• Member Since 10th Aug, 2014
  • offline last seen Tuesday

Miller Minus


Cherish the thought.

T
Source

Smolder is not a changeling. But sometimes she feels like one.

Being a dragon can be downright exhausting.


Cover Art by Dashy21
Thank you to Ice Star, Meridian Prime and Pascoite for their help putting this together.

Chapters (2)
Comments ( 41 )

I feel like there should be a chapter two. Because I don’t really get what’s going on here. Smolder isn’t a changeling, but wishes she was a changeling, so...that she could become a dragon, which is what she is? Or she wants to be a different dragon? She wishes that she could hoard something else?

Like, I’m getting that there’s at least some body dysmorphia happening here, but I don’t quite understand what it is exactly.

Also Ocellus’ absence is notable...

Full disclosure, I have a part 2 written, but it never sat right with me. If there's enough interest I could probably revisit and bust it out.

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9674368
There needs to be more. You left this on a horrible cliffhanger, so please resolve it.

9674353
Look at what she says to Spike specifically: "Make sure it's something you want."

Smolder hoards words: "Information" is used, but she hoards words. The problem is that she doesn't want words. She wants poems. Her brother's poems, specifically (there's probably more to unpack there, too). But she doesn't have a hoard of her brother's poems; she has a hoard of words. She has a bunch of garbage that she doesn't want, but she's stuck with it. She wants to be a curator of her brother's poetry, but all she's ever going to be is a garbage collector, adding more garbage words to her hoard because she messed up and now she can't take it back.

I think we've all been there, wanting to transform from what we are into what we wish we were.

9674368
I'd definitely be in favor of a continuation. I liked this story, but it did seem a little pity-party-esque.

9674579
Oh.

Oooohhhhhhhh...

That makes sense. Thanks for the help!

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Changed to Incomplete.

9674582
And how's Part 2 of Gallus coming along? :rainbowwild:

9674588
I'm not an intellectual by any stretch, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!

9674590
...Touché, my friend. Touché.

In all seriousness, if it's not out by Friday, I will be massively disappointed in myself. (All that's left is this one stretch of about one thousand words that I keep throwing away and rewriting. I think I'm on the right track now, but it's been a massive pain.)

Following this one!
Wonder what will happen next.

I’m confused, but interested!

Yay Ocellus! She's my favorite of the Student Six.

Fluttershy had to invent the ‘A++’ just for Ocellus, so the professor had said, which would have been pretty special if Ocellus hadn’t overheard her saying the same thing to the next pony in line

Doesn't technically have to be a lie.

:yay: "Oh Angel Bunny, these students all put in so much work! I love every single one of their essays so much. How could I show it? I could just give them an A+, but that doesn't seem like enough...I know! I'll give them an A++! Each and every one of them deserves a whole new rank!"

Meanwhile in a crypt somewhere, Chancellor Neighsay feels a shiver run down his spine.

There was no need to sense love if you didn’t need it to survive.

There's a pretty neat story called Friendship Abroad where Ocellus snacks on a little love. She internally muses that changelings don't need love anymore...but ponies don't need cake, but they still eat it.

“I can look like someone else. But I can’t change into them.”

...yeah I'm totes stealing this line for a changeling I write at some point, or at least paraphrasing it. That's brilliant.

But he just smiled at me, and he said, ‘Hi, Ocellus.’ He said, ‘How’s school going?’

I love Thorax so God-damned much. I really do. He's a sentimental idiot and I love him for it.

Anyway. This whole thing was sweet, and a desperately needed second chapter that paid off in the end. And often the thing you need to do most for your friends is just to be there for them. To be a sounding board, to be someone for them to talk to or even just talk at. Ocellus probably could have gotten an A+++ if her entire essay had just been those two words: "be there".

For personal reasons, by the way, this chapter could not have been released at a better time for me. Thanks.

This story makes me want to finish writing the Strangers in Ponyville. It’s already so close to being done; maybe I’ll work on it some more today.

Wonderful

Wonderful

This second chapter is exactly what you needed to compliment the first and it works beautifully.

I love your Ocellus. She's really well-done.

now make them kiss

So, so, so glad this got a second chapter! It was a great character study and a very nice read.

Amazing!
You should write a sequel wear Smolder goes to the feelings forum

Ah yes, this second chapter clicks wonderfully with the first, really helps fill in the blanks the first left open. Altogether, it makes for a wonderful little fic of friends bonding. :twilightsmile:

Very nice second chapter, Miller. Plays off the original well and sinks the emotions home without feeling overplayed.

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So glad you liked, fam, and thanks for encouraging me to write part 2.

