Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity had finally come up with a plan that would get them free, and just in time because a certain changeling decided to walk over and gaze at them again. Fluttershy was resting so she didn’t get overexerted but she was probably also tired out from being so frightened. Rainbow Dash seemed to be trying to escape, even now when even if she got free she wouldn’t get far. Rarity was watching for the opportunity to strike something. Pinkie Pie seemed to be watching all this with a look that said she wasn’t buying the situation, but Twilight didn’t understand what that meant. And Applejack seemed to be saddened as she merely gazed toward the ashes still lying on the cobbled path.
“It’s such a shame 666 failed, it would have been so easy to implant you into the princess’s life.” Twilight glared at Chrysalis, but kept herself in check for the moment of opportunity. She couldn’t help but feel a strange awareness of Chrysalis, almost as if she could tell what she was thinking. Chrysalis seemed to realise this, and lean forward and gaze seriously at her.
“Twilight, stand” was all she said, and Twilight gasped in open shock as her body called up a simple spell to free her from her bounds, and meekly obeyed even when her brain would have never done so. Her friends mirrored her shocked face, and the glanced to each other with worried glances.
“It seems 666 has given me a very useful puppet after all. Twilight, jump” she demanded again. Twilight opened her mouth to say she would never do so because Chrysalis had said so, but just as she made to do the action her body reacted on its own, and she threw a worried glance to her friends. Chrysalis was somehow able to control Twilight, this wasn’t good. Chrysalis smiled, and Twilight felt absolute dread fill her heart. It wasn’t the kind of smile that spoke of happy times, it was the malevolent smile of someone who had just found a new toy that wasn’t theirs, and they were ready to break it just for spite.
“Twilight, kill your yellow friend.” Twilight and the others hearts thudded at the same time in shock, horror, and dread as Twilight felt her body turn and face Fluttershy, who was still resting.
“No, no I will not do it!” Twilight screamed, trying to somehow stop her body from killing her best friend. No matter how much she tried to pull herself away, the body responded without her desire. Turning to face Fluttershy, an unknown spell sprang into Twilight’s mind without her own bidding, and she could feel the pure negative thoughts that were associated with it. Twilight could tell without being told, it was a death spell.
“NO” she cried out in vain, desperately trying to move her body in any direction other then toward Fluttershy as her head lowered with slow precision to rest on her chest, right where her heart would be located. Closing her eyes Twilight put all of her desperation into one final push, and for a brief moment she felt her body seem to twitch slightly before something tackled into her, sending the spell toward the sky where it dissipated harmlessly. Opening her eyes, they widened further to see a dark blue Alicorn breathing heavily as if she had been flying for her life just a few moments earlier.
“Thank the moon we’re not too late” a quiet voice whispered between gasps, before Luna, for of course it was her, turned and stood tall and proud before the changelings. She quickly judged there was too many for her to take on, not to mention Chrysalis who had shown to be able to go toe to toe with her sister. Her eyes saw Chrysalis growl and open her mouth to speak, and narrowed in preparation of a simple rescue plan.
“Get them!” Chrysalis spoke, her own horn charging, with its trademark green tinge. Chrysalis was fast, but Luna was faster. First she called a blue shield around them, fending off all Changelings while she loosened the bonds on the six ponies, and four rocketed to their feet and gazed to Twilight.
“What WAS that Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked, Twilight meekly shook her head, she didn’t know.
“Focus, Twilight Sparkle, we must retreat until such a time we are better prepared.” Blinking in shock, Twilight gazed at Ponyville, seeing all the familiar faces of people who had already been taken over.
“But what about Ponyville, we can’t just leave it!” Their gazes met and Twilight realised something about those eyes the princess held. There were thousands of untold stories where she must have had to make a difficult choice between none and some, and she was feeling the weight of all those choices on her shoulders right now as she maintained the shield, it starting to flicker as it grew weaker. Twilight guessed defensive magic was not Luna’s speciality.
“We must retreat, so we may fight another day.” Twilight glanced to her friends, and they all gave a solemn nod. There were questions to be answered before the changelings would be able to be defeated, and some of them required something they could not have if they tried to fight all the changelings; their lives.
“Of course Princess, at once” Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated as her horn began to glow. It slowly encompassed the seven of them in a warm glow as she began the wide range teleportation spell. Opening one eye, she noticed Luna send her power into the spell, greatly bolstering the range at which Twilight could teleport. She had to laugh, it seemed so easy to teleport the distance to Canterlot with her and Luna combined. Closing her eyes again they rose into the air, and with the simplest of poof’s, they vanished from Ponyville and appeared in the Canterlot Garden.
