkie Pie’s bedroom and his roommate/probation officer was brushing her teeth (and somehow singing about it at the same time), there was time to think. It was a complex situation and a little bit frightening, but two things stood out.
He was starting to like pink.
And his stomach was hurting again.
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Last update until next Saturday. The Twilight/JB scene is in an author's note, because I'm trying to keep the *entire* story in one POV, i.e. Tenderized the Changeling Harvester. But it was too good not to include. Sometimes the characters write their own stories.
Glorious so much win
wait....does his stomach hurt whenever he's getting love?
Tolliver: "Huzzah! I'm not gonna die! I can be stuck...in this town...for...." *beat* "oh horseapples."
5548494
told you, he's screwed tighter than a dead bolt (I believethink something like that)
5548620 A deadbolt is a lock, silly.
What you should really say is 'screwed more than a child's first carpentry experiment'.
This is some good stuff!
I wonder if Twilight will find out how to cancel the heat aura thing...
How does Spike feel about Tolliver?
I wonder how many more chapters there are...?
5548671
What would he be if he were attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis?
Twilight. Twilight, you're insane. Get psychiatric help already. Jeez.
Ah, Changeling love... of Pink!
And I like how the fillies are more mature than Twilight in this situation.
Get that mare quite a lot of cc's of Big Mac, stat.
Yep, still sitting with the idea that his stomach ache is love overload, he just needs to stop being so lovable and he'll be fine.
5548431
so you mean that I have to wait Almost an WHOLE WEEK for the next part?! O.o
.....this week will be the longest in my life....
The big question is: Is the Author's Note canon? :D
5549291
she's lucky the CMC don't get sexual innuendos.
5548689 By definition, he would be screwed onto it.
5549692
the ribbon is screwed around is arm, or the whole is his forehoof, and he is screwed at the same time.
Every time I see "JB" I think of Jack Black
Yup, definitely a bug in his sensorium, if you'll pardon the pun.
Oh, Twilight. If she has one critical failing as a scientist, it's that she can never maintain a detached attitude. I certainly can't blame her for being unable to do so here, but it's still a frequent issue.
I loved Snails stepping up as the authority on changeling biology and sociology. They may be more mammalian than insectile, but they're close enough for him. I also loved Pinkie's rescue. That was downright cute.
Also, Jailbird's logic is... certainly unique.
Looking forward to more, come next Saturday.
That was fun. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
How to be in a bad position and be a douche at the same time..
It's becoming clear that he's being overfed at this point, not underfed.
Wonder what's going to happen when Twilight finds out that Mr. Tolliver is no longer in jail. I'm thinking it'll go along the lines of this.
Twilight Sparkle rapidly knocked on Pinkie Pie's door in Sugarcube corner practically bashing the door in. "Pinkie Pie!" She hollered. "Open this door RIGHT NOW!"
"No!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed from inside.
"I know you have that changeling in there!" Twilight shouted. "Now let me in!"
"Never!" Pinkie screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Fine. You asked for it." Twilight said pointing her horn towards the door and blasting it open with her magic.
Twilight stomped into the room growling angrily, she opened her mouth to shout at Pinkie Pie only to get shot in the face by Pinkie's party cannon making her choke on confetti.
If not I am sure it will be just as hilarious.
Rock on!
-ThePortalPonies
5550560 there are few things that can drive a wedge into friendships so easily then love. even if that love is artificial and accidental. One can hope that he changing can defuse the situation that is brewing before it boils over, and or he dies.
5550853 Eeyup. You my friend, just blew my mind with your fancy talk. Thanks for opening up my mind a little more.
Though I don't see how Mr. Tolliver would ever be able to fix what's happening to him and those around him. Possibly he could talk his way out of the situation, but it doesn't seem as if Twilight would believe anything he has to say anytime soon.
Rock on!
-ThePortalPonies
Well, we're just going to have to fix that, won't we?
Ahh, Twilight going crazy is always fun.
5550222 I have to disagree I think somehow he is expelling pure love to his immediate area. Which is probably why he has stomach aches as whatever organ absorbs love is basically throwing it up Which we all know is not a fun time.
The horror!
Man, this chapter sure didn't do too much to make Twilight more comfortable with Tolliver's presence in Ponyville. If anything she's just being wound up tight as a drum. Hopefully our poor changeling won't be on hand for the explosion, he's had more than enough of those already.
Hoo-boy
Okay. Looks like "everything but her teddy bear" wasn't an exaggeration
Well, at least he'll go out trolling Twilight Sparkle
The Nightmare? Heh...
Pfff. Ponies
Sweet, sweet consensual captivity.
Wait, what? I thought JB was the police officer looking over the jail
static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/14/142970/3031297-3817814948-i-see.jpg
5562000
Ahh. Celestia doesn't appreciate proper Iced Tea
5552002 "Wait, what? I thought JB was the police officer looking over the jail"
JB is short for Jailbird. Ponyville is in the unique Ponyvillian situation of having a prison, a prisoner, and no sheriff (as he left for a job in Appleoosa).