There's a pretty neat story called Friendship Abroad where Ocellus snacks on a little love. She internally muses that changelings don't need love anymore...but ponies don't need cake, but they still eat it.

I modelled Ocellus's lack of cravings on the keto diet, which is where you barely eat any carbs and train your body to use fat as a fuel source instead. I tried it a couple weeks ago and managed to get to the point where I didn't want carbs anymore, because my body no longer used it for energy. I could look at a donut and feel nothing.

I mean, I totally blew it and am back on the carbs train now, but still, it was a weird feeling.

Anyways.

Hope you'll enjoy my next adventures in student six land!

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Thanks Big Semi, glad you could enjoy. If I write another Smolcellus story I promise it'll cold open with a proper make-out sesh.

9684439
What a coincidence, this story also makes me want to finish my next young six story that's like a few hours from being done. Tell you what... I'll race you.

Fair warning though:

9674640
I'm undefeated.


Thanks to everyone I didn't get to, and especially those who encouraged me to push through Part 2. It took a few rethinks and rewrites, but I think it turned out kinda ace. And, in contrast to the story above, sometimes it's nice to have a couple friends tell you to stop being a baby.

I'll see you for some more Young Six in a few days!

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"The top one was on of his firsts," should be "The top one was one of his firsts."

Only one mistake: Flutershy’s

Great story!

Stop making me feel! I'm supposed to have a heart of stone damnit!:flutterrage:

Wanderer D
Moderator

“Don’t sweat it, kid. All dragons have hoards, it’s how we’re wired. Gold, jewelry, gemstones. Even books. But you gotta make sure you’re hoarding something you actually want. Something special to you. Plus, it helps if you know that nobody else will ever want to take it from you.”

Legit. I like that.

Wanderer D
Moderator

Wow. I loved this story. Thank you.

9753479
Thanks for stopping by. :heart:

See you next week!

This was excellent.

Fascinating take on Smolder. I don't think I've ever seen an approach quite like this. It makes me wonder how many other dragons suppress their individual desires to maintain a tough front for all the others.

That was nice, very wholesome.
You can take the idea of the self being the mask you put on all the way down if you try.
The question of "who am I?" Is often where people stop, but they could go further. "What do I really enjoy? And what do I pretend to myself that I enjoy for the sake of others, and their perceptions of me?"
There's a whole line of thinking down that path, and it's not pleasant to walk, and to be honest, its terrifying. To think of yourself as only what other people percieve you as because you can't find the seperation between you, the you you think you are, and they you they think you are.

Sorry, I went into this thinking of the masks we put on, but it devolved into that, I hope I haven't given someone an existential crisis.
I really loved that fic and how it handled things, and I also love seeing good hugs like that.

Huh, interesting concept!
And that is top 5 dumb questions from Sandbar.
I am so digging your characterization of the young six here, it feels so real, and I'm curious what's going on with Smolder, like she's not comfortable in her own skin.

This was a nice second chapter, and the talk between the two was good.
The ending felt a bit wanting, but then, something like this can't be solved so quickly or so easily, and that came through here, but it was nice to see them both doing better, and knowing they have each other.

For once, I got to read a story that has my second favorite changeling in it, and my favorite dragon, and they're not shipped by the end of it and it makes me so happy! :) Seriously, I'm all for shipping, and to each their own, but I kind of got pummeled by all the Smolcellus fics.

I think Fluttershy would have given this story at LEAST an A++ :twilightsmile: (but maybe an A+++.)

But more seriously...

At first I was expecting to write that I felt lucky to have stumbled across the story. And that's still true! But when I finally noticed, after reading it, that this story had 170+ likes, I felt kind of like saying, 'Wow! How did a story this good get so many likes?' :twilightsmile:

I liked a lot of things about this story. Among them...

I like how this story's central conflict works not only as a possible metaphor for gender dysphoria, but as a lot of other things too.

I enjoyed your portrayal of Ocellus' love sense and the experience of it, and your foreshadowing of a possible future problem through the risk of the sense losing its keenness for lack of need of it at the school.

I like the changeling problem you invent or discover for Ocellus, and how changelings treat it to help them recover from it. Your answer DOES make me curious how changelings USED TO treat that problem, before there was any such thing as the reformed changelings' Feelings Forum.

The relationship between Smolder's problem and Ocellus' is, of course, very nice.

If this was meant to be a dysphoria allegory, it's a damn good one.

That one killer line that earned you the A++, like, and comment was right here.

She’d always wondered what it held, and what it held was all over the floor.

I can't say all that I loved about this story, just that it spoke to me, and I think you for that.

This was pretty nice to read

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