“Nooo-” a cry tore through the spell as the air around them bent and they became for a split moment pure magic. Each type of Magic had a certain colour to it, and all of them had a magic to each of them. It was over too quick to see any details, and Twilight had her eyes closed in concentration so even if she had of had a chance to see them she would have missed it. Opening her eyes, she swayed as her body accommodated the sudden absence of a large quantity of magic as it vanished from her system. Rainbow Dash was the quickest to come to her aid, wrapping a wing around her body to keep her standing as she recovered from the spell.
“Twilight, you ok?” Twilight nodded, and after a few moments Dash stepped back and Twilight stood on her own. Gazing to her friends, they gently lifted the injured Fluttershy up and prepared to carry her to the infirmary. Luna stepped into Twilight’s view.
“There are matters we must attend to, but first we must see to Fluttershy.” Twilight nodded, and Luna led the way to the infirmary where a doctor and nurse were tending some patients. He came over and after they placed Fluttershy on a bed he quickly examined her and smiled, alleviating their fears.
“She is going to be fine, she’s only exhausted. However we can only allow one of you to stay here with her…” he trailed off, and they quickly discussed who would be the best choice. After some moments, they decided Rarity would be the best option.
“You go and find out what is happening Twilight, I shall watch our dear Fluttershy, through rain or shine, thick or thin, beautifully dress or in an ugly green-“ Twilight and her friends smiled and bid farewell to Rarity, who continued her list of things she would stick with Fluttershy with even if they happened. Turning to their current problem, the princess led them to the private Library and they all picked a spot to sit, and they gazed at each other before their eyes settled on Twilight.
“Twilight, you almost killed Fluttershy back there, it was almost like…” Dash trailed off, thinking of the word.
“You were like another changeling, simply obeying an order” Dash finished, happy with her words, before she paused and scratched the back of her head as she saw Twilight wince.
“You may be right Dash” Twilight spoke morbidly, and the others sympathised with her and Applejack placed a hand on Twilight’s shoulder.
“Easy there Twilight, al we have to do is solve the puzzle of why this is happening, you’re good at that aren’t ya?” Twilight turned her gaze to Applejack, and gave a meek smile before nodding and putting her front hoof on her chin and musing.
“Well remember those changelings talking about how I…Died?” She paused, and they gulped and nodded, Luna stayed silent.
“And how I overpowered Skid and now I’m alive again?” Once more they nodded, Luna seemed to be paying more attention than earlier, as if she knew something but wasn’t entirely sure about it just yet.
“Maybe I’m still partly changeling, and Chrysalis is able to control that part, being the queen and all.” They nodded, and all seemed to be musing quietly over what she said. Luna raised a hoof, and they all turned to gaze at her.
“I remember reading a book; it sounds similar to what you are talking about right now, however I do not know its location. We might be able to get some information out of it however.” They nodded, musing and Twilight stood up and gave the others her ‘we have a mission’ smile. Pinkie pie saluted her as she spoke, and Rainbow Dash merely rolled his eyes.
“Alright girls, we have a library to search, look for any old books on changelings, once we know why this is happening maybe we can find a way to stop it from happening. If that’s the case, then we are one step closer to bringing the fight to Chrysalis.” The three nodded, and headed off to different sections of the library. Twilight turned to Luna and paused.
“Luna, is there somewhere we can speak…Privately?” Luna looked down at her, and for some reason she acted a little sheepish as she spoke.
“Well, we can always go to my private study.” Twilight smiled, and waved goodbye to her friends, quickly mentioning where she was going. They nodded, and she followed Luna out of the room and towards a spiralling staircase. Twilight seemed happy, things were finally coming together.
Meanwhile at the clearing, Changelings were preparing for a full scale invasion of Equestria. Chrysalis was barking orders furiously and the whole clearing around the Town hall was a bustle of activity. No one noticed a small pile of ash get picked up by the wind, and blow towards the Everfree forest.
And foreshadowing ahoy!
2055048
Foreshadowing? Where?
hehe. Skid.
Added to read later list because of funny comments...
wait did skid just trick everyone
daaaaaaaaaaammmmmmnnnnnn
2055646
How do you draw that conclusion?
Well that updated quickly.
