Sequel to Tales of a Changeling Commander
Morpheus Bloom has it all! A nice office (crummy cave), a wonderful position (that really doesn't give him any power) and a comfortable job (sitting out in the cold guarding a cave entrance). However, with the newfound peace between ponies and changelings comes its challenges. Therfore, Queen Chrysalis sends Morpheus to Appleloosa to establish changeling relations. But what our misguided hero doesn't know is that he's about to set out on another adventure filled with new friends, foes, food, and jail cells.
(Currently on hiatus but will be brought back soon after I've finished my other changeling stories that take place before this)
Chapters (4)
I'm sorry, but for me, this story is just offering more of the same victiminized, noble Changelings and brutish, racist ponies we've seen again and again and again in MLP fanfiction that discuss this issue. If this was say, a relatively knew concept, I'd credit it for originality, but it's been done and moreover, done to death.
I mean, hey, I have nothing against you, rest assured, but I'm just so tired of how any pony in these kind of stories who doesn't like Changelings or has problems with Changeling immigration, which is pretty much 99% percent of ponies here and unfortunately sentiments that are justified, is portrayed as a "snob" and a "hypocrite" whilst the Changelings are portrayed as the noble, struggling have-not minority, when the situation is noway near as simplistic or black and white as that.
There's even the typical pony character archetypes you always see in these stories; for example, there's the pompous, belligerent loudmouth racist who suddenly and with no provocation decides to pick on one or two Changelings nearest to him in a building and tries to get everypony else, who are reduced to opinionless sheeple to side with him. Sure, it makes for a truly nasty character, I acknowledge that, but we've seen this guy before and this one offers nothing new to the table. He's just a one-note racist with no real character to him and whose sole existence here is just to antagonize the heroes and anviliciously hammer in the issue of racism.
It's always the ponies who are at fault in these stories, never the Changelings. Why? Should ponies be expected to be absolutely content with a wave of immigration into their country from a parasitic species that feeds on love who years ago were their number one geopolitical foes, no questions asked? There are plenty of genuine, understandable arguments to be made against Changeling Immigration, and it doesn't automatically make ponies "hypocrites" because of it, yet it's comes across to me that this story, like many others, isn't willing to look at it from the ponies perspective and recognize there's two sides to every argument and instead just straight-up tars a lot of them, at least of anypony who disagrees with Changeling immigration, as the Equestrian version of Little Englanders, the Border Patrollers in Arizona or as pretty much described by Morpheus, a caricature of a snobbish, privileged white elite.
Again, mate, got nothing against you, but it's this particular concept of pony-changeling racism has been done to death in more stories than I can count.
2707272
I appreciate the comment and am sorry that you didn't appreciate the story. However, that isn't really the case at all. If you notice, Morpheus is just as bad as the ponies. He says it himself. He hasn't made many friends with them, he is pretty much very fine with his own personal opinion of ponies. He even knowingly tried to deceive several ponies just to get into a bookclub. Now I know it seems I'm picking on the ponies, but I will try and am trying now to make it a double-sided argument. While Spatchcock isn't perhaps the most acceptable character to state logical reasoning, he's right to say that ponies shouldn't just forget the past, especially after all that's happened. Also, while it may not seem like it, most of this is taken directly from Morpheus' perspective, and his opinion on the matter. In fact, he is probably absolutely wrong about his opinions, and that's the point: he's just as bad as Spatchcock. He's not willing to side with ponies so easily, and if you had read the prequel to this, you'd know why. The only few ponies he actually likes are very few in number and even then, you see his interactions with them to be well, rather hateful. He is so driven by his own personal hate for ponies that yes, the story does make it seem like they're the bad guys, but then again this is just the first chapter and I've already tried to point out to you some obvious moments where Morpheus himself is snobbish. Except he keeps the opinion more in his mind and actions then saying it out loud. Now if you just found another story that seemed to victimize changelings then I'm sorry you stumbled upon this, and I hope you understand why I'm trying to explain what I was doing in this chapter because in all honesty, it seems you are trying to judge this story just by the first chapter without reading the prequel. There is a double-side to every argument, and now I'm going to explain to you something you may have missed. Morpheus talks about how the villains in Daring Do are too predictable and that we need to understand them better. Well, he wasn't talking about changelings when he mentioned it. He was talking about a story, and in fact an opinion that he believes in understanding the bad guys. And yet, he is a hypocrite because through that very speech he is not willing to accept the ponies like his friend had told him to by taking the first step. There are many ponies who are fine with changelings, and he doesn't see it. He only sees the one or two extremists because he himself is an extremist. This simple line in Morpheus' speech at the book club was just to show that perhaps he is misunderstanding the "villain" which in his mind is the ponies. I appreciate your criticism none the less and hope that you do find a story out there that meets your expectation, but I just wanted to let you know that I don't think of my changeling character as any more noble then any other character. In fact, he is my version of a changeling racist, one who is unwilling to accept everypony in his society. You see it in several passages. His opinions, his willingness to deceive a book club so easily, his own disgust at seeing pony and changeling embrace each other. He even tried to tackle a shop keeper for simply being insulted. He isn't exactly any bit as more noble as Spatchcock. He is just as worse but I wrote it in a way through his perspective to make it seem otherwise. He is driven by an instinct not to trust survivors and believes in once a changeling always a changeling, a reference to his inner instinct of always remaining a changeling.
