This story is a sequel to Discord's First, Last and Only Friendship Report
Set in my "Next of Kin to Chaos" series, but no Star Trek knowledge is needed for this story. More or less direct sequel to "Discord's First, Last and Only Friendship Report", but not humor. Celestia summons Discord to explain himself regarding his ridiculous "friendship report", but the conversation quickly diverges. Discord wants to know what Celestia wanted to reform him for, and what he's expected to do. And Celestia wants to know why he decided to reform.
A page for this series now exists: Next of Kin to Chaos
Edited to add: The marvelous zabchan drew me this lovely cover art! Thank you!
Chapters (1)
Well... that was... philosophical.
3554389
Not sure I'd call it philosophical. Everything with Discord is psychological warfare. Aside from Discord's philosophy (ie, friendship is a scam and a tactic for manipulation), there really isn't any philosophy in here, more about emotions and motivations.
3554523
I dunno... there's quite a bit of philosophy mixed in with emotions and motivations.
I liked this very much. It really redeemes the ending of "Keep Calm Flutter On". And though I don't really mind it, I understand what those who didn't like it were saying.
This was very well-done.
3555243
Yeah, in some ways I agreed with them. I had no objection to Discord reforming, quite the contrary; I feel like anyone who couldn't see it coming wasn't paying attention, but then, I know what happens to popular funny villains played by John de Lancie (or for that matter anyone, really). And I've never believed that Disharmony is antithetical to friendship, it's just antithetical to friends who aren't internet trolls and drama llamas. :-) But it really seemed to come out of nowhere. Fluttershy doesn't appear to have any genuine feelings of friendship for Discord and she more or less admits that she's trying to manipulate him; I happen to know she's probably trying the "fake it till you make it" strategy where she's acting like a friend would act in an effort to kickstart the actual feelings of friendship in her own brain, but Discord seems too cynical for that to work well. I think the overall strategy is one that would have worked, but over *time*, not in the space of one short episode. So I basically had to rewrite it in my head to figure out what Discord was thinking, and that's where this comes from.
Ah, this was great. I really didn't like Keep Calm and Flutter On, but you've actually redeemed it in my eyes. Mostly anyway.
I'm not sure I agree with Discord not being threatened by the elements though. They don't seem like the kind of weapon that can miss - although they could be fairly easily neutralized by killing/brainwashing/teleporting-somewhere-else one of the bearers.
3640652
In this universe, Discord is Q. Teleporting to another planet would get him way the hell out of the Elements' range. And yes, there are lots of things he could do aside from that. For instance if he turned the bearers, or even some of them, into little fillies, they probably wouldn't be able to wield the Elements anymore. He could teleport *them* way away from him. Even if they're essentially a smart missile and would follow him if he dodged, I think that if Discord is paying attention and serious about the fight it would be very, very hard to get him... notice that every time someone has in the past, he was standing still.
3640767
OK, fair enough then. I never watched Star Trek, so I can offer no opinions on the Discord/Q thing, but if that's within his powers then I guess it makes sense that he's not scared of... well, anything.
I have to say it...
FUCKING GENIUS
I have to say that I quite liked this little look into the mind of Discord, or at least the mind of Discord as he chooses to show it to someone he considers at least in par t his enemy. It's insightful . in all the right ways. I must say that I particularly liked the part at the end where Discord finally gets is through his head that Fluttershy is, indeed, utterly serious about this 'friendship' thing.
I also can't say that I unequivocally like this story, and, more frustratingly, I can't exactly put my finger on why. It's very technically well written; not a single error to be found. The subject matter is quite interesting, and both Discord and Celestia are well-written and engaging, especially their interplay. You have an intuitive grasp of Discord's essential character as I've seen very few other writers here match. I think it's that nothing really happened. I like a good chat-up as much as the next bloke, but there's only so much you can tell a reader about a situation they've already experienced, and in a medium as immersive as film no less, before they lose interest. Sorry I can't be more helpful.
Anyway, bottom line, this was a good story and you should feel good.
I freaking love you to tears after this. You need a thousandfold comments and favs more instead of the stuff you get now. You deserve all the love you can get for such awesomeness. If I could give you a thousand thumbs up, I would.
yay you used my cover!!
This... really is quite a brilliant little piece. Really brings a note of maturity to the story and some interesting context to Discords actions in season 4 so far.
My congratulations.
I'm totally in awe
This is incredible!
By far one of the deepest looks into Discords and Celestias Charakters I've ever read.