2055809 I am also curious about that.
2056051
When I am interested in a story, I update everyday, It was updating slowly because it was the 'middle' now we are nearing the 'end'
*Debesh cracks his neck.*
Changelings. Who doesn't like changelings?
Me, but I'm a miserable grouch so I don't count.
It seems to me that everyone likes changelings, to the point that every cliche story featuring one as the main hero seems to get featured. And that is exactly what this is, my dear author; this is a very cliche story.
Let's do a search here. How many stories can I find about changelings that features one as a main character and, as a major plot element, has it trying to live a normal life in Ponyville? Let's find out!
One! Two!
Alright, that's not as used as I thought it was. How about a story where a changeling is the main character and struggles to find individuality?
One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!
That's what I was thinking of! The concept of a changeling breaking out of the collective is so overused that it slightly annoys me any time I see someone else using the same concept. Note that this is just a scratch on the surface; I stopped when I got bored.
Related to this issue is how stupid the whole numbers for names thing is.
The main issue is that changelings seem more than happy using actual names instead.
So why have numbers if they have names? It seems like you wanted to try to make changelings seem more impersonal and generic, to try to hammer home the whole unified hive thing, but you completely destroy it by having them toss names around instead of using their designations. The only one we ever see use the number names is Chrysalis, which creates the impression that she doesn't give a fuck about the individual members of her swarm. You might be able to do something abut that by having Skid compare the cold, calculating Chrysalis to the ponies he meets in Ponyville, but we never see any of this in the story. In the end, it just comes across as a half-assed way to try and give changeling society a uniform, impersonal air, but you undermine it instantly and never do anything with it. So, besides a bit of angst over the meaning of his number, it's wasted potential at best, half-assed uneffort at worst.
Wait... what? How hard is it? You either have dangly bits or a hole. Spending any amount of time infiltrating Equestria would make this apparent pretty damn quickly. Even insects don't tend to stray from this formula much (although a lot of them are kind enough to keep the dangly bits inside until they're needed), except in a large number of special cases that your changelings obviously don't count as. I'm straying from the point, though; gender isn't hard. At all.
Unless 'armor' is a euphemism for entering puberty... which is where you have to explain why, exactly, the vast majority of changeling soldiers are children. In a darker universe this could be used to great effect, but here it's just another confusing thing that doesn't make sense.
What? No! No no no! Bad warewolves, bad! Have you ever heard of the words 'pacing' or 'detail?'
Basically, you take your fucking time with stuff. You don't just say 'Then the changelings got pushed out by a big purple wave but you already know that so yeah.' That one sentence that sums up the climax of the Season Two finale could take up a paragraph of detail without being excessive. Instead, you sum up an important event (the utter defeat of the invading force and Skid's own ordeal) with a single run-on sentence.
I would demonstrate just how woefully inadequate that is, but I did that before and felt like I was just showing off. Suffice to say that this is lazy and unacceptable.
Twilight, did you catch a whiff of Chrysalis' stupidity? What's to stop a changeling from, say, panicking and copying the last pony it saw or making up a new disguise?
No! Get back here, Ms. Logical Scientist! What the hell made you think that changelings would be stupid enough to copy local ponies if they were trying to hide? Twilight trusts some random pony right next to a fucking crash site for no other reason than she hasn't seen him in Ponyville before.
Hell, the fact that she hasn't seen him before is even more of a reason to suspect him than if he looked like someone she knew! If it was a local townspony, Twilight could just ask a few simple questions about the pony's life and write them off as legit if they answered correctly. A random, unknown pony in the wilderness just screams changeling, and Twilight doesn't even have the decency to ask what the fuck he;s doing there!
Wait.
You're telling me that, of all the hundreds (at least seven hundred, ignoring any potential mortality rates) of changelings that live in Chrysalis' hive, only one can harvest love? Only one provides the sustenance for the entire hive? Didn't Chrysalis explicitly tell her changelings to feed on Canterlot's population? This doesn't make sense!
Here, Twilight. I want you to take this ball. No, don't worry about what it is. Just take it. Take it, hold it, and for the love of gods don't let go. Because if you aren't holding this idiot ball right here, the entire plot will collapse like the hole-ridden mess it is.
You're telling me that a changeling, a member of a race that by all accounts has access to complex magic alongside powered flight, has never mastered simple levitation?
