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- MLP: FiM
- Romance
- Comedy
- Slice of Life
Fluttershy and Discord decide to have a child. May the Gods have mercy on their souls.Summary
Discord and Fluttershy decide to procreate, and may Celestia have mercy on us all.
Overview
Besides some fairly minor issues (and perhaps a slightly overly literal title), Anarchy: Pony of Chaos is delightfully fun and engaging, with some real heart in the ending.
First Impressions
This story’s a beefy one, so get ready for the chapter-by-chapter rundown.
Chapter 1 (Expecting): So we open our story to a… rather slow start. The beginning few paragraphs are rather dry and heavy with exposition. It’s blessedly short, though, and soon enough we get to the actual beginning; Pinkie and Fluttershy talking about foals. I have to wonder, though; couldn’t the exposition have been handled through dialogue or something.
After a rough start, though, we see some excellent introspection from Fluttershy. Pinkie’s Pinkie sense is used to produce a little more exposition (though this time much more smoothly than the opening).
The interactions between Fluttershy and Discord are wonderful. Their entire conversation is heavy with the weight of reality; there’s genuine affection and chemistry, but also the seeds of imperfection and conflict.
We also get a short humorous glimpse of what Luna, Celestia, and Grogar are up to at Silver Shoals. There’s also a rather nice chemistry here between those three that promises future humor. It’s rather engaging.
Maybe it’s a personal note, but I’m a little sad we largely skip the ‘pregnancy’ stage of having a foal. I get that it’s within Discord’s power to do so, but it feels a little like missed opportunity for both comedy and drama.
Chapter 2 (Granpa): I don’t have much by way of criticism for this chapter. Most of the scenes are fairly short, and serve as fun comedic vignettes to show various creatures as their lives are disrupted by Anne’s arrival.
I do like the hints of future conflict being set up in Discord’s realization that Anne is using chaos magic in a responsible and practical fashion.
On that note, I want to mention some things about Discord’s characterization. This Discord is not a joke or a flat caricature, as we sometimes see in stories (and even the show). Discord’s interactions with Fluttershy, with Anne, and even with his father hint at a depth of character here beyond what I’m used to seeing. This Discord has to contend with conflict he can’t handle easily, and it’s nice to see him unsettled and unsure.
Chapter 3 (School Days): So we begin this chapter with several seemingly unconnected short bits, complete with an attempt at meta humor.
Maybe I’m biased against meta humor in general, but this one falls flat. And the way it’s delivered makes me think it’s going to come up again. I read stories for immersion, and I’ve found that unless you’re reading The Neverending Story or House of Leaves, meta moments in stories tend to break that immersion hard. I’ve felt the same for reference humor, as well; if it’s done subtly it can work, if it’s clumsy it takes me right out of the story.
After these three short bits (that feel a little lacking in focus) we get to the actual story. The moment with Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Anne playing together really serves to demonstrate an aspect of Anne’s character I genuinely love; the strange balance the author strikes between her being a child with adult-like power. Regardless of her ability to fix her own problems with chaos magic, she’s still a kid.
This skill at characterizing children also extends to Pearl Rose, who we meet this chapter. The author rather nicely sets up our expectations for a certain type of character trope (rich mean girl) then shatters hem drastically. Giving Pearl a hobby outside of her expected characterizations was an excellent choice. It breaks past the exterior stereotypical behavior and really humanizes (ponyizes?) her. She’s one of the stand out characters for me, so far.
Chapter 4 (Grudge Match): There’s a bunch to unpack with this chapter. Let’s start with the good.
Frequent and rapid changes in perspective throughout this chapter (which mainly focuses on a party at the Castle of Friendship) really serves well to create a frenetic air of comic energy. This chapter is fast-paced and fun, with tons of comedic moments. Some standouts include Discord’s antics with his lawyer, Discord (which is some excellent referential humor) and Grogar and the retired princesses misbehaving throughout.
However, this chapter’s strength is also it’s weakness. With the repeated perspective switches also come time skips, in which we have to determine what happened in between via context. In some cases, these are events that probably could have been better served by actual narration.
In addition, the perspective switches introduce a parade of characters, some of whom have very little impact on the plot itself. Indeed their stories seem to distract from Ann’s unfolding story. Some of these minor ‘c’ or ‘d’ plot moments probably could have been cut in the interest of tightening the focus on Ann and her friends, or even Discord and his struggles. The author even appears aware of this issue, by removing at least one of these side plots into an interlude chapter.
