History Fanfic / TheChangelingOfTheGuard

* CallBack: In chapter 41, there is mention of a Daring Do book featuring Ahuizotl and a figure on the cover that looks suspiciously like Idol.

** He gets a little less clueless when Topaz bluntly informs him that Mothchaser has been sexually attracted and signalling her interest in him for some time. Though even then he tries to defend that Mothchaser isn't interested in that sort of thing... which just makes Topaz fall over laughing again.

->''"I have always been… different. Special. Aberrant. I possess less of the ability to control my emotions. Curiosity compels me, and not merely towards outside of the hive. Amongst our kind, lack of fine emotional control is embarrassing, but tolerated in some respects. Hunters are allowed more leeway with anger, as it bolsters offensive capability. Nursemaids to the hatchlings are encouraged to be affectionate, to ensure that the young are well fed. Scouts are driven by curiosity, the urge to see more. Gatherers… Well. Much is presumed about the gatherers. But rarely do they spend much time within the hive. My curiosity, however, was for how things work. This may seem like no crime. However, the hive runs like the gears of a clock. Our tasks are completed in the manner they were explained, and no more. One does not simply alter the schedule. And the hive has little tolerance for unimportant questions. Curiosity does not warrant concern from a drone, especially one tasked to expansion of the nest, as I was..."''

-->'''Idol Hooves''': “But… but who chose her to lead them?”
-->'''Rough Shod''': “Nopony did. Colt, they just followed her. That’s how these things start. Nopony points at somepony and just says ‘there’s your leader’, what kind of bucking sense would that make? She knew what she was doing and where she was going, they bucking didn’t. If they hadn’t followed her, there wouldn’t be a caravan. She’d still be pulling her own cart and these folks would be trudging along and waiting for a barge.

--> '''Topaz:''' "...And did she say ‘crickets’ as an expletive? That’s adorable, you never did that.”

** [[spoiler: “Not supposed to be moving around while at ease, you know. But you can call me [[Characters/FriendshipIsMagicManeFamilyMembers Shining]].”]]
** [[spoiler: “I am truly, truly sorry, your Highness. But… I think maybe some part of me ''has'' died.”]]

* WhamLine: [[spoiler: “Not supposed to be moving around while at ease, you know. But you can call me [[Characters/FriendshipIsMagicManeFamilyMembers Shining]].”]]

** [[spoiler:In chapter 62, Chrysalis does...''something'' to Idol's mind, seemingly wiping his memory not only of her attack on Cadence, but on his basic awareness of being a changeling. It also seems to undo whatever it was that prevented him from having sex, as we learn in chapter 63 -- which is also when Idol's memory returns.]]

** Invoked; Cadence's ability to view love doesn't work with ponies she herself is close to. She considers it a double-edged sword; whilst it serves as ParanoiaFuel for her about how much the ponies she loves actually love her back, it also prevents her from being able to abuse her powers to make others love her. In Chapter 55, Idol notes that he seems to be similarly ignorant to Mothchaser's attraction to him -- to the extent that he can't even taste the emotions he's involuntarily feeding on when ''she's passionately kissing him''. He has no idea why he suffers from this "colorblindness", as it were, given he's used to relying on his emotional perception powers to interact with others.

** [[spoiler:In chapter 62, Chrysalis does...''something'' to Idol's mind, seemingly wiping his memory not only of her attack on Cadence, but on his basic awareness of being a changeling.]]

** Zigzagged with Idol's relationship with Topaz. He slowly becomes slightly aware that he feels ''something'' different for her, but he hasn't worked out what it is that he's feeling.

** [[spoiler:When Idol Hooves defends Cadence from her and declares it's because he took an oath to guard the Princesses of Equestria, Chrysalis gives him a new Order--that he is released from all previous orders. Except that she didn't think the implications of that one through, because Idol notes to himself that he can now "comprehend willful disobedience without shame". As such, he declares that he is ''choosing'' to continue obeying his oaths as an Equestrian Guard, defying his former Queen.]]

** After completing his guard's training, whilst alone with Shining Armor and Cadance, the two ponies wonder if Idol Hooves mightn't be some kind of time-displaced refugee from the Crystal Empire. The thought nearly knocks Idol off of his hooves as he triggers an Order from Queen Chrysalis demanding he '''stay away from the frozen north'''. Whilst that gun hasn't fired yet, it's a pretty obvious hint that the origins of the changelings may lie with the Crystal Empire.

