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MagicMan001

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Hey there,


Are you looking for a place to discuss your favourite tv shows, movies, comics, games, etc with likeminded people?


Are you a fanfiction/creative writer who’d like a place to bounce off ideas, hone your world building skills and even share some of your work for feedback?


Do you like round robins to really get those creative writing juices flowing?


Then come to The Water Cooler: https://discord.gg/jJVmgQmJk7

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I'll just come out and say it: I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. No foolin'. Yeah, the plot didn't exactly reinvent the wheel and I imagine the animation will be an acquired taste, but I found myself truly impressed by the writing, the endearing characters and even the songs. I'm actually considering watching it again. Who knows? Maybe this will breathe new life into the franchise and fandom, as well as potentially refine on G4. What say you?

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With the conflict canonically at an end with Thorax in charge and friendly relations established between the two nations, I look back on hundreds of pre-October 2016 stories and even those now with 'AU' tags and wonder how the fandom has portrayed the conflict between these two nations.

I do like how Wikipedia describes it as a 'Cold War', which I think is pretty apt when you think about it. Equestira and the Changeling Queendom/Kingdom/Hive/Pack/Empire (Man, there's been a lot of different descriptions) have been at loggerheads on and off for hundreds of years, the latter being the aggressor in every flare up. So with that in mind, there are really two problems I see come up regularly when I read fanfiction tackling this:

  1. 'Both Sides': Ya see... I don't have a problem with this in principle. Looking at both sides of a conflict is really interesting and makes for good stories. The big problem, however, is just that... there really isn't. If you go strictly by canon information, the changelings were the aggressors. Every. Single. Time. It's pretty hard to then convincingly sell it as "oh no, it's more grey than that. Both sides have a point" when one side is clearly more malevolent and instigating the conflict. That end goal of the changeling side is the literal draining and eventual annihilation of Equestria. I mean, we literally have an alternate timeline that showcases what would happen if they won. This doesn't mean injecting grey morality into stories about this is impossible. It can be done, it just takes a little finesse. The problem is that in a lot of stories claiming this is what they're doing, what I too often see is Chrysalis and the changelings getting absolved of a lot of their responsibility for their actions (the previously unchallenged fanon notion that changelings are all Chrysalis' children didn't help); Equestria getting portrayed as a bunch of arrogant, entitled bug-hating bigots, often with some fictitious 'past wrong' being pulled out of nowhere so to effectively strongarm them and by extension the readers into feeling sympathic towards Chrysalis, as if this makes everything she's ever done less heinous. At worst, I see stories that basically flip the script, where one side is being portrayed far more sympathetically by the narrative, it's just the opposite from the show.

  2. The Power Dynamics. This often goes hand-in-hand with the previous point. In a number of fanfictions, mainly pre-October 2016, there's been a tendency to portray changelings almost as a stand-in allegory for a persecuted and misundertood minority group who are mercy of the Equestrian government, royal gaurd and a brutish pony populace. Changelings are written as signiciantly weaker and meaker than in the show, wanting only "acceptance" from the ponies who, sans the handful they meet, all want them dead. In a number of instances, you'd be mistaken for viewing Chrysalis as some kind of champion of the oppressed going up against a pony-supremacist system, or a "mother trying to protect her children". Aside from the oodles of conjecture at play, so many of these stories simply seem to ignore the true power dynamic in the show. The changeling hive is a first-rate power, one that was able to declare war on Equestria multiple occasions and very nearly succeed. I mean, these guys literally took over the capital city of Equestria is under five minutes. That's bloody impressive! And I know the canonicity of the IDW comics is contentious at best, but if we are to go by them, the Changeling Army has laid waste to at least a handful of kingdoms. Their hive was well guarded by a magical stone that would make any invasion against them incredibly difficult. This isn't some disorganised, powerless group of marginalised people. If anything, you could put these guys on the same plane as the Klingons or the Fire Nation. The point I'm trying to make is that these nations are on a mostly equal footing, if even that. Honestly, Equestrians probably count themselves incredibly lucky they haven't been successfully invaded and subjucated. Granted, many of the stories I'm thinking of were written pre-October 2016, a time when a lot of our information on changelings as a nation and society were limited.

Okay, so that's my rant done. Tell me, though, what do you think authors often get wrong in portraying the Equesto-Changeling conflict? Do you agree with me? Or have I missed the point? Or maybe there are things I missed?

Aaaand... go for it!

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Based on the 2017 hit satirical black-comedy, Death of Stalin. Set in an alternative future where Chrysalis was never toppled from her throne, when the tyrannical monarch suddenly dies of a cerebral hemorrhage, her legions of parasitic offspring square off in a frantic power struggle to become the next Hive ruler. Among the contenders are the ill-prepared, slow-on-the-uptake heir apparent Imago, the wily Bullet Ant and Domino -- the sadistic scientist turned secret police chief. As they bumble, brawl and back-stab their way to the top, the question remains -- just who the buck is running the Hive? 

Joseph Stalin - Queen Chrysalis
Georgy Malenkov - Princess Imago, first-born child and heir apparent, Royal Council Member (VA: Ashly Burch)
Nikita Khrushchev - Princess Bullet "Bullet" Ant, Premier of Hive Level One, Royal Council Member, Chrysalis' "Court Jester" (VA: Jessica DiCicco)
Lavrentiy Beria - Princess (Doctor) Domino, third-born child, chief of the secret police, Royal Council Member (VA: Ingrid Nilson)
Vasily Stalin - General Princess Pupa, the youngest child/the "baby", Supreme Commander of the 'Swarm Force' (shoddy imitation of the Wonderbolts) (VA: Kathie Soucie)
Georgy Zhukov - Field Marshal Phasmid, second-born child, Head of the Hive Army. Abdicated royal title and position of chief of espionage before joining the military 
Vyacheslav Molotov - Prince Molt, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Royal Council Member (VA: Scott Grimes)
Svetlana Stalina - Princess Silverfish, grad student at Hive U (VA: Tabitha St. Germain)
Anastas Mikoyan - Princess Pins, Minister for Trade, Royal Council Member (VA: Kira Tozer)
Nikolai Bulganin - Prince Needles, Minister for Defence, Royal Council Member (VA: James Marsden)
Lazar Kaganovich - Princess Phalanx, Minister for Labour, Royal Council member (VA: Mae Whitman)*

*this character accredited to :icontrooper924:

(A copy of this will be moved to Literature)
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