Chapter 5 (The Beautiful Game Part 1 [Your Father Would Be Proud]): So my criticism for the first half of Chapter 5 is the same as the last chapter, in that it lacks focus. Basically, the whole first half spends a lot of time on a comedic moment (Ann getting a haircut from Zephyr) that happens off screen and doesn’t advance the plot in any way.
I’m also a little frustrated that we’re adding even more characters to the new incarnation of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. A too-large cast will draw focus away from the core three. But already we have Ann, Pearl, Cheese, and Shade. Now we’re adding Goldie and Moon Wane. I’d like to have the focus just a little tighter on the core three, especially if we’re only introducing Moon in order to make some Batman reference jokes.
Once we get to the meat of the chapter, though, things run much more smoothly. The conflict here stems perfectly from Ann’s personality. Her need to establish herself as unique, the drive to be her own pony and not rely on her magic, makes perfect sense given who her parents are. Of course she’d feel a little insecure about her magic. It’s a perfect example of the strange and beautiful balance the author strikes between Ann’s childlike perspective clashing with her more adult-like intelligence.
The argument with Discord is pure gold. Both of them are off balance, in unfamiliar emotional territory, and they lash out realistically. Every single parent reading this will recognize what Discord is feeling, and sympathize with his overreaction. We’ve all been there.
Chapter 6 (The Beautiful Game Part 2 [The Moon Rises]): There’s not much critical to say here. I rather liked the climactic bit where Ann discovers why she hasn’t been able to fly just yet. It’s nice to see that Moon has a purpose other than being a batman reference joke.
I wonder if bringing in Mirror World Fluttershy and Disqord was necessary. Could their role of introducing Ann to metal music have been accomplished by characters already involved in the plot?
Chapter 7 (The Beautiful Game Part 3 [I! AM! IRON MARE!!!]): Much like the earlier party scene, the actual buckball scene contains a dozen or so short snappy vignettes about the ponies in the audience. Unlike the party scene, these vignettes feel connected and relevant, as they’re focused on a single event; the game itself.
The pacing of the game is perfect. The early game is written with exquisite detail, but just when it might get tiresome to read about the minutiae of the ongoing match, the pacing increases dramatically and we fast-forward to the important bits at the end.
The ending of the chapter was excellent. I’m rather happy this story didn’t tumble headfirst into sports movie cliches.
Chapter 8 (The Pony of Chaos Part 1 [The Light of Your Cutie Mark]): Not much critical to say here either, except maybe a personal bias against meta humor.
Think of referential humor like a Venn diagram. Every time you make a reference joke, you draw a circle, with the inside representing ‘people who get it’ and the outside representing ‘people who don’t get it’. When you fill a chapter with reference jokes, you keep drawing circles. Not all of them overlap. When those references are to niche, sometimes obscure fanfictions within a fandom, those circles become rather small. Each time you shrink the spot where the most of them overlap.
If your reader, like me, is largely outside the in-jokes and references of the fandom, you risk breaking immersion hard.
That being said, it’s not problematic enough to be too much of a distraction. Merely a frustration on my part.
On a good note, the chapter is deliciously heavy with impending conflict. Ann already struggles with identity issues, so the entire conversation with Starlight about cutie marks is wonderfully in character, and the massive cliffhanger we end on here is a skillful and tense reveal.
Chapter 9 (The Pony of Chaos, Part 2 [Statues and Limitations]): Every word of Grogar’s characterization is amazing throughout this story. And I’m not just talking about the comedic moments, but the more serious ones, too. It’s nice to see a writer who understands that a villain is as powerfully defined by what they love as by what they hate.
The bit about Starlight accidentally removing herself from reality for a few hours is a nice bit of foreshadowing. This story is, in many ways, about the power of metanarrative. In any other story, it would be rather heavy hooved to simply handwave a powerful character out of the story in order to not have to explain why they can’t help in the climax. In this one, it just makes an odd bit of sense.
At the end of the chapter, we have the big inciting incident for the climax itself. There’s nothing to complain about here; Ann’s actions are totally in line with her motivations, and her insecurities. And Cheese’s reaction makes things nicely tense between them. But it’s nothing compared to the emotional devastation that’s coming for Grogar.
Honestly I think at this point that the conflict has almost nothing to do with Cozy. It’s really all about Ann, and how she wants to understand her own place in the world. Cozy’s just a tool to get us there.
Chapter 10 (The Pony of Chaos, Part 3 [Cheezy Chess and Cozy Coronations])
Cheese talking Ann down from her insanity feels… just a little bit anticlimactic. That being said, I do get the feeling that we’re not quite done with this conflict yet, mostly because Cozy’s on the loose now.