* DecliningPromotion: Idol has, during his 10 years as a guard, repeatedly been offered and turned down promotion to the point that Cadance and Topaz eventually make a bet over it. It's implied that his natural instincts as a worker drone causes him to shy away from roles that involve having authority, seeing himself as unworthy of the position. It gets to the point where, in chapter 59, Princess Luna promising to never promote him until he feels he deserves it is a huge favor. Ironically, in the same chapter, he shows no problems with ordering around fellow changelings.
* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: Idol Hooves's reaction to his first encounter with Cadance. Ironically, he didn't have this same sort of reaction to meeting ''Celestia'', though for justifiable reason; because Cadance [[LoveGoddess has a unique affinity for love magic]], her presence is vastly magnified in Idol's senses, making him read her as being far more powerful than Celestia. Consequently, he's literally awestruck the moment he meets her, and can hardly comprehend how Shining Armor is not overcome by the same mind-scrambling urge to obey her.

--> When Princess Cadance first stood before me and was introduced, I knew the truth of how insignificant I truly am. This was no mere sunny warmth from Celestia, it was a molten inferno of raw, unimaginable might. Power poured forth from her like a tsunami, and it was all I could do to weather the storm that was she. My body hurt from the pressure around it, and none of the others so much as noticed. When I was told she would be performing this surprise inspection to allow her to choose two ponies to have the privilege of escorting her around Canterlot for the day, I knew terror. I would be found wanting, must be found wanting, and had never had any right to stand in her presence. I was no warrior drone, no defender of the realm by blood, and-
* DorkKnight: In a MythologyGag to the comics, it's revealed that Shining Armor still plays the setting's ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' {{expy}}. Amusingly, [[NotSoAboveItAll Cadance herself]] also plays, to the point that part of their flirtations in chapter involve quipping about their respective characters. Shining plays ThePaladin, while Cadance plays a ranger.

* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Bold and Wispy have an on-again, off-again relationship where they are both clearly in love with each other, but worry the other doesn't consider the relationship as "serious".

* LamePunReaction: When Idol says that had Bold been 'egging on' a griffoness, it would have been a hate crime, the whole squad groans, and Wispy berates Sharp Tack for giving him a straight line.

** Invoked; Cadance's ability to view love doesn't work with ponies she herself is close to. She considers it a double-edged sword; whilst it serves as ParanoiaFuel for her about how much the ponies she loves actually love her back, it also prevents her from being able to abuse her powers to make others love her. In Chapter 55, Idol notes that he seems to be similarly ignorant to Mothchaser's attraction to him -- to the extent that he can't even taste the emotions he's involuntarily feeding on when ''she's passionately kissing him''. He has no idea why he suffers from this "colorblindness", as it were, given he's used to relying on his emotional perception powers to interact with others.
* OhMyGods: Idol Hooves has a tendency to invoke Order as a higher-power when making oaths or cursing. Shining Armor lampshades it at one point in chapter 38, and notes that it's quite unusual; ponies swear by Harmony or Celestia ([[ContinuityNod which they have been doing throughout the fic]]), griffons by deity, minotaurs by land, and dragons by the dragonlord.

* RealFakeWedding: Princess Cadance "jokingly" asks Bigflanks and Wispy to "help practice officiating a wedding" while on vacation in Prance. Idol reveals she set everything up for it to be a legal marriage, including having Shining act as an official witness. [[spoiler:Subverted when it actually ''wasn't'', but Idol manipulated everybody so Bigflanks and Wispy would '''finally''' make things official between them.]]

* ShipperOnDeck: Cadance, rather fittingly for the Alicorn of love, becomes downright ''predatory'' when Idol lets slip that he's planning on buying Topaz a gift from Manehattan before returning to Canterlot.

* WhamEpisode: Chapter 61, "Royalty". It opens with some cute scenes of Idol being a dad to Cersus the Nymph, and of him helping Cadance and Shining Armor get over some pre-wedding jitters. Then... it shifts into maximum overdrive, with a series of shocking moments:
** [[spoiler:When Idol spots a changeling in the shape of Mothchaser, Cadance interrupts him chewing out the fake...which promptly ''attacks Cadance'', forcing him to both subdue it and then to reveal the existence of changelings to Cadance.]]
** [[spoiler:Trying to evade more hostile changelings, Idol and Cadance stumble right into a room where Chrysalis is waiting for them with a dozen infiltrator drones. That's right, Chapter 61 is the preclude to this universe's adaptation of the Canterlot Wedding arc.]]
** [[spoiler:When Idol Hooves defends Cadance from her and declares it's because he took an oath to guard the Princesses of Equestria, Chrysalis gives him a new Order--that he is released from all previous orders. Except that she didn't think the implications of that one through, because Idol notes to himself that he can now "comprehend willful disobedience without shame". As such, he declares that he is ''choosing'' to continue obeying his oaths as an Equestrian Guard, defying his former Queen.]]
** [[spoiler:When the drones have Idol Hooves defeated, Cadance does...something... that not only blasts the disguises off of all of the drones, including Idol himself, but also transforms Chrysalis into a ''unicorn''! Initially, Chrysalis nearly overwhelms Idol's senses with a wave of pure relief... and then the effect wears off and she changes back into the Changeling Queen, before turning on Cadance in an absolute fury.]]