2707889 Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. I apologize if I came across as rather belligerent in my original comment.
However, I must point out that my main complaint wasn't really how I perceived Morpheus. Morpheus himself is pretty okay as a character, I like the idea of him being just as big a racist as the ones he confronts and I didn't refer to him in particular being noble nor at all perfect (like you said, he's far from it), but rather, I meant to refer to the general set up of the ponies and changelings' positions. They just came across to me as being the Changelings being the victims of Pony oppression, THAT is really the concept I've seen so many times before, though I admit my language of "noble" was a bit of hyperbole. I did sort of know it was Morpheus perspective, but then, so were a lot of stories on the concept, it's just in those they often turned out to be the facts. I will admit, though, I did rather prejudge the story as being that the main character’s anti-pony perspective was indeed going to be the ‘correct’ version and I will admit, I don’t believe I have read the prequel.
I suppose there has been quite some presumptuousness of my part, it’s just that I’ve seen SO many fanfictions in which ponykind IS demonized and Changelingkind woobified and victimized, regardless if the main character from the latter is nice or an asshole. Unfortunately, that’s how the direction of this story came across to me because I homed in the part that made me think as such without looking at the big picture or the prequel for that matter, so in that regards, I think I owe you an apology.
On the other hand, however, I’m still not sure if this story will probably be one I’ll enjoy. When it comes to stories about discrimination, I’m often put off because of the way a lot of authors tend to go so over-the-top and hamfisted when they try to present it (such as there’s always got to be foaming at the mouth, red eyed extremists antagonist). Now I don’t know what you intend to do with the subject in the rest of the story, so my opinion at the moment is still ‘meh’, but who knows, maybe I’m just being a stubborn goat and I’ll be swayed in the future.
P.s. I’m still going to stand by though that the way Spatchcock and his ravings were handled really came across as quite hamfisted and over-the-top. He still just feels like a one-note character who is only meant to antagonize the protagonists and nothing more, though I don’t suppose we are meant to see him as much else.
2708104
Thank you for taking the time to give some constructive criticism, and sorry if I sounded too defensive. However, I do agree that there is always room to improve the situation and in fact, I thank you for giving me some insight on how I can enhance the characters. By no means am I at all angered by your comment. Rather, I appreciate you taking the time to actually state what you've seen and how you felt. Because if you didn't, (and you said it in a mature manner as well, which I give you thumbs up for) I wouldn't be able to hone on my craft. There are more chapters to come, and we'll start to see it transition into a two-sided argument, but while the discrimination is going to be a big theme, this is also meant to be funny and random, and as such the later chapters will be a little less serious. The prequel is just as nonsensical and weird as the first one. But if it isn't your cup of tea, don't drink it .
P.S. And Spatchcock is still coming back, he hasn't left the story entirely and we've only seen him when he's super angry.
First rule of being a changeling - don't touch Smartypants.
Second rule of being a changeling - DON'T. TOUCH. SMARTYPANTS.
I think everyone learned a valuable lesson in this chapter!
Huzzah! There shall be hats coming soon! Now get writing that next chapter, the changelings-in-hats community is depending upon you!
The ID card was a nice touch... although it's certainly not the most flattering photo.
You might want to cut down on the parentheses. Pointing out that you're trying to be humorous doesn't help. At all.
Also, "Scootaloo is a chicken"-jokes haven't been funny since 25/2/2011.
static.dramastyle.com/images/3/10/6652/Monty-Python-and-the-Holy-Grail__3.jpg
Dear sir! You insult my intelligence by implying I might not spot it!
Nicely done.
>never finishes any of them
In all seriousness, this series of yours was quite nice.
But considering it hasn't been touched for an entire year now, it may be best to just let sleeping dogs lie.
oh, that made me think of a very silly story called "Rainbow splash" where Rainbow Dash orders some water balloons and tries to use them. it doesn't go well...