The random asides into Tirek and Chrysalis’ conversations have started to wear out their welcomes just a little. I’d rather focus hard on the story, please. Exciting things are happening.
I’m going to echo my comment here from the last chapter; Grogar’s character development is excellent. It’s wonderful to see the anguish and cognitive dissonance he’s going through as he encounters the consequences of his choices.
Chapter 11 (The Pony of Chaos, Part 4 [Cheese Dies at the End])
This chapter is mostly just rising tension and escalating action. The various players converge on a single location, so they can say their individual lines and then exit stage left.
This is one of those times when a smaller cast of characters might have improved the focus of the story. The fight does drag a little as each character needs to have their moment. The core bits (Cheese’s reaction to his mother’s petrification, Discord and Fluttershy’s conversation about narrative and then subsequent petrification) work really well, but everything else feels a little like filler.
The ending of the chapter, though, is perfect. Ann embracing theatricality and silliness casts a rather dark and ominous cloud over the coming climax. I’m ready for a rather dark twist in the final two chapters.
Chapter 12 (The Pony of Chaos, Part 5 [The Princess of Chaos])
I feel like I should be mad about this. I’m not. I don’t understand why. Moving on.
Basically this chapter is nearly perfect. It’s hard to say why without massively spoilering the whole thing, but it comes down to this. It’s a skillful move by an author to create a twist that manages to be completely unexpected and yet also perfectly in line with a character’s arc. Ann’s behavior makes sense to me, but is also a complete shock at the same time? I don’t know how ninja pulled this off, but it really works, and works well.
Another twist is the nature of the climax itself not being some sort of battle or physical conflict between Ann and Cozy. Again, perfectly logical while being a complete surprise.
If there’s a single off note, it’s the references to puppets as a method of torture. I don’t know, it just feels a little off in tone and focus.
Chapter 13 (The Pony of Chaos, Part 6 [The Return of Anarchy])
For taking place post climax, this chapter feels a little long. It occurs to me that this might be a symptom of character bloat; the writer needed to tie up loose ends, and had created far too many ends in need of tying.
Twilight’s prick of conscience about the Elements of Disharmony being awake and aware during their petrification is actually a rather nice touch, and I’m rather glad that the conversations between the three while they were imprisoned turned out to have more significance than a series of jokes. Given that this is something Twilight’s going to be fixing, I’m upgrading these conversations from ‘joke that turned stale because it went on too long’ to ‘interestingly foreshadowed plot point masquerading as said joke’. Well done.
Is this a reference to something? Because I don’t get it. Venn diagrams, remember?
Finally, the sentence. Cozy’s reaction seems rather extreme, given that she’s been behaving and conversing casually with Ann throughout the entire scene. It’s like it’s being played for mere laughs. I’ll put a much larger section about focus and tone later, but I feel like we should either take Cozy’s trauma seriously, and have it play a larger factor in the chapter, or take a more silly route and ignore it completely.
Damnit, no. The lisp was f***king cute and needed to stay don’t @ me.
Also, having a certain eight-pointed detail be the very ending of the story is such a wonderful note to end on.
Epilogue 1 (Lose Threads)
This epilogue is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it wraps up the stories of several characters that honestly probably could have been cut from the story without a significant impact. Now, these characters are not bad, and they’re certainly interesting, but they’re extraneous.
On the other hand, we do get to see some cute moments between more central characters, as well as a sequel hook (and when exactly is that sequel coming, hm ninja?).
Epilogue 2 (Canon? We don’t need no stinking canon!)
Broader references work better! Big circles on the Venn diagram! I’m okay with this one.
Ratings by Category
Characters: 8/10. So there’s some real glowing standouts here. First, let’s talk about the Mane 6.
Of the six, Fluttershy sees the most screen time. She’s a solid bedrock of consistency throughout the story. Her time as Discord’s wife has given her patience and understanding, but she was already beginning to develop those in the show. It feels like a solid continuation of her character.
Pinkie, for what little time we see her, is solid gold. Age has made her more stressed, and even more flighty and twitchy, but it’s a logical step for her character to take. Older Pinkie has seen more of the world, and is a little less naïve and a little more grounded in reality, and it’s wearing on her. On the other hand, she’s more mature, with tools to deal with her anxiety in healthy ways.
The rest of the mane six also show signs of maturity through the passage of time.
But what about Discord? He’s also perfect. He’s finally created a situation where he’s ceding control of his narrative to his daughter, and the conflict/strain really shows throughout the story. His breakdown after Ann nearly disappeared is probably the best example of him reacting poorly to this strain, and his acceptance in the end is a beautiful conclusion to his arc.
Grogar’s a great antagonist, both funny, cute, and complicated at the same time.
Ann is also wonderful. She’s engaging to read; a character with adult (genius, even) intelligence, and a child’s mind and worries. She’s smart, and she’s articulate (maybe too articulate, sometimes) but she’s also insecure and immature. Under stress she reacts without thinking, like a child, and her first thought is often for her own comfort and desires (hedonistically, like a child). She has to be reminded to have empathy. When she does, though, it’s a beautiful thing.
Her meltdown at the end is a painful and beautiful thing. You hate to see it because it hurts to see her cruel side, but at the same time you can easily sympathize.
Now onto the critical.
The story suffers from character bloat. There’s far too many characters here, and it really splits the focus from where it should be; on Ann and her core group of friends (Pearl and Cheese), on Discord and Fluttershy, on Grogar. Was there a reason Team Anarchy/Pearl/Cheese/Goldie/Beauregard/Dib/Shade/Flawless/Moon needed NINE members? It’s a little insane, and after a while, the individual characters become lost in the flood. I honestly would have loved to see the camera focus a lot tighter on the core three (Ann, Pearl, and Cheese) while leaving the others out. Pearl, in particular, suffers the most, shining in the early chapters while fading out later on.
The children aren’t the only ones. There’s several side characters that, while interesting, split the focus in distracting ways. Flawless’ parents, Trixie and Celeste, Luster, Spike and Rarity, Frosted Apple, Spitfire, and many others probably could have been cut entirely from the story without any real negative impact, their few lines/actions given to more central characters.
Setting: 10/10. The setting here takes a fun, active role in the story. Ann’s room is delightfully chaotic. The stadium is silly without being excessive.
In more serious moments, like the final confrontation, the settings also work well. The castle as a backdrop for a massive fight works really nicely, with the statues serving as a macabre audience for the cruelty that follows.
Dialogue: 9/10. The dialogue is excellent. Snappy and funny when it needs to be, serious and punchy when things should be more dramatic. Discord in particular shines here, as does Ann.
And so help me the lisp is adorable, and I’m legitimately sad it went away.
If there’s anything to be a little critical of, it’s that Pearl and Cheese both occasionally come off as a little too articulate for their age. Barely an issue, though.
Plot Structure: 6/10. This story is pretty perfectly paced. The author does a great job at speeding things up when they need to be (the middle section of the Buckball scene, for example) or slowing them to a crawl so we can experience every little emotional detail (the moment when Grogar is being confronted by Shady and others regarding what he allowed Ann to do, for example). That’s not why this score took a hit.
As with the characters, the only really critical thing I have to say about this story is the focus. It feels like the author was trying to do too much. Serious emotional moments, complete screwball comedy, more slice-of-life, realistic funny moments, even some horrifying thriller towards the end. The tone shifts frequently enough to be jarring, and when one of the other ‘styles’ intrudes, it breaks immersion.
Take, for example, the references to puppet world. The idea that ‘puppets are scary’ is silly. It’s tropey, it’s a little meta, and can be played up a bit for humor. The problem is, this is placed at the climax of the story, where our hero is literally broken down to the point where she’s willing to torture the villain. I don’t want to see comedy at moments like this, it breaks the tragic mood.
There’s also some bloat here, stemming from the issue with the characters I spoke about earlier. There’s simply too many characters, following too many plotlines. The party scene is an example of this; we bounce around so frequently between plotlines and characters, that the whole dramatic point of the scene (essentially, the fallout of Discord breaking the contract he made in order for Ann to go to school, as well as the escalation of the conflict between Ann and Flawless) gets lost in all the other antics that are going on.
Grammar: 10/10. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
Total: 8.3/10
Final Thoughts/Feedback
I want to be sure you understand, ninja. All criticism is made in the context of the final score. I loved this story. Anything negative I have to say should be reflected by the final numbering; meaning any issues are minor and didn’t have too much of an impact on either of my readthroughs of the story. The reason I’ve written so critically and extensively is that it’s my job to be critical and provide feedback. As usual, you know where to find me if you have any questions.
I can’t wait for the sequel. And as a gateway into a wider series of stories set in this AU, I’m engaged and I’m ready for more.
Best Part: Grogar feels guilty. Pinkie’s mad cuz Fluttershy gets it easy, three times. Ann abdicates, even though she can’t. Ann is redeemed from impending villainhood by… Cozy Glow?