5563242 You used two words that don't go together in Celestia's mind. "iced" "tea"
5551869 I think I can get a few more turns on Twilight's mainspring before she explodes in a cloud of frustration.
5551186 Close.
5550560 I haz a devious plan.
5550222 Much like a balloon, that once you put too much air into...
5549917 There is just so much that can be done with the "One prisoner, no sheriff" gag. I plan on using it in Royal Exam too.
5549352 Yes, but since I'm trying to do the entire story in one single anthropodic POV, I just put the "outside POV" into a note.
5565319 woah I got it almost right. Well if he is vomiting his food he should really go see a hospital because any animal that is vomiting that often is probably doing some serious damage to it's internals not to mention the loss of massive amount of chemical (or magic) used to sustain that system.
5565319 Oh...a devious plan, huh? *Rubs hooves together* I can't wait to see what it is. *Laughs uncontrollably*
Anyways, I'm patiently yet eagerly awaiting that new chapter.
Rock on!
-ThePortalPonies
5565319
The fact he was initially only referred to as "JB", combined with him informing them about the right forms to fill out for the damage report, and the fact they more or less asked him permission for making Pinkie his parole officer, really didn't make that clear
5565456 (From Applejack) ...Why don’t you come on up to the house and we’ll cook you up a farewell dinner afore you go to the jail. All Jailbird’s gonna feed you there is take-out food anyways.”
(from footnote) (*) Hoof-stitched by the Ponyville Retirement Home Quilting Society in recognition for Jailbird’s community service over the last five years including his participation in Meals on Hooves, Homes for Equanity, and the bi-monthly blood drive.
I suppose I could sprinkle a few more Jailbirds in the story. Two is a little short.
5565481
)
The fact it mentions Jailbird would be the one feeding him immediately gave me the wrong impression. At that point I really thought the "community service" thing referred to volunteer work or something. And, you know, civil servants kind of ''serve the community" too.
(Do remember I'm no native anglophone. When seeing "community service" it doesn't automatically translate to "alternate sentence" for me
And "Jailbird" could totally be a name for a warden
5565319
5565412
hmm I guess hes so full of love that he broadcasts some kind of "fertile" signal
that would also explain why all the mares are suddenly in heat^^
.....dam now im hoping for some kind of sequel where hes has to deal with his "more insane than the CMC" offspring
5567741 I would agree except he's in pain. And pain is the universal signal of something in the body is not happy
5567873
the changeling version of blue balls?
i mean if hes constantly in "ready to mate" mode and near a female but does nothing........
5568020 hmm more plausible. Well all we can do is wait and see.
5566178
That's great! Don't credit me.
This is soooo great.
Why is that last part an author's note?
Did anybody else have a flashback to this song 15 years ago?
Dinky's answer to what heat is
Is the single best thing I have read all year.
DAT author's notes doh...
Man, those girls really don't know the meaning of the word "subtlety," do they.
The story is becoming something of an overly long gag. It was funny. It still is funny. It's just too long for funny to be enough to hold it together.
The verb in question, "is" does not actually have active vs. passive voice. Voices show the relationship of the subject and object to the verb. In the active voice, the subject of the verb is acting in the manner described by the verb, while the object is being acted on. In the passive voice, the subject of the verb is being acted on, and there is no object at all. If the actor is identified at all, it is usually with a prepositional phrase.
The copula (in English, "to be") does not describe an action at all. It does not even really have a subject and object in the usual sense - there is no actor, and no one being acted upon. Instead you are describing a quality of the subject.
Take a simple example. "Twilight Sparkle is a pony." How would you re-word that in the passive voice? "A pony is Twilight Sparkle"? But that's the same construction!
So let's take a look at what Twilight actually wrote: "There is a changeling in the Ponyville jail."
Beginning a sentence with "there is" is, grammatically speaking, a bit of an interesting construction, since the word "there" does not have any meaning in this context, although it does have a function. That makes it what is technically termed an expletive. The subject of the sentence is "changeling", and the predicate is "in the Ponyville jail". If we remove the expletive construction, the sentence says "A changeling is in the Ponyville jail." (Or maybe it is an existential construction, that is: "A changeling in the Ponyville jail exists." I'm not a professional linguist, but these guys are.)
In either case: it is not passive voice.
Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with using the passive voice anyway. Good writers use the passive voice all the time. As do bad writers, and middling writers, and in fact pretty much every speaker or writer of the English language. Many of those who argue most passionately against the passive voice use it in those very arguments.
6016570 Note that he didn't say it *was* passive voice, only that "There is a changeling in the Ponyville jail..." *should* be active voice. After all, the sentence doesn't say anything about how it got there, or the state of the 'ling in question. Twilight Sparkle, as a personal student of Princess Celestia, should have been more clear.
Although her emotional state at the moment was a little churned. And then her bubble gets popped by a literary critic, which doesn't help.
Pfft.
Okay, Twilight, when did it occur to you to put a rebound spell on the goddamn WALLS toto? Do you WANT to violently murder your prisoners?
Cya
Raziel-chan