Why the avatar of my personality gets cast as the bad guy · 3:51am Nov 2nd, 2013
So I am writing, simultaneously, a bunch of stories about Discord, a lot of them centering around what happened post-reformation. Which means they will all likely get totally jossed next season, but I don't really care. Spent too many years writing Magneto as Erik Lehnsherr to be troubled when my fics suddenly go AU. My Discord is Q for a lot of reasons I'm not going to go into in this post, but suffice it to say, there's a pro novel about Q being taught how to taunt and torment lesser species by a charming but sociopathic mentor, and the first thing Q does under this asshole's guidance is make it rain fruit. Ten years before MLP:FIM came out. So there. And the idea of Q trying to fit into a "normal" society totally doesn't work with the Federation because the Federation is actually boring as shit (I love me my Star Trek but *man*), but Q trying to fit into a "normal" society where things happen like shapechanging parasites who feed on love or immortal princesses turning to the dark side because nobody likes it when it's nighttime... that could work. So that's where I'm going with a bunch of this stuff.
A *lot* of them feature Twilight Sparkle as... well, there's no real bad guy, but she's the antagonist, even though she's the main character. Or she's not the main character but she is an antagonist. Because she's pretty convinced that Discord is probably faking it, and in my universe, he's not. But he's also not a nice pony either. (Or draconequus. Or person. Or Q. Or whatever he is today.)
This is incredibly weird because Twilight Sparkle is me.
Ok, so I don't have vast magical powers. (I do actually have a weird bony bump on my forehead, and if I were the kind of person who wrote self-inserts, that would write itself. Except a, I don't do self inserts except if I have a point to make, and usually not even then, and b, I am terrified of horses and would probably die of despair if I lost my opposable thumbs, so no, I am not going to turn into a pony.) But I spent my childhood being a neurotic obsessive bookworm who had very few friends but was psychotically loyal to the ones I had, to the extent of writing friendship songs about them that would have made me sound suspiciously Sapphic if I hadn't been six at the time. I process everything through cerebral cortex. I spent a very long time believing there is A Right Way to do everything. I massively hero worshipped my female mentors. I had a younger brother who behaved as my sidekick. I thought that everything worth learning was in books. Yadda yadda. So why am I taking the character who is most like me and making her be a major dick to my favorite character?
Well, in part, because she is most like me. So I relate to her, so I can understand her. In stories where Bad Guy has reformed and Good Guys all rally around Bad Guy because he is so reformed except for Lone Good Guy Who's An Ass who doesn't see the sweet, sweet reformation, usually Lone Good Guy is obviously the *least* favorite character and ends up massively OOC. Of the Mane 6, Twilight is my favorite (though Pinkie Pie is the most fun to write.) Also, she is the only member of the team who has the remotest possible chance of taking on Discord in a fight or being any kind of threat to him whatsoever. So I can write her as mistrusting the character who I like best because I sympathize with her and I understand her, so she's not going to go OOC even though she's being a meanie pants to my guy. Secondly, because she holds the most potential for a good conflict; Discord is just going to laugh at Rarity or Rainbow Dash or Applejack being mistrustful of him, but Twilight has the ear of the princess and is a damn powerful mage and *beat* his ass once. (And it's not going to be Lone Good Guy anyway... Spike, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack don't like Discord any better than Twilight does.)
Thirdly, because it's in character. Twilight is judgmental. And Discord nearly broke her. (I'm going to go into it, possibly in Terrible Doctor Twilight, as to what Discord was actually trying to do, but the short form is, when he discorded the other five it wasn't going to last. He doesn't permanently mess with anyone's mind. It'd be a month, tops, more like a few weeks. Discording them was an attack on Twilight. He was going to shatter the Element of Magic's faith in friendship and ruin the ability of this current set of bearers to ever harmonize again. That would have been permanent, and it wouldn't have been mind control. His mind control spells don't last because that's no fun. His mind fuckery, on the other hand... that lasts.) Twilight *knows* how close she came to giving up, and that was really her. Everyone else can go "Oh, mind control, oh I'm so sorry I acted like a jerk while I was under Discord's spell!" but everyone knows it was a spell, not their fault. If Twilight had given up... that would have been the real Twilight, not a spell.
