What time is it? THEORY TIME!!!! 1. A weapon that destroys souls...and I mean DESTROYS souls....Okay, I dunno if there is such a thing a spiritual backlash, but if there is that has GOT to play havoc with the wielder's, even if they don't realize the exact nature of what they're doing. What I'm saying is that, in wielding The God Slayer, Op Celestia may have eroded her own soul a bit. Definitely not what turned her full Manic, but a thousand blows from a thousand angles can collapse even the sturdiest structure. Also interested to see if an origin of the weapon will ever be revealed since it seems it's been around nearly as long as the original Avatars. Perhaps a built in failsafe for said Avatars by the universe? In which case, Discord sending it to another dimension in the Harmony universe would just cause it to re-manifest in some form. Ergo, why it was in Willy's hoard in Not the Hero (goes back to read that chapter to find out what Discord did with that after after the Willy fight because there are possibilities there).
2. Going back to Chaos breaking Chaos.......since Harmony Discord will be the one to finally put Op Discord out of his Misery, makes some sense in that context. That being said, Chaos Turbines.....Surprise that Harmony Discord has managed to put off getting those set straight in the Harmony universe. Or that he is not actively trying to more actively dissuade the Tree of Harmony setting up more relays for itself. (Did you REALLY think that Twilight's new castle was just a Castle? XD)
3. Welp, Chryssy just Fyay up. Even if there is something in the catacombs keeping Cadance from being detected magically, the people that would know how to are currently unable (Op Celestia is in another dimension and Op Twilight is sleeping dreams of breaking reality, Harmony Twilight can be explained off as trying to fool peeps). So launching an actual attack just sorta guarantees that, yes, Cadance is in the catacombs and you best look VERY well for her.
A bit more could be added, but I'm still processing, please check back in after this server has finished, Thank you.
I have to say, I didn't expect that the remnants of the other Discord would be the one to convince him to go about vengeance in more of a... roundabout way. Hmm, Discord has had some introspection forced upon him, let's see where that goes...
"No! You won't! My Changelings, attack any pony who tries to enter the catacombs!"
It's always fun to see Chrysalis losing her shit because something isn't going her way, and good on Pinkie for talking some sense into Shining. I'm presuming that one of Chrysalis' primary goals (which is obviously being neglected at the moment) is to kill Discord?
The visual presentation would have been disturbing, maybe even horrifying, to ponies, but the Lord of Chaos had no qualms with a little bit of body horror. He might even make his own appearance look like that, if it fit the point he was making or if he thought it was funny at the time.
You forgot to add "or both". Also, shouldn't Chrysalis's body transform if she shares love with someone?
Sharing love magic that you've collected to eat vs. sharing the actual emotion of love that you are experiencing is like the difference between eating food and then vomiting it into your baby's mouth like birds do vs. breastfeeding. No changeling feeds any other changeling with their own, personal, feelings of love, until Thorax figures out how to do it. When Chrysalis talks about sharing love with other changelings, she means "sharing love that was harvested from ponies for food."
I like where this is going... I mean, I don't 'like' it because it's terrible and even the best possible ending is pretty sad, but in a story sense this is all top-notch. So anyway, why can't Discord feed broken Discord chaos magic so it can fix itself? And also, Twilight could probably just erase the bad memories of the Opposition six. They probably have a medical obliviate type spell on hand for just that reason.
Now I want to write down my most optimistic guess at where this could all end up.
Broken Discord gets fed by Harmony Discord and then goes into the death lands to pick up Luna, conveniently erasing all the bad memories (more than usual because of his broken status, and because he wants them gone) and both Discords still keep the 'don't let things get so far out of control' lesson. And as mentioned above, after Harmony is restored, Twilight obliviates all the Opposition memories from everyone who needs it, and so everyone can effectively restart there in a more PG (in all respects) place. Also, let's throw in Matrisse getting tracked from the Diadem and destroyed. Now, an Opposition universe without the chaos engines sounds pretty terrible; it'd end up completely static eventually, so let's say a Discord puts them back after everything's done. Well, I'm done. There's probably a lot more to wrap up but that's just what I had in mind.
Hm. I spent the back half of the last chapter hoping for another Discord scene to see what happens after he escapes... and then the next chapter is mostly Discord... but we still haven't seen the aftermath of the escape...