* GargleBlaster: Princess Luna makes Moonshine (as in, [[LiteralMetaphor distilling ''moonlight'' into liquid form]] and invites Idol to try some. The next thing Idol knows, he's set up a giant pottery wheel in Luna's room and is making tiny clay statues.

* {{Adorkable}}: [[spoiler:Topaz, when it comes to insects. See {{Nerdgasm}} below.]]
* AlienCatnip / ICantBelieveItsNotHeroin: Changelings have ''interesting'' reactions to honey or anything with a lot of sugar in it. They ''are'' insects, after all...

* AccidentalHarem: Through sheer cluelessness, Idol Hooves unwittingly manages to attract the romantic attentions of Topaz (his pegasus landlady), Mothchaser (a thestral in the Night Guard), and even ''Maud Pie''. At the least, Pinkie Pie believes Maud's interest in Idol goes beyond "pen pals", and she ''did'' apply pumice perfume to her latest letter to him...

* BeePeople: Changeling society and hive structure is expanded upon in great detail, though very little of the story actually takes place in "The Hive" itself. As it turns out, changelings subvert things in some very key ways; they consist of equal male and female members, who reproduce individually (and Idol is quite dumbfounded by the thought that Queen Chrysalis would be the sole birthing member of the hive) but raise their offspring collectively. Whilst they do have an instinctive ability to commune with each other, it's empathic in nature, not telepathic; unlike a true HiveMind, changelings have individual personalities and can't communicate complicated information to each other through their psychic abilities - though Queen Chrysalis is able to create "Orders" that function as imprinted psychic compulsions. It's subtly muddied in that we have no idea how much of the Hive's social structure is natural, and how much is Queen Chrysalis' tyranny.

** When establishing his default form with Topaz in chapter 10, he mentions taking on a unicorn identity he named "Silver Spell". An aghast Topaz explains that name belongs to an infamous PoliticallyIncorrectVillain, a unicorn tribalist bigot whose entire character revolves around giving her nephew hell for being involved with a pegasus. Due to the connotations, there hasn't been a real unicorn named that in the last two or three generations. She mentions that pegasus and earth pony names with similar negative connotations are "Cloud Brain" and "Mud Hoof".

* DecliningPromotion: Idol has, during his 10 years as a guard, repeatedly been offered and turned down promotion to the point that Cadance and Topaz eventually make a bet over it. It's implied that his natural instincts as a worker drone causes him to shy away from roles that involve having authority, seeing himself as unworthy of the position.

* EmotionEater: This applies to all of the changelings, but Idol explains that emotions of all kinds, not just love, can serve as nourishment for changelings. Different emotions can have different effects on the one who's feeding. [[spoiler:And it can be taken too far... see EmptyShell below.]]

* HiveCasteSystem: It's the story of a changeling being exiled from such a system, and what happens afterward.

* InterspeciesRomance: There are subtle hints that Topaz is sexually/romantically attracted to Idol, even though she knows he's a changeling. Come chapter 29, this turns into a case of EveryoneCanSeeIt, where her crush is so obvious that one of their friends, Wispy, tries to add a helping hoof by setting Topaz up to accidentally kiss Idol after pushing her into him.

** Mothchaser, a female thestral in the Night Guard who also believes Idol is just a unicorn, counts as well. Reaches a crescendo in chapter 50 in which she finally gets Idol to "invite her to bed" -- not knowing that Idol didn't understand what she was talking about until he goes and speaks to Topaz.

* RefugeInAudacity: Invoked; Topaz explains to Idol that, since most ponies are exotically colored and characterful, bold color schemes and the like just fade into the background. By comparison, deliberately bland ponies like his earlier disguises stand out more ''because'' they're so unremarkable. So, he settles into a disguise that is just a species swap of his normal form, and so nopony pays him any attention, even though he sticks out to other changelings like he's wearing a flashing neon sign.

* RogueDrone: Idol Hooves himself; exiled for unwittingly angering Queen Chrysalis by being too independent, the story covers how he becomes so enamored with Equestria that he becomes thoroughly nativized.

%%* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: [[ItMakesSenseInContext Trains]]

* WorthlessYellowRocks: While Idol was exploring a temple, he ends up wandering into a treasure vault. He's more interested in the architecture of the room and regards the piles of gold as being too soft, and the gemstones to be too small, to use as building material and is confused why anyone would bother stockpiling it. Justified in that changelings don't have an economy or, really, any sort of trading system.

** [[WordOfGod The author]] has expressed amusement at some of the effects caused by having a computer read the story.

* [[EveryoneCanSeeIt Everypony Can See It]]: Bold and Wispy have an on-again, off-again relationship where they are both clearly in love with each other, but worry the other doesn't consider the relationship as "serious".

* PaperThinDisguise: Chapter 1 of "Changeling Perspectives", "The Nurse", reveals that Idol Hooves' personalized pony form maintains the ''exact same color scheme'' as his normal changeling form. The only differences are, of course, the physical traits - presence or absence of holes, horn shape, wings and so forth.
** [[JustifiedTrope Its justified]] in that most ponies believe Changelings are a myth and wouldn't spot the comparison, and it means that a quick glance at Idol undisguised can be excused as their eyes playing tricks on them

* [[WanderingTheEarth Wandering Equestria]]: Though Idol stays for quite some time in a Saddle Arabian caravan, he eventually leaves to wander on his own. Subverted when he ultimately settles down in Canterlot.

* [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Why Did It Have To Be]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext Trains]]

* UnusualEuphemism: The chapter ''Out of Her Shell'' gives us "Crickets".

* UnusualEuphamism: The chapter '' Out of Her Shell'' gives us "Crickets".

** Invoked; Cadance's ability to view love doesn't work with ponies she herself is close to. She considers it a double-edged sword; whilst it serves as ParanoiaFuel for her about how much the ponies she loves actually love her back, it also prevents her from being able to abuse her powers to make others love her.

* EntertaininglyWrong: Mothchaser mentions in private there's a running joke/theory that Idol isn't a pony, but rather a golem construct.

* RealFakeWedding: Princess Cadance "jokingly" asks Bigflanks and Wispy to "help practice officiating a wedding" while on vacation in Prance. Idol reveals she set everything up for it to be a legal marriage, including having Shining act as an official witness.

* NoSenseOfHumor: Idol completely misses most of [[PungeonMaster Wasta's]] humor at first, though he comes to find it fascinating... [[spoiler:to the point that in a later chapter, he horrifies Topaz with an ill-timed joke about changeling drones typically ''eating'' other drones that have been injured. [[CaptainObvious Topaz is not amused.]]]]

* BeePeople: Changeling society and hive structure is expanded upon in great detail, though very little of the story actually takes place in "The Hive" itself. As it turns out, changelings subvert things in some very key ways; they consist of equal male and female members, who reproduce individually (and Idol is quite dumbfounded by the thought that Queen Chrysalis would be the sole birthing member of the hive) but raise their offspring collectively. Whilst they do have an instinctive ability to commune with each other, it's empathic in nature, not telepathic; unlike a true HiveMind, changelings have individual personalities and can't communicate complicated elements to each other through their psychic abilities - though Queen Chrysalis is able to create "Orders" that function as imprinted psychic compulsions. It's subtly muddied in that we have no idea how much of the Hive's social structure is natural, and how much is Queen Chrysalis' tyranny.

* CluelessChickMagnet: Idol Hooves' ignorance about pony courtship customs and his instinctive niceness combines into a potent ability to attract pony mares, without him even realizing it. He and Topaz are recurrently mistaken for a couple, he charms Topaz's mother on their first meeting without intending it, he is implied to have unwittingly Mothchaser (who has been making strongly implied propositions to him that he has just never attracted), and even Pinkie Pie has come to believe that Idol has actually caught her sister Maude's eye. After all, Maude doesn't apply her pumice perfume to ''every'' letter that she sends, just the ones to Idol. And all the while, Idol has only a minimal realization of it, although he is shown to have an unrealized attraction to Topaz and, despite his confusion, he start instinctively thinking about offspring when Pinkie declares he and Maud would have cute foals together.

** His most recurring example of this is that he's taken to placing a sock on the door when a fellow changeling exile shows up seeking his help. Idol knows that this will keep any ponies from intruding, allowing him the privacy he seeks, but he has no idea that they do this because such a symbol signals that he's having sex. This has given him a reputation as a hugely successful ladykiller.