Fourthly because Twilight is me and my reaction to the guys who insulted and bullied me (and the guys who teased me and trolled me) was to stand up to them, declare them to be my Worst Enemy Ever, run around tattling on them, get into physical violence if I saw them hurting another kid, and, in the case of the trolls, perpetually coming back for Moar Trolling, because the opportunity to Prove That I Was Right was vitally important. So when my troll uncle or my troll friend tried to challenge my feminist beliefs, I deliberately sought out arguments with them so I could prove how right I was. This is *exactly* the sort of relationship Discord needs. (And by relationship I don't mean sexual, because his heart belongs to Celestia. And Jean-Luc. And Glory, aka Lady Q. And you know, maybe Janeway if she'd ever reconsider. OK, dude is not exactly monogamous.) He needed a kind, gentle, doormatty friend who'd put up with his shit to open the door to friendship in the first place, but what's going to really tie him to the group is having an awesome frenemy relationship with somepony, and he and Celestia have caused each other too much pain to play with that. Because he's *Discord*. Having a friend who likes cute animals and long romantic walks on the beach is all very well but the only thing that's attractive about Fluttershy's personality, to him, is that she's the first being willing to make friends with him when he's being an ass, pretty much ever. They've got nothing in common. He's always going to love her platonically but spending time with her is not going to satisfy the God of ADHD for very long. What he needs is a friend he can be a total ass to who'll throw it right back at him. That's where Twilight comes in. She hates and mistrusts him, at least at first, but she's going to keep coming back for more. Unlike saner people who avoid those that they can't stand, Twilight will actively seek out the guy who annoys the shit out of her just so she can prove she's better than he is. Because that's what I'd have done at her age. (Rainbow would probably do the same, but Twilight and Discord can compete over magic, and Discord is not interested in winning a flying contest. His wings are crap, they probably don't even work when he's not using his powers.)
Fifthly because in addition to being me Twilight Sparkle is also Jean-Luc Picard. (Yes, that means Picard is also me. Though Twilight and I are much girlier than Picard, and young Picard was very different from me or Twilight, so the resemblance between me and Twilight, personality-wise, is stronger.) Discord's already *got* a Picard, he's not looking for a new one, but too bad for him, now he's got two. Twilight's too young for him, which is why he wants into Picard's pants but not Twilight's... I mean everyone's literally too young for him because he's billions of years old, but he seeks out partners who are at *least* as mature as he is and usually a lot more. (It is not hard to be more mature than the guy who makes cotton candy clouds and says things like "Macrohead with a microbrain" and thinks that's actually a funny insult for a Klingon.) Of course Twilight's destined to become a Twilicorn, so I wouldn't rule out a relationship ever, but that's not what Discord's looking for from Twilight right now. He wants a nemesis who isn't actually going to seriously hurt him, most likely. And he's reformed, so he can't get one by being a supervillain, so he has to be one by being a dick. Fortunately for him being a dick is second nature. Or first nature, really.
Sixthly because teaching someone with incredible potential by being a giant annoying ass to them and making them have to work out how to beat his latest game *is* Q's modus operandi, precisely, so if Discord is Q then it stands to reason that doing that to Twilight is going to be Discord's favorite thing ever, even better than cotton candy clouds. Which means Twilight has reason to mistrust him. He keeps fucking with her. Not in ways that break his deal with Celestia or upset Fluttershy overmuch, just in ways that are really annoying, not actually villainous.
My Discord is not the kind of character who cries because everyone has always been mean to him. He's *Discord*. He's not incapable of being a friend, he's just incapable of being a friend who's not a big dick to at least some of your other friends. So Twilight can mistrust him and challenge him and it's not going to be "Twilight, you big meanie, stop being mean to poor Dissy, he just wants a hug!" Discord gives as good as or better than he gets. And unlike Jean-Luc, whose reaction to Q is almost invariably "Go away. Go away *please*," Twilight can and does walk down the street to Discord's house to start an argument with him, so sometimes it doesn't even have to be Discord provoking the argument. He likes it when the argument comes to him. It's a pleasant change.
And that is why I have at least two separate stories where the plot is "Discord and Twilight get into a conflict", plus one which is "Discord and Celestia have a tense negotiating session because some things Twilight said to Discord have made Discord think Celestia is blackmailing him", plus one that focuses heavily on Discord actually *being* a friend because man it's gonna suck when the Q Continuum yank him home to stand trial, and if we don't get to see him being a friend and understanding why anypony cares when he's gone, I don't get me no feels. I need mah feels, man... and in that story Twilight drops a piano on his head. (That's the one that's actually getting posted right now, The King Who Would Be Man.) Don't wanna be a broken record, but... Discord and Twilight, best frenemies since Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platypus. This stuff just writes itself in my brain. Wish I could get it on paper as fast as I can think it.
There are two kinds of endings : predictable and unpredictable ones.
The one that would be predictable is, that the moment he gets pulled in the Q Continuum to be put on trial, he would be accompanied by the whole Mane six+ Celestia, trying to save his bacon by pointing out how he changed and whatnot.
The unpredictable one would be preferred, as a lot of these stories have a Deus Ex Machina moment when all the problems are solved. But that doesn't mean that it isn't enjoyable to read in any case.
All in all, can't wait to see the continuing of the story, as well as the Terrible Doctor Twilight when you publish it.
What's so boring about the Federation?
4858038
It's very boring. It lacks drama or action unless conflict is going down in the outer regions. The areas under federation control are often so peaceful they don't seem real unless there's a war on.
Which is fine for a slice of life show, except the problems and environment we wind up facing are also very boring, especially when you're on the same ship, with the same people, wearing the same thing and leading the exact same life 50-70% of the time.
Most Star Trek shows don't have this problem because they are constantly patrolling outside the Federation but The Next Generation was a real struggle to watch.
5724550
Got it. I thought Next Generation was plenty exciting.