8325827 I'm pretty sure that the only thing holding Op Discord's soul from oblivion is the fact that the Elements of Harmony's seal is still in effect, effectively keeping the individual pieces from turning to metaphorical dust. It's not that Opcord needs power to reform, his soul is so broken that the only chance he had of reforming is co-opting another Discord's. By grafting the piece of the Tree of Harmony into Op dimension Tree, it'll be the same as doing a system wide reset. Cleansing the impurities from the Elements and undoing Opcord's seal, allowing his soul to fade to nothingness.
8326019 Then isn't that, like, the stupidest thing ever to do? What if there's some other ancient entity sealed by the power of the Elements? Whoops, It's free now? Although, this does have plot possibilities...
It is deeply amusing to me that in the Opposition verse, both the Avatars of Chaos and Order are shattered and broken to a degree that they cannot take any kind of action while Harmony and Disharmony are fused into an incoherent, barely-functioning mess.
You could say that Chaos and Disharmony have won so hard they actually lost. This is also funny to me.
On an aside note, watching Chrysalis flail about as she watches her plans fall apart is also pretty hilarious.
Damn. Broken Discord's best hope is to stop existing? That's... really painful. Especially considering he's in that state just because of one tiny difference in the timeline. And because poor Spike was so infuriated that I doubt he understood exactly what he was doing when he broke that statue. Not something I want to think about at all.
Hohoho, this chapter... so much emotion, explanation, ends and beginnings, the way things are wrapping up, I feel so much! And it's so amazingly structured! The characters are so well written. The development and tension! As always, I can't wait to see what the future entails... I hope you keep working on keeping us posted with is. I literally thought this chapter would come out like around September. And it came out a day after my birthday, which is good enough! There are just so many other things to say, but I need to get back to rereading the story because I forgot some things and I want to experience this again and again! You can guarantee I'll be back .
8325827 Op Discord's soul will evaporate. No chance to go to the death realm. Though I wish your theory where the case, story comes first. A completely happy ending doesn't seem likely. As for Twilight, I don't think she can erase somepony's memories with them being reharmonized, I mean she could do it, but they'd still be their opposition selves and things would just restart. Not good either. With Discord giving Op Discord chaotic energy, come on man, he just got it back and he doesn't give a shit about Op.
8325849 Ha, I hoped the chapter would end with Discord showing up saying something like 'I'm back, babies!' And rescuing Twilight and Co, everyone getting shocked, some explainatons, etc. Then next chapter they would all reunite and try to find the missing tree peice and Shining finds Cady, with hell ensuing once again, the oppistion six on their tails and Op Spike also doing something epic. As awesome as that would've been, I think some of those things still might happen in the next chapter, just not the way I described it, and more.
This is awesome, because it's about Discord confronting the consequences of the actions of another himself. And -- as you point out -- not another himself who comes from a more monstrous background or has a more monstrous personality, but merely another himself who succumbed to the temptation to more monstrouly abuse his powers.
What makes it really gut-wrenching is that you get to see Opposition-Discord's Pet the Dog moments. For instance, the reason he's attracted to Fluttercruel is that he loves her core personality, even though he doesn't fully realize what that implies -- her most extreme cruelties and depravities bother him. '
The very sad thing about this is that, maybe, even Fluttercruel might have mellowed him (as Harmony-Fluttershy did) , and they both might have healed one another -- save for the fact that he'd Unbalanced both her and her friends too severely by that point. Just before she betrayed him, he had clearly fallen in love with her. For real.
This is an object-lesson in the dangers of extremism. One should be very careful before one pronounces an enemy irredeemable. Because one just might be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I understand Opposition-Spike's motivation in smashing O-Discord. Even though his Mane Six won, they won at the. price of all becoming terribly warped. I would guess that the new coldness and cruelty of Twilight Sparkle and Rarity hurt him the most, but he loved all of them, and all of them were to varying degrees twisted by what happened to them, and what they had to do to win.
It's to O-Spike's credit that he was able to think rationally and generously enough to realize that Harmony-Discord wasn't as evil as O-Discord. And morally enough to realize that not even O-Discord would have deserved what Fluttercruel was doing to him.
