Limited Liability is a changeling with a very routine life. He works at a bank. He lives with a marefriend. He goes through every day making sure he isn't discovered.
At least, that is, until the day that the hive has planned to invade Canterlot. On that day, his love runs out, and his disguise fails. Trapped in public with a chitinous body for all of Equestria to see, Liability has to find a way not only to survive, but to avoid ruining an invasion years in the making. Along the way, he learns a very interesting lesson about the ponies around him.
Written for the Equestria Daily "Outside Insight" contest.
Cover Art by Ruirik.
Chapters (1)
Okay, I was a bit concerned that this might be a rip off of "Gazebo". The short description was very vague, and left a lot to the imagination, and my imagination went straight to Gazebo, and how Clip found out that not all the ponies would hate him.
quickmeme.com/img/be/bead363502f8e7564038c7072c490cfc0da55bf30c42bb1f04983157e9ae7125.jpg
Personally, I feel sorry for the girlfriend getting essentially raped.
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I mean, you could look at it that way (and I fully understand why you would), but...
...oh Hell, I'm just going to make my points and not beat around the bush awkwardly.
1) I wrote a bad guy who is also an asshole. That's explicitly what changelings do, and I defend my characterization, even if it does make him not a particularly nice person. He is, very literally, a parasite.
2) His interest was her *love*, not her body, regardless of how he chooses to phrase it. Thus, if he does sleep with her, he needs her to do so willingly.
3) It's not even as bad as how Chrysalis treats Shining in canon. Limited Liability isn't mind-controlling her or drugging her, he's just disguising himself as somepony she loves (or perhaps not even that, after the end)... And yes, that's creepy and dishonest and wrong, but (as has already been discussed), that's what changelings do.
I'm not in any way saying that you shouldn't feel sorry for her, though. Just observing my reasoning.
Hello my name is child of the one true king!!
This is good.
How is this story not swimming in likes and views? THIS story is GORGEOUS!
I'll laugh if people just seem to think this story actually has something to do with Slim Shady. :P
That title played in so well into the overall story and its moral. It flows wonderfully. It showed us the world of ponies in such a more believable light on how a changeling would act and view ponies.
Though, the shield bit seems suspect as to allow a changeling through, I can totally buy it to be a real possibility since that shield isn't exactly knowing of what species is supposed to be attacking them. The ponies don't even discover what changelings are till its already too late, so if anything that shield could only be a magical form of a "Malice Detector" of sorts. Maybe fixed in with some racial profiling for Gryphons and Mules.
This is a fantastic story. I was in tears with how wonderful this story played out. How well it paced. How much it delved into pony politics with royals not being all too pleased with how banks work, it seems. This story had it all. I only wish we had a more extended scene with Luna. At first I thought this story was going to lead to something like Luna having a kink for changelings with gall. Lots of galls.
You have my vote. All the way. This is the bar for which contestants will have to meet from here on out. You sir/mam.
Are going to Bollywood.
? of 56
(I lost count, sue me. I got bored and was gonna go to bed before I decided to read one more after procrastinating for a bit. FREAKING JACKPOT RIGHT HERE!)
So he went back to work, no longer using a disguise, and the ponies don't notice he's a different species since their completely oblivious. That's pretty funny. In addition to that, when he had that fun night with Schmuck’s marefriend, he wasn't even disguised as Schmuck. Wow. This is absolutely hilarious.
4854618 Actually, if we look at how the shield worked in the episode, recall that a special gate was present to allow the train to pass through.
It seems that the shield blocked passage of everything; it was simply a generic type of all-inclusive barrier. Like the Enterprise's shield!
*Alondro peers into the bedroom with eyes narrowed and bleeding bloody lines of crimson hate. A gutteral effusion of malice emanate from the seething depths of his innards wherein the immense fortitude of rage hast lent to his development of volcanic ulcers.* Chernglerngs...
*the venom-steeped pony slinks back into the shadows to plan...*
4854930 I think it was probably keeping out anything magical, imo. Because there aren't many creatures without magic...
4854988 Can't be certain about that. We'd have to see if a rock thrown at it would have passed through.
But the ponies and changelings never chuck anything material at it, so we can't make any claim one way or another as we lack empirical evidence.
4855028 yeah, the only test we could do , is watch it again and look for birds in canterlot.
EDIT: Assuming birds have no magic.
Chiga Chiga Slim Shady?
SORRY HAD TO DO THAT!