I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of your story. In just the first story I've found so much material to take offense at that I doubt I could finish the rest of your story in anything remotely resembling a timely manner. To be absolutely blunt, I have no idea how this got featured, and I don't think it deserves to be. So here's the first downvote your story has received, and this is why. As a final parting gift...
This is a bad idea. Tags are used mainly to guide authors to stories they want. You want something funny? Go dig up Random and Comedy stories! In the mood for something a bit more grim? Go for Dark and Tragedy! So, when someone goes and filters out non-Romance stories, what do you think he wants to find?
If you aren't writing a romance, don't tag Romance.
- Debesh Unnos, Mercenary Reviewer
2056395
You have written a lot there, and most of it sounds like good points. However I need some time to fully absorb what you have said so I hope you don't mind if I hold off answering while I take my time so I don't miss any imporant details.
Not a problem, 2056420. Just be sure to quote me again; I've left some people hanging for weeks because I didn't actually realize they replied to me ;p
2056427
Also, if you would kindly look at my other story, Shifting Priorities and give me some tips I would greatly appreciate it. I know some of it's problems, but it can't hurt to have a third person glance at it.
...you sure you don't mean a different story, 2056433? ;p
2056436
Facturing Reality. I 'shifted priotities' to this one and this is what hapens.
Will do, then ;p
I'll toss your story onto my Read Later list and hopefully I'll end up actually doing something with it. Maybe.
Depends on how lazy I'm feeling at the time.
(By the way, 2056446, the chance of getting more reviews is directly proportional to how much you compliment my beard.)
2056449
2.bp.blogspot.com/-UQuMvwA5deA/T9CaI9Gs0qI/AAAAAAAAJ90/Syz7CTCzAfs/s1600/Beard-01.jpg
2056395
I'm going to put what you've said into basic points, so I can better understand everything you said.
1: Changelings are overused.
2: Changelings using names/unified hive mind
3: Changelings not being told gender
4: Pacing in chapter 1
5: Twilight holding the idiot ball
6: Feeding off love taboo
7: the first chapters=bad
8: Romance tab
1: When I first thought of this story, I knew changelings were overused I was meerly expecing one or two likes, just a few people to say 'hey your story's ok heres how you can improve:'
After writing The babs seed fanfic on a dare, I realised a little more about pacing. While it was technically released earlier, I had started SP earlier. I am actually planning to go back and edit those chapters, spread out the pacing and make it less like my older fic, FR. I was only expecting a few likes here or there, a few comments to make me want to continue, maybe some critique. Honestly the fact it was featured is shocking enough to me as well. My story isn't THAT good, I'm the writer I can see it's flaws and I want to change them.
2: You're right. I was trying to go for the whole 'no individuals' vibe from changelings but when trying to put some backstory into his nickname I had to give him someone who was higher. In truth I really should have paced it out more, and I am slowly geting better at that. Another thing I will go back and change. Either I will put more in about how some changelings yada yada bullies yada yada nicknames put down, or remove the nickname altogether and make it he named it from the first thing he set his eyes upon.
3: Another thing I will have to go into more detail about. In my perception of the changeling hive, I considered it like the younger ones, the runts, are below the armoured ones. It is rare for the younger ones to grow any armour, and it is unaimously known that the majority is male so there is no point making a deal about their gender until their armored, because that's where it gets more prominent(or something like that. I'll have to iron our more details here too)
4: The pacing in chapter 1 is horrible, I reconised that after writing the Babs seed fanfic, and I tried to improve in later chapters. If I had to guess why I got front paged, I guess it would be after a comment by Ferris I realised I needed to step it up and I went all out, trying to put as much detail into the scene (It was either A choice or To ashes)
Either way, I was tossing up weather to revise it, or finish the fanfic before revising, I believe I wil go with the former after listening to your comment.
5: It's hard for me to really connect with the mane 6 because they're not my characters. I know their personalities, I know how they normally act. But I don't know THEM. Skid, being my creation, I know very well. Not to mention I am not used to juggling more then 3 characters, so I'm having trouble giving each of the 6 the credit they deserve. I will try to edit it more to make Twilight smarter, but I can't promise anything because I don't know Twilight very well, and I have to second guess some things.
6: I actually forgot about the line where Chrysalis told them to feed. Forgetting that, I went back to what I knew which was that changelings were fed by the Queen. I'll have to edit that as well.
7: The first chapters are bad, I reconise it. They probably have plot holes, skipping, plot inconsistencies, all the things I am trying desperately to get better at. However it wasn't until the later chapters people started giving me critique, and now I'm realising what it is that needs improving. I write for 2 main reasons. To have fun, and to get better by what others say.
8: You make a good point, I didn't overly like it up there anyway, I'll go remove it right now.
I might have forgotten something, but I think I've layed out what I'm trying to say to the best of my ability.
2056552
Why wouldn't you use a glass bowl for holding sandwitches? What's it going to do? Smash into the cealing? How many times is that likely to happen?
Well, 2056511, the first thing I'm going to have to do is thank you for not offhandedly dismissing me because I don't have any tact ;p
1) It's less changelings in general (that's another argument for another time) and more changeling redemption; breaking away from the mold and such. It's easily the most popular kind of story starring them, right ahead of twue wuv fics, to the point that I roll my eyes every time I see one.
2) That's a large part of the problem, really; a true hive mind wouldn't have individuals (as far as we know; the sophisticated coordination social insects show really can't be explained all that well so we have to guess), and without individuals you don't have characters (well, debatable, really, but not understandable ones, and without sympathy you don't have reader interest and you don't have a story). You then have the pseudo-hive that you have portrayed here, with intelligent individuals still unified by a sort of collective, but as you can see that really never ends well. Then you have the (relatively) far end of the spectrum, where changelings are like ponies, and Chrysalis fulfills a similar role to Celestia in changeling society. If you want relatable changelings that's probably the best way to go, and it won't be hard to axe the pseudo-uniformity from what I've seen.
3) Yeah, I'm not quite certain what you're aiming for here (what I'm getting is that you have the faceless masses, the drones, who occasionally grow into tougher carapace that marks them as a higher caste, but why the majority of changelings would be denied their gender I have no idea.) Clarity would be the key word here. (As a nitpick, I don't know of any insect societies that have male majorities; it's either female majority [or uniformity; many insects can reproduce pseudo-asexually {Keep in mind that I could be wrong}] or 50-50 gender ratios. Do what you want, though, it's your story ;p)
4) As long as you realize the problem and know how to fix it my job is done. Just remember that detail is good, and more detail is better.
5) I have the same problem with Pinkie and Rarity; it's hard for me to get into their heads. Not much I can do to help you here, besides just trying to apply common sense to everything Twilight does ;p
6) It could be, of course, that each drone needs only a small amount of love or can live off of normal food as well... long story short, it just needs more detail to be believable. This runs into point four; detail is good, more detail is better, and it takes a lot of detail to break this rule.
7) Like I said; you realize there's a problem, you know how to handle it, my work is done.
8) My points tend to be good ones. You can't kill people with a dull one, can you?
2056576
1: Hang on a second, who ever said this would be a redemtion story? oh I see, you judged the book by the first chapter (I'm only jossling, at first it WAS going to be that, but the story has evolved)
2: I think the latter sounds best.
3: I knda thought of it like, if the female dies the male can become the female, like Clown fish can (I think)
5: Ok I'll try
8: XD true
Oh, okay! I see what you mean, 2056610; they're sequential hermaphrodites. Clownfish (along with many other tropical fish) have this trait.
2056626
Ya that, it was the only reason I could think of why there was only one female and she was the 'queen' per se
I wonder if slide will have a comeback or not. I kinda feel like the character skidd is what made and started the story. But now that he's gone I'm not sure if I can continue reading. Basically I wasn't expecting this to become a twilight story
2056641
Who ever said he was gone?
And it's Skid
'Queen' could simply be a social title, 2056636. Chrysalis never directly refers to the changelings as her children; it could easily be a title just the same as Princess. Ants get along fine with only one fertile female per hive, though.
2056647
Either of those options are fine, but I'll probably go with the fish one just because that's the idea I've already got for the story and If I change it now it'll require some second thinking, yada yada you get the idea.
2055809 i might be wrong but how happy twilight was and how happy she acted after she asked to talk to luna alone i may be wrong.
or mabye the changling queen is controling her through the hive mind also why has no one told the princesses that twilight has to do whatever the changling queen says.....
oh before i forget another reason i think that skids actually still in control is because of how unstressed twilight is.
usually by know shed be freaking out or worrying about how she almost killed her friends and worrying over every little thing like that.
i may be over thinking things we will find out as soon as we figure out what twilights ashes are up to.
2057143
Valid points, but you forget I have trouble connecting with 'twilightness' I'm not good at portraying Twilight.
what did this story drop its romance tag?