I'm amazed by how you did this amazing curve from discord's incredibly dark cynism to his final realization, as well as Celestias revelation of her private motives behind her idea of his reformation. I've seldom seen Celestia this personal. I really like it. Thanks for that great piece of literature
This is a great piece.
I personally think the Elements is something more powerful than a simple "beam that does stuff". My impression always was that, though arrogance is a major part of Discord's downfall, it also isn't a simple thing to just dodge. I always saw it as a kind of instant-win item, as long as the circumstances are right, i.e. the elements are in accord and they have a target. Like a super-magical homing attack, because friendship is kinda a fundamental force in the MLP universe.
Still, again, great piece.
3781314
Agreed, it shows Discord in all his Magnificent Bastard glory and how he is one of the few characters in fiction who can be cheerful and funny yet sinister and menacing at the same time or switch from one to the other at the drop of a hat, Joker is a good example in some cases, but Discord works even better because unlike Joker he has PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS! Also, this:
I see what you did there.
Woooooooooaaaaaahhhh....
This is beautiful.
As of writing this comment, this fic has 128 likes and precisely 0 dislikes.
No mean feat.
This was an brilliant piece and I salute its excellence.
This fic, this was good fic. Extremely well written and great depth added to Discord. Celestia felt a bit bland, but then the story revolved almost entirely around Discord so it isn't really a bad thing.
wow you're the writer of what's-its-name Discord vs Gary Tsu fic. Damn, this and that story are amazingly amazing.
*être.
Fantastic read.
5694054
I rarely use any of the diacritics from other languages because I got used to having to strip them out for the Internet. Nothing like having your "naive" turn into "nanve" or something else bizarre because some website couldn't handle the character set translation. It seems like things have gotten better, so I might test it out again.
5694110
Things got better for a while as everyone moved to UTF-8 for main page content, then worse again as handling of user-submitted content failed horribly to keep up, then better again as that was moved to proper UTF-8 pipelines too. I certainly haven’t noticed any of the common charset glitches on fimfic. The net’s come a long way since 7-bit USENET…
Wait... Wait...
She was manipulating him!?!
"I won't ask you to do anything that will hurt Fluttershy if she learned you'd done it,"
Hmm ... and what if something must be done to save Equestria?
Something that requires an unsavory act, and there is no alternatives?
What would happen then?
Anyway, all in all, I like how this ended.
Much emotion, much restrained threats from both sides.
I almost had the impression they were about to kiss, at the end.
Yes. Dislestia is my shipping lane. ;-)
4491030
Exactly what I think.
I mean, the ray of the Elements of Harmony don't require any kind of aiming.
If any, they just have to get a clear line of fire at the target.
So, all in all, I also think Discord's utterly arrogant and mistaken into thinking a few little air-combat maneuvers would shake the Friendship ray off his six.
After all, this ray has been shown to take very curved trajectories, hasn't it?
3555809
"And I've never believed that Disharmony is antithetical to friendship, "
In some way, it is true.
You can disagree with friends and still remain friends.
But up to where could this go
7307404
Keep in mind, this version of Discord is Q. He can teleport to another planet if he wants to, or travel in time.
That being said, in this universe the Tree of Harmony is a Q expert system made from the energies of the Continuum, and Q didn't even know it had the authority to imprison him until it did, so it's entirely possible he doesn't know the full range of its abilities. He's not the Continuum's equivalent of a cybernetics expert.
In my other, more mainstream series, the Elements of Harmony are more evenly matched in that part of their purpose in existence is to counterbalance the avatars of Chaos and Order, so there, it's a lot less likely that Discord could escape them, and he's a lot less cocky about it.
7307780
Thank you for the answer. :-)
Discord is ... Q?
Like the Q in James Bond?
Other series?
Hmm ... I'll have a look at it. :-)
Trapped in a corner, unable to find a way to pin the blame on the other party... Check and mate. Or friendship, at least. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
In any case, I was quite surprised to see I hadn't already read this, but I'm very glad that I did. A wonderful exploration of DisQord's perspective and mentality, and how both Celestia and Fluttershy impact it. Thank you for this.
6978855
Yes, maybe. And so what?
Wow, I’m your 300th upvote with 3 downvotes and 30 comments and this was made in 2013. That’s a lot of the number 3.
i.pinimg.com/736x/a7/d9/80/a7d98072bc1c148bc037b155c82195d9--funny-star-trek-star-trek-humor.jpg
That was a great read with well-done dialogue.
Wonderful work as always. Your discord is one of my favorite discords in the fandom, even down to the point of only finding entertainment in reading discord in small doses, like how discord would be in real life