The story is decent. There are a few errors here and there, but it's a fairly enjoyable read. 8/10
4853866 I thought of that song when I read the title.
Another day, another schmuck.
4855385 IKR it so obvious
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ERRORS! WHERE??! I SHALL SMASH THEM!
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It's merely unnoticable.
Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
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Ponies are true morons and the bankers are the worst. One little ink blotch, one tiny little match, and those 49 zeros would all be gone and nopony would be the wiser.
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YESSSSSSSS
Good story
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I'd like to hear that in a dramatic reading.
"Chrysalis from the sky!"
S'one way to end a story, I guess.
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Could they bowdlerise that any harder? I think they left some of the original lyrics in there.
I suppose compound interest is the great big silver lining to the dark cloud of a thousand year unplanned sabbatical.
4855905 Technically, it would be in the bank account of one Changeling distraction.
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Of course, in practice banks reclaim accounts that remain unused for too long. Additionally, any sort of account that offers a simple, straightforward interest rate almost never offers a higher rate than the average rate of inflation. So after 1000 years at 2% interest, $1 will turn into over $398 million - by which point it will be worth less than when you started.
That's if the government and currency remain stable for the whole time period, of course.
Edit: Yes, I know I'm ruining a perfectly good story setup with petty facts. Feel free to ignore this.
This seemed like that one scene where a cartoon character walks through a construction zone unharmed
I loved every minute of it
4855047 We'd have to see if the birds fly through the shield or bounce off.
Otherwise, they could simply be stuck in there for all we know.
The shield was huge, large enough to encompass the territorial range of most urban-dwelling birds.
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I just imagined the pigeons slamming into it. Discord would be ecstatic.
4858138 It is an entertaining thought...
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Interestingly, so would I. I'll see if I can arrange that.
Lulz yes
So okay, ponies are morons, yet....your Queen was defeated by her own gloating hubris? Sure, she initially outmaneuvered Equestria as a whole, but that doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day, your entire hive was repelled by two ponies in love with each other.
Morons the nobility and the average pony may be, but you're more of a moron for thinking that you're superior to them, mister hash-browns. Both could learn a lot from each other.
This is brilliant!
Top lel, I enjoyed it immensely
Fun story!
However, I sense a missed opportunity...
Well, Luna's been gone for a thousand years, a lot is different now. Maybe changelings are friendly now, and nopony thought to mention it to her. Maybe they are integrated in Equestria now, for all she knows. I mean, they have griffons now, so why not changelings? Maybe she spends the next several hours happily going over her (vast) holdings with not-LL while chaos is unfolding in the city.
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Would make much more sense considering the canon story in which Luna came after everything was said and done, simply asking about what she had missed.
You're right, such an ending would have been a more snug fit.
IT'S RAINING MEN.
Hallelujah.
IT'S RAINING MEN
4859357 I'd had loved to seen this... LOL! It would have been just perfect! Maybe we can ask the writer of this story to make a 2.0 part of this where something like that happens and perhaps making the story a bit longer... That would also explain how in the show Luna asks "What did I miss" because she would have had no clue!
Heh. Reminded me a little of Tom Holt's Flying Dutch.
Congratulations, Liability. Yo have learned of the 'Chest thumping Gorilla in a basket ball game' glitch, wherein if the unobservant see something they don't expect, their brain just refuses to register it.
So named for an experiment where people were asked to count the number of passes made by people in white shirts in a video. A gorilla walks in about halfway through, thumps its chest, then leaves. Half the people watching do not see the gorilla at all.
Ponies seem to have it even worse, with only alicorns and those with the potential for being alicorns able to pick out a changeling in the laziest possible disguises.
Yes! Agreed! Ponies are indeed morons. Bravo, good sir/madam/thing. Bravo!
4853674 He's also a Wall Street Banker, they'd give any changeling a run for their money on tricking people and screwing them over.
Wonderful story, I also like how you explained Luna's absence at the entire wedding fiasco.
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The question would be whether he replaced someone else who she was in love with and now poses as them or whether his pony persona is what she fell in love with.
If you are impersonating someone who has consent then you do not because the consent is being given to another person entirely. That is rape.
If you are lying about yourself, even manufacturing an identity and appearance, if you gain consent it is still you who is gaining consent. That is a terrible betrayal but people lie to have sex all the time and it is not rape at all. Morally, it is almost as bad but legally consent was, in fact, given.
Nice
Have a like and a fave
Silly blind ponies ;)
Tiny nitpick, this line could be probably changed:
"It’s actually Princess Luna’s savings."
- These are (...) savings.