8326061 All entities who could be freed after being banished by the Elements would already have been freed or in the process of being freed when the Elements reset on being assigned to the current Bearers (which is how Discord himself got free). And anything that got loose while the Elements of Opposition were active regretted it (Tirek, for instance, was killed. As were Sombra and Ahuizotl. Chrysalis and Starlight Glimmer are the only major villains from the series that are alive in the Opposition universe.) Also, a lot fewer things were sealed with the Elements because Celestia had a hammer and monsters looked like a nail. She was being overprotective toward her Luna, using Godslayer/the Hammer of Celestia to destroy enemies rather than involving Luna and using the Elements of Harmony.
8325827 If you pour water into a broken jug, it doesn't stay in the jug and it doesn't repair the jug. Chaos magic won't fix a broken soul. No magic known to any of the characters can.
And destroying Matrisse would be a terrible idea. Even shattered, Matrisse is still maintaining the laws of physics and ensuring that magic doesn't make the world completely fall apart.
8326925 The other thing is that Spike didn't do it for revenge. He did it out of fear, and a fairly rational fear at that. He's long-lived, and none of the Bearers are immortal. Discord got loose because the Elements changed Bearers. What will happen to the world when the current Bearers die? If Discord had ramped up to be as monstrous as he became (his cruelest stunts were reserved for Changelings, but note that he set parasprites on ponies he'd turned into mobile trees and had clothing eat ponies, and Celestia mentioned him doing things like turning ponies into sapient tomatoes and then leaving them near vegetation-eating woodland creatures) from just a year or so of being free, what would he be like after a hundred years ago of stewing in his own rage at being defeated?
Spike felt like he didn't want to kill Discord, but that he had to, to protect Equestria from him. He had no idea how deeply Discord regretted what he'd done, because Discord would never reveal a weakness like that to anyone -- Fluttercruel might have had some idea, but Spike certainly didn't. He had no idea Discord could potentially be redeemable -- Celestia, the only one who might have known, had given over all the positive feelings she had toward Discord to Chrysalis to devour permanently, to strengthen her ally and give herself more ability to do what she thought she would have to do to stop him. So as far as Spike knew he was dealing with a deadly enemy who was only temporarily restrained -- as a dragon, while emotionally a century feels as far away as it does to any child, his rational mind knows he'll be alive then to see it. And being a dragon, he's naturally better able to handle the thought of killing someone -- though since he was raised with pony morality, it bothered him to do it and it's consumed him with guilt ever since.
8326435 He didn't know the reason the Hammer of Celestia can kill god-tier entities is that it destroys souls. He knew it would kill Discord, and he came to the decision to kill him more or less coldly and rationally, not out of rage -- he was afraid of what would happen when Discord inevitably got loose again. But he had no idea he was actually destroying Discord's soul. I doubt he'd have used it if he'd known that's what it does.
8325495 It was kind of hard to deal with Chrysalis because she wants a few things, and the ways she sees to achieve them might look contradictory, but we never get into her head. She's changing plans and adapting to circumstance just like everyone else but we can't see it.
She was okay with Discord being held prisoner and tortured, as long as there was no chance he could get away. She wants Discord neutralized -- imprisoned or dead, but either way, unable to come after her Changelings, because she doesn't know he's not the same one, and even if she did know... she started the fight with Discord because disharmonized ponies don't feel love and because Discord couldn't resist the temptation to mess with her. She'd fear the same thing happening again even with a different Discord. On the other hand, she also wants to remain Celestia's trusted second, an ally whose counsel is given enormous weight, essentially Celestia's partner in rule -- which would not stay that way if Luna were to come back from the dead. And she doesn't want Celestia or Shining Armor to find out what happened to Cadance, which means she doesn't want anyone in the catacombs and, again, she doesn't want Luna, who can find things out by walking in dreams.
So when it looked like Celestia was going to use the Mane 6 as hostages to force Twilight to resurrect Luna, Chrysalis sent Changelings to aid in their escape... but also sent an assassin to kill Discord, because she doesn't want them freeing Discord. When the assassin failed, and Opposition Twilight assured Chrysalis in a letter that she planned to kill Discord that evening, Chrysalis' objectives changed. She let Changelings assist Shining Armor in obeying Celestia's orders and subduing the Mane 6 because as Celestia's ally and Shining Armor's romantic partner she'd have a hard time explaining why not... but she doesn't take it seriously enough to show up herself until Celestia's out of play, which means the whole resurrect-Luna thing is off the table and now she's fighting to keep the Mane 6 from escaping and freeing Discord before Opposition Twilight kills him. Then it gets personal because they keep trying to tell Shining about what happened to Cