Changing Changlings: How would you write them?

[Stardust Live 43]

I really liked the changings when they first appeared, but I was disappointed by the other appearances. I didn't like the showing in the comics either, apart from the panel where Chrysalis is guarding the rest of the drones/soldiers/hive while they are cocooned (or seem to be ...).

I think the show really missed a good point with them, and I am so so unhappy with the change in Thorax and how Chrysalis went from a Queen that would do anything to feed her people, to an abusive dictator.

So what would I do different, or what would I liked to have seen? Well ...

• The Royal Wedding was fine, really liked Chrysalis saying she was doing it to feed her people. I liked that her goals were more than just 'power' or 'because I'm evil'. Feeding your hive is a pretty relatable goal
• With Thorax, I would change the source of his issue. Not have him be 'born good', I would make it that he simply cannot feed like other changlings, and hides it or cannot relate to the rest of the hive. Chrysalis doesn't know what to do, as she's never encountered the problem before after a changling matures up
• Changlings can feed on other emotions, but love is strongest. Thorax went through a metamorphasis after being overwhelmed with love and feeling it instead of feeding on it. Wouldn't it be cool if it was akin to the mayfly situation; sure, you can mature up, BUT it comes at the cost of your lifespan. The reason they feed on it is to prevent this change, and only Chrysalis is able to feed her subjects and nourish them with love as larvae/grubs without becoming overwhelmed (as well as being the only fertile Changling). This would show that she is more than just 'evil', give her a reason to be the shape and size she is and a reason she is Queen, and make her look less like an idiot who doesn't know what's going on in her hive
• This wouldn't be included in the show and goes into headcanon territory. The fandom likes to make jokes about Chrysalis having a foal sired by Shining Armour when he was being mind-controlled or duped by her disguise. Yeeeah that's technically the big R, but what if we take the basic idea without the deception. Make it so Changing Queens mate with the three main pony subspecies in a cycle (Earth, Pegasus, Unicorn) in order to keep fresh blood in the hive and maintain the hive's strongest points. Flight from pegasi, as all changlings can fly, magic from Unicorns as all Changlings can shapeshift, and Earth for health, fertility and strength.
• When the 'time is right' Chrysalis will have a Queen grub, similar to insects, to take over once she reaches towards the end of her life to continue the cycle. You could have Chrysalis the first, or be the latest in a long line of Queens.

Ideas? Anything that should be changed?

[SharpWit 2,472]

When Cadence gave us the whole exposition of what a changeling was bursting into her own wedding and the shock from the guests, I took it as this not being the first time they had invaded, that there was a history we could explore. From season 2 we also saw Granny Smith put on an American style WW2 helmet. The first official map of equestria was also released around this time and was heavily based off of North America, so all of my head cannons reflect a history reminiscent of our own, but as such would go into darker elements not suitable for a children's program.

I really wasn't a fan of the changelings having a different appearance for "good and evil" but it has the potential to be useful in other ways. I like to imagine the Changeling Hive as having been the MLP equivalent of the Japanese Empire. Just as was once thought that Japanese Americans and immigrants could be spies, those living in Equestria or actually caught would be rounded up and placed into internment camps. There they'd be starved of love through harsh treatment, but instead of starving to death in the sense of needing food, I'd have love act as the source for their use of magic and their ability to change forms. Continued use of this ability without replenished love would slowly eat away at the body, forming the holes we've seen and possibly taking away their colors, only leaving a blackened husk. Those on the Hive Homeland would slowly suffer the same fate as they would've used their power to form this shining jewel of a civilization that couldn't be maintained as it was. They'd expand, invading neighboring lands and becoming stronger as they went, until they reached a tipping point where Equestria and the rest of the world had had enough. Devastating destruction would follow, chasing them back to their core holdings. Starting a war to obtain necessary resources is one thing, but stealing love was personal. This Equestria was one of isolation. It did not tolerate other species vying for power, nor hardly permitting others to live amongst themselves. The "harmony" had long been broken, and there'd be no sympathy, no forgiveness, no mercy. Only the subjugation of a bug infestation. The changelings would never surrender, so Equestria through terrible means would turn their shining jewel into a pile of burnt rubble. Those in the camps would be shipped over, and abandoned on those charred shores with the rest. They'd survive, but were considered as good as dead. Once again, ignored and excluded for decades, fueled by hatred and starvation, ready to strike again.

Equestria would come to recognize the power it wielded, and knew it to be something awful. They were alone in being a place where one could be safe and happy. Unlike at the end of WW2 where the United States would assist in rebuilding and changing the ways of it's defeated enemies, Equestria would dissolve it's military might and focus on maintaining its utopian existence, while the rest of the world was left to pick up the pieces that remained. This is why Equestria had such little contact or friendly relations outside of its own borders for most of the shows run time.

[Goat-kun 2,498]

By mixing maple syrup with medical ethanol! Yeah, I'd just scrap the entirety of FIM lore. The whole kit and caboodle. Snap! There goes the paragraph!

 

I'd make changelings be more fairy-like, more bug-like, less stupidly hostile, a bit more towards chaotic neutral, and definitely more mysterious. They'd probably have a nature theme. Dangerous yet alluring like a toxic flower. Think orchid mantis/forest nymph. Just one of many reasons why one does not simply walk into Everfree.

 

As far as Chrysalis is concerned she is multiple characters trying to be one and achieving only in becoming an optional early game side mission boss battle that involves a lot of screaming and Whiplash-grade phrases. She needs to be less of a Princess Bitch (Shield Hero) and more of an Ara-ara Onee-san type. If you can't achieve that just turn her into Storm King's little sister cause that's what she is on the inside.

[Latecomer 438]

one intersting possibility I've seen is having different variants who feed on different emotions and perhaps have differentlu-coloured magic or carapaces.

And if we're talking related plots rather than jusv the changlings themselves, a full-on panic and witch hunts after the wedding might be intersting. 

[TotallyNotNyx 15,563]

I totally agree that the changelings became a disappointment after they became “good”. I really loved their old designs but the new designs were just way too colourful for my liking. 
 

They went from a race of fearsome beings to literal idiots. I know that they changed from evil to good, but why couldn’t they have kept some of their former traits like courage, confidence and so on. 
 

Finally, Chrysallis went from being a mother trying to feed her children through evil means to a literal revenge-driven maniac. I hate that change . I really feel like they could have made her situation way more relatable, so that viewers might actually feel sympathetic to her, and might even start supporting her. 

[Latecomer 438]

1 hour ago, Princess of Hearts ❤️❤️ said:

They went from a race of fearsome beings to literal idiots. I know that they changed from evil to good, but why couldn’t they have kept some of their former traits like courage, confidence and so on. 
 

Finally, Chrysallis went from being a mother trying to feed her children through evil means to a literal revenge-driven maniac. I hate that change . I really feel like they could have made her situation way more relatable, so that viewers might actually feel sympathetic to her, and might even start supporting her. 

I don'v recall the unreformed changelings having ani real traiats besides dark and scary. And perhaps they didn't want viewers to support Chrysalis? Nothing about her original appearance was perticularlu simpathetic - she was an utter bitch and as close to a rapist as one can get on a kids show.