Why You Should Read "Diaries of a Madman" (if you haven't already...) - - - Middle Shelf #4 · 12:46pm Aug 17th, 2015
For these Middle Shelf blogs, I usually make one after I finish (or catch up on) whatever good fic I've just finished reading, if I remember to. There have been a lot I've meant to make blogs for but didn't until it was too late for my memory. This one is ongoing, and just updated a few hours ago, so let's get to it.
Diaries of a Madman
by whatmustido
There's a very good chance you've heard of this one before. There's also a very good chance you haven't. I was first introduced to it in some Author's Notes on another story, as an excuse for not updating in forever. "This beast" is what he called it, I think.
And it is a beast. That's the only way to describe it. 132 chapters (plus a prologue), 1.8 million words, three years old this Wednesday, and nowhere near complete. Throw in updates every other month or so, and this is probably the most intimidating thing in the fandom since Austraeoh. For a long time, this was at the top of the list if you click "Longest" under "Browse." (Now it's been surpassed by something called The Chase)
So this one is definitely a commitment, but if your reading interests are like mine, then it'll be worth it.
So why should anyone attempt to tackle this monster? It's even a HiE story, with the human in question getting magic powers and going by the name "Anon." Looks like just another stupid wish-fulfillment author-insert, doesn't it?
No.
Diaries doesn't care. Diaries doesn't give a crap. Diaries does its own thing, when it wants, and it really doesn't care much what anyone thinks.
The protagonist is not an author-insert. The protagonist hates most everyone, makes plenty of mistakes, and as you read, you gradually realize just how much of a madman he was, even before he came to horseland. I never once saw the usual HiE subtext between the lines of this fic. (You know the one: "Aren't I- I mean, isn't this guy so cool and so relatable? He makes pop culture references for you, because the ponies don't get them! All those random skills you didn't know you have are actually crazy useful in Equestria! We can solve everyone's problems together!)
No.
Navarone (fake name on top of his other fake name) solves problems when they annoy him. He doesn't put up with crap from anyone, and I believe it. This guy is not some pathetic college kid, or a hero from another franchise torn from his life, or a soldier dealing with cartoon harmony. I don't know who he is, I just know I would've avoided eye contact with him if I met him in a grocery store.
This is the kind of guy who learns how to make high-yield explosives and hard liquor in his spare time. This is the guy who wears a ponytail to his waist and cusses out the little girls who annoy him. On Earth, a weirdo. In Equestria, just as much of a weirdo as any other human who might show up on his own in the Everfree Forest. Only this one doesn't care. He gets stuff done.
I like adventure. I love off-the-wall worldbuilding. I find myself enjoying clever HiE's, for some reason. Diaries is all that plus this crazy protagonist. This is the granddaddy of all those trope-laden HiE clones everyone loves to parody. Discord is the inexplicably despicable villain, sexytimes are aplenty (though there is a clean version in GDocs form and all actual sex is skippable here on fimfiction), the world is darker and bigger and far more violent than we're used to, but here it all makes sense.
Cliches aren't cliches here. They're the real deal. This fic is less "Let's go meet these characters we all love!" and more "We're here? Screw these guys, let's go explore, and figure out just what the freak is going on." Navarone can hardly stand the Mane 6, and can actually only find a couple characters he genuinely gets along with.
And then there's the world. Wow, am I fascinated to see more. I'll just tell you a couple tidbits from the story that might catch your attention:
The dreamscape is patrolled by "Vagrants". They cause Luna pain whenever they catch her in a dream. What does one say when it meets Nav? “I am subprocess AI #255, guarding the dreams of the sub race ‘pony.’ What word is there from outside, master?”
Navarone meets Athena. Actual Goddess Athena. She's crazy, and lives in her own pocket dimension. He meets Arachne. First spider from Greek mythology. He calls Celestia to help deal with her, and even she (Celestia) nopes out of that fight. Not because she's a spider, but because she's ancient and in a whole different league than alicorns.
Every year in pony Europe, there is an international event involving a gigantic wargames competition between the different races. Nav attends three or four of them, representing humanity.
Interested? That's just some of the crazy things there are to see in this web of a world.
Go read it already! It's worth your time, I promise you!
Thx
I need you to come back