This story is a sequel to Diary of a Silent Tyrant
It's funny what an idle slip of the tongue can lead to. When Discord makes an off-hand comment to Fluttershy about the mental diary he kept when encased in stone, she begs him to continue it. She says it will be "therapeutic", but he's sure it'll be a real bore. But who can resist those puppy-dog eyes and a bribe of fresh cookies? Grudgingly, he takes up a pencil to document his thoughts and experiences in his new life. A life among his old enemies. A life he never wanted.
Cover Image by Grievousfan who makes awesome art!
Chapters (1)
Hey, awesome, the Discord story you spoke of is out!
~Skeeter The Lurker
Well there goes my idea...
3115296 Yup, at long last!
3115315 I know about that! That's happened to me a couple of times, too.
3115553
Someone gave me the idea to write a silly diary for discord in stone. Silly autobiography
3115568 That what I did for my first Discord fic. At the same time I put it out, three other people put out stories of a similar nature, including Hoopy Mcgee's The Keepers of Discord. Coming up with great, original stuff is so hard. My advice is if you have a good story about the time Discord was imprisoned in stone, then go for it! How you write is really what will set it apart. There is always room for different takes on the same concept.
3115597
Ya...I am also writing about a changling
You deserve eight and a half pounds of pure bacon
3115779 That sounds.... beautiful! Just the thought of it brings me to tears!
So majestic!
I gave you most of my thoughts during editing, so here I'll just say this: I really liked Silent Tyrant, but I dare say you've topped it here in terms of wit, strength of characterization, thematic depth... everything. I loved the way the original managed to show both those changes in Discord's demeanor and nature of which he was aware, and those which he didn't or couldn't notice; this story does it even better, and still through a difficult medium to show un-self-aware change.
Incidentally, the ending here is a great improvement (for me, at least) on the first version; nice work!
I think Discord's reaction here--the way you can read into his literal intentions, the evolving (and so often, self-serving) way he interprets events, and the slow shifting of his, for lack of a better word, "moral compass"--encapsulates what I love about this fic. Great story, through and through.
3115821 Thanks, man! You were a tremendous help with this. Your insights really helped me make this something special!
...And if I thought you writing a good Discord was impressive, now you've blown me out of the water. Actually developing Discord's character - treading the line between friendship and Discord's chaotic, rebellious self, and making it work, while keeping the essence of Discord the same? Straight on my favorites list. This is golden.
3116437 Thanks so much! I worked really hard on this one, so I'm thrilled you enjoyed it!
i would love to read a darker sequel to this story but still a funny one
Oh the pure irony in that sentence.
This was absolutely wonderful to read. I'm glad to read a happy ending to all of this and to see Discord finally accepting how life can be chaotic and orderly.
Well done~
3115800 Applewood smoked, delicately glazed with angel tears and cooled by the giggles of newborns.
This was really quite incredible. Too many stories either turn Discord right back into a villain, make him an uninteresting clown or Pinkie Pie clone, or give him a complete "nice guy" makeover. You've given him a character all his own, a personality with interesting tensions, and a natural progression of character development and relationships with others.
I'd love to see more of this Discord.
3117064 Man, why doesn't my supermarket carry that?!
3117162 They only carry it in North Korea, where there's no laws against giggle extraction.
3117124 Well, thank you! I really enjoyed writing this, though it did feel like it was sucking the life out of me at times. I may write a third story down the road to make a trilogy out of the whole thing.
I'd actually would like to see what this might turn into.
Sure, the diary entries are amazing, but I'd rather much see a Discord-fic detailing the draconequus' adventures and errands that he would run for Celestia. Control over chaos is one thing, but what about the "sons of chaos," so to speak.
Does Discord's power reign over the unexpected minds of individuals? Can he control maddness? What happens when a being of equal power comes to claim Discord's crown (such as a troll)? What about the unexplainable, like the Pinkie sense or even holes in reality?
3116966 It really depends on where the show goes. I try and fit my stories into their existing framework. If the show leaves me with a thread of something dark, it may happen.
3117056 It's great that you enjoyed this after reading the first one. That was my biggest fear when writing this. Doing sequels is always dangerous. It's hard to capture lightning in a bottle twice.
3117174 That's... a lot of ground to cover. Still, Discord is one of my faves, so I may work on a story with him in the relatively near future. I have my Trixie fic to finish and another story planned after that, but once those are done, I'll be hunting for a new story. Discord may be the way to go.
3117192
Well then,
I suppose it's a great that you can say that. Recognizing limits is the first step, or one of them at least...
If it were anyone else, I'd have doubts but with you leading the charge then,
I'll blindly follow!I'll wait paitiently as you take your time to smooth out the rough edges.This here? This is written art.
The way you managed to write out Discord in this, his thoughts, emotions, it was beautiful. To not only play on his character, but to also build on it? Incredible. The way you kept true to his character all the way to the very end, yet also showing some growth in his acts that he shrugged off as nothing.
I also greatly enjoyed the way you represented Celestia in this story. Conniving, yet also looking out for the greater good of her subjects. You portrayed her the same way I would imagine her, and you did it well.
All in all, great read, wonderful writing. 10/10 Would recommend.
3117490 Thanks so much! I really poured my heart into this story, so I'm very happy that you enjoyed it! I was interested to see if people would be into this Celestia. To me, she's a little too perfect in the show. I figure that's the public face she wears. I'm not a big fan of evil tyrant Celestia, but I do think she's shrewd and hard-nosed in a way that the series can't allow her to be.
3117184
To be honest I feel like this is ten times better then the last one! Much more depth and personality in well, everypony! Even when they don't talk much there's still spirit~ And I love that kind of stuff~
Not bad though you did not resolve any issues. As it stands Celestia has successfully gained partial control over discord. He is right you know. She is an uncontested tyrant.
Read the whole thing.
All of it.
I just want to say, I love the way you portrayed Discord.
I'll probably go more in-depth about it tomorrow, when it's not 1:35 am and I'm bone-dead tired.
Yeah.
Absolutely brilliant.
You already know my reaction and thoughts on this, but let me say it again. I love it. Words can not convey my love of this brilliance incarnate.
I am starting to think you have a little Discord just floating around in your mind, just hanging out, and giving you the perfect characterization of him. Because you are dead on. Personally, I think even better than in the show.
As I said previously, this has gone straight to my favorites list on my page.
And as you deserve, this went right into the Feature Box. Bravo. You really do deserve it.
Not bad at all. It appears much less chaotic and humorous than the first Diary, but it works rather well as an actual story, as opposed to a mere miscellanea of mental musings.
How are able to characterize Discord so well?
!
Also, good job! You made an ending that's neither: Discord becoming a good guy, nor did he stay evil. You made a perfect balance, so everyone is happy
Edit: 2 B onest dis iz teh bast dicord story
This fanfic made me hate Celestia.
3117652 That's the position he's in. She's in charge, but she doesn't have to be. He could step up to the plate and dethrone here, but will he?
Having said that, my personal take on Celestia is that all rulers are tyrants of one variety or another. I suspect Celestia is a rather benevolent one, but no one can be nice and understanding to everyone. Some people are going to get the shaft in order to make things work for the greater whole of society. Discord just happens to be that guy and he happens to also have phenomenal cosmic power, so Celestia can't exactly let it slide.
Thanks for reading this!
3117684 I'm really glad you liked it!
3117983 It's a success in no small part because you read it a million times before hand. Like I told Statoose, I can't thank my pre-readers enough. You guys really make a huge difference in my stories!
3118084 Yeah, I had to sacrifice some of the more bonkers elements because 1) the show turned him good (at least sorta good) and 2) because I wanted to actually get a story going. I tried to keep his personality relatively intact, but he's got to a different draconequus or Fluttershy probably would have jettisoned him by now. She'll put up with a lot, but not forever.
So basically I worked to make it less random for the sake of getting a more coherent story.
3118535 Thanks! That ending was very important to me. I wanted to leave it ambiguous because changing your personality is difficult, and especially so when you are a completely self-centered jerk like Discord is. I already hated that MLP took away a perfectly great villain, so I wanted to leave it in a place where he could go either way.
3118643 Well, I hope that's because I wrote Discord well enough for you to empathize. I feel like we see the squeaky clean public face of Celestia on the show, but she is the mare who sent her sister to the moon for a thousand years. While I don't think of her as a tyrant, exactly, I do think she does make some ruthless decisions.
Not entirely sure whether I like this or not... On the one hand, I do enjoy stories that center on the villains rather than the heroes, but I also prefer stories with more unconventional endings, including the sadly rare instances of the villain actually wining, where evil prevails over good, in defiance of the normal, more conventional endings where the good guys win.
This is why I disliked the "reformation" of Discord, as it were. In Discord's position, I would have just left. Headed somewhere else; another world, another dimension, who knows. If there's one thing I dislike, it's being constrained. Being told by others what you can and can't do.
That's why I'm not sure about this story.
Okay. it is no longer 1:30 am.
Everything about Discord in this story is done right. While not canon-like ((E.G. Discord didn't stay with Fluttershy in the show after he was 'reformed' but you showed how hella amusing that could have been if Hasbro chose to entertain the idea)) you really showed how his new look on life conflicts directly with a natural need to cause Chaos, and how the chaos he causes usually inflicts misery.
I felt like I could relate with the spirit of chaos in this aspect, while not interested in doing something for the 'morally good' reasons, he still expressed distaste at the idea of being left alone again. Honestly I really questioned sometimes through the whole thing if he would stop acting the way he was and just snap and do something completely and utterly chaotic, which he did! (With Celestia)
Overall, this was really well done and amazing. I swear, everytime amazing fan-fiction like this comes out I actually prefer if things were to go down like THIS rather than like they did in the show.
you should try making a series of these. its a realy fun read.
3118879 That's why it took me quite a while to write a sequel to Diary of a Silent Tyrant in the first place. I much prefer Discord as a villain, but I like to work within the framework of the show. They changed Discord in a way that I didn't exactly care for, so I wanted to make some sense of it.
In my mind, Discord isn't evil for the sake of evil. He's "evil" because he's different. His mind works in a different way. He's never had friends before because he'd never thought of having friends before, but now that he has some, he's not the same guy that he was in the past. He has different motivations. He could absolutely just up and leave if he wanted, but that's no longer his desire.
That's my take on it, at least. It's just one way to see the situation.
3118962 Well, this is a sequel (in the loosest interpretation of the word) to Diary of a Silent Tyrant, so it is part of a series. The question is whether I go any further with it. I'm going to wait for the new season and see if they have any Discord scheduled for it. I don't really want to write a whole story and then have MLP go in a completely different direction right off the bat. That can always happen down the road, but I'd prefer that it not be invalidated in a month or two.
3118643
You have to remember this whole thing was seen from Discord's perspective.
His opinions and personality strongly colour the way he perceives the world and it's inhabitants, just as it makes him disregard moral values that deviate too much from his own. If anything, this story does a good job of painting him as a narcissist, while Celestia acted more or less as I would've expected.
3118894 When it comes to where Discord is these days, I felt that the show left it pretty ambiguous. If they actually said the didn't live with Fluttershy, I missed that. So I went with the idea that he'd made a first step, but Celestia knew he needed to keep at it.
I think the important thing with Discord is that he's not an evil-just-for-the-sake-of-it kind of a guy. He appears to be, but I think he's a victim to his chaos. It's just never been a problem for him before because he didn't have anything to lose. Discord is completely self-absorbed, but is beginning to awaken to that fact. It remains to be seen if he'll stay on the wagon. I wanted to leave it open ended.
3119011 That's exactly what I was trying to do here. Celestia is being pretty reasonable, but Discord is so self-centered that he sees it as an attack.
This is pretty much exactly what I'd have happen with Discord, character wise and everything. Right down to giving him some land to Chaos-ify. This was freaking great, read the whole thing in De Lancie's voice.