Commission: Pseudochangelings

Note: The commissioner wants to remain anonymous and didn't give me any infos beyond what i'm gonna copypaste here, so please don't ask.

"Compare wasps to honeybees and you have a relatively good idea on what these creatures are compared to normal changelings.

They form hives of roughly 100-strong underground, led by a queen, usually next to a town or small city, in order to feed off love and positive emotions, such as joy. They stand about roughly the height of a pony, and they have clear, dragonfly-like wings on their backs. However, instead of the crests that adorn the head and rump, and instead of a shell on the back, they have moth or bumblebee-like hair. Their eyes are also different, because while they are generally one color, the "whites" of the eye, the iris, and the pupil are all visible.

There are four roles in a pseudochangeling hive: guards, workers, gatherers, and queens; all of which are important to the security of the hive.

Gatherers are the most numerous in a hive, generally amounting to about half of the population. They go out into the world and transform themselves into ponies to gather positive emotions, usually choosing to gather emotional radiation rather than drain others by force. They usually gather their emotions by seeking employment in a career that would normally elicit joy, love, or gratitude; psychologist, baker, and nanny are all examples of the jobs they take. In order to make themselves more believable as ponies, each one practices a special talent from a young age, sometimes even posing as fillies when nymphs to attend school!

Workers are responsible for the upkeep and expansion of the hive, in addition to ensuring the safe and proper storage of collected love. They are generally bulkier than either workers or soldiers, because they are the main source of physical labor in the hive. Unlike other changeling hives, the pseudochangelings keep the place relatively clean; why they do this is unknown. The workers are also responsible for distilling the emotions that the gatherers bring into concentrated emotional essence. Some clever queens capitalize on this; they sell any excess essence they have on the market to earn money, as the liquified feelings magnify the effectiveness of certain potions.

Every member of a pseudochangeling hive occasionally has to do guard duty over the vital areas of the hive. Those whose main career is guarding, though, amount to roughly 10% the population. These individuals act as the leaders in combat, being the field commanders of the hive. The armor they wear generally is metal, their chitin being unsuitable for protection (as the Mane 6 proved during the Canterlot invasion)

Pseudochangeling queens are the leaders, responsible for overseeing every aspect of the hive. They possess power roughly equivalent to a gifted unicorn or pegasus, they are not quite as physically or magically able as other queens. The queen, though, is generally much smarter than the rest of the others in her hive, and possesses an IQ of roughly 30 above average; in addition to towering over her subjects. There is only one ruling queen in a hive at any given time; the queens secrete a pheromone that renders it impossible for other changelings to develop into royalty. When a queen gets old enough, production of this pheromone ceases, only resuming production when another changeling queen is born to either the current one, or to another parent. The queens can live up to 400 years or more.

Unlike regular changelings, all pseudochangelings have both male and female sexual organs, though they usually have some form of gender identity. Further unlike regular changelings, they can reproduce, and often intermarry, with ponies, which is a surprisingly common occurrence due to easier accessibility to love and other positive emotions. Their children are either ponies or other pseudochangelings.

Reproduction is a rather bizarre matter. A pseudochangeling impregnated by a pony always lays a translucent blue egg, from which a pseudochangeling hatches two months later, at roughly 3 years equivalent in pony age. Ponies impregnated by pseudochangelings will either (50%) give live birth to either a unicorn or a pegasus (no earth ponies have been reported), or give live birth to a pseudochangeling (thankfully as a small nymph).

Transforming is also harder to do, requiring more energy to maintain and form a disguise, although they have the unique trait of being able to hold a disguise after being forcibly knocked out. In addition, it also is not uncommon for these creatures to live away from the hive and only return to give up their emotional payload.

Due to this species' similarities with ponykind, those who have studied these creatures often conclude that their traits could very well be a product of a curse; either on changelings so they could better understand ponies, or on ponies as punishment for some foul misdeed. Either way, the changelings like it, because they get all the love they can eat and, better yet, no one tries to hunt them down!"