1000 followers on the dot... Now that is satisfying.

And with that said, I'm going to go reread the first story I've read on fimfiction, The Chrysalis.

consider yourself saved by the bell and my job
expect my antithesis soon friend

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Oh, I certainly get that. I appreciate the fact that the whole premise is well thought out. And I understand why Nictis doesn't just go "Fuck this" and end up just keeping the name Meadow Song for themselves - technically, it is their name, it's as much a lie as all the people I know who call me Moth instead of the name that's on legal documents - But the doubt, guilt of what happened, and that sense of what is, from a logical standpoint in their own mind, the truth puts a stop to that.

Just, god damn, It gave me feels the whole way through, and then the last bit where Meadow was back, she was there for that moment in A New Way, it just hit really hard, haha. You've got skills, and I hope to catch any of your future projects, whatever they may be.

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Thank you for the comments!

While Without a Hive wasn't specifically trans, I did intentionally play around with sex and gender in ways that are very similar to that. It was kind of another one of those alien-mentality things, with the different views from his changeling upbringing. Plus, I kinda like playing around with that sort of thing.

And I very much agree with your assessment of A New Way. I feel the same about how it compares.

Though I will say: there's still a lot of Meadow there. It's really just his lingering doubt and guilt that keeps him from being Meadow Song in most ways (Except body), and he's already showing some improvement there.

Spoilers for these five year old stories past this point.

You know, It's been a very long time, but I came back to re-read your stories. I remembered them being good.

Without a Hive is, for so many reasons, almost perfect. You have a very good showing of a character who is out of their depth, raised in a strikingly different fashion, and slowly comes to realize the truth around them, with a stunning character arc.

It's also, and I'm fairly certain you didn't intend it to go this way, incredibly, strikingly Trans. Meadow Song is by far one of the better characters I've seen written on this site, and the fact that Nictis became her, just more and more concretely Meadow, losing the changeling habits and thoughts and investing in herself and Spark as the story went on, the mask turning into the pony, was just so well written. The way that the narration was framed, it comes across as her thinking of herself as Meadow. It really resonated with me.

Re-reading it, getting to the end of it and then going on into A New Way... Was bitter-sweet because of that. I don't fault you, at all. The goal of the story, the acceptance of self, the goal of acceptance from others without hiding, the focus on truth and the sociological and inter-relational questions - It all resolved fairly well.

A New Way suffered a bit from having too many moving parts, perhaps; more focus on Chrysalis and spy-stories, The relationship threads not getting quite as much individual attention as they might have needed. The deep character study that made Without a Hive so stunning wasn't as prominent. It's by no means bad; It's still a wonderful cap to the series. I found myself reading for hours at a time - It's well done, and the fact that here, five years later, I still got captured in the story is a testament to that.

I still just wish that it had been Meadow who came through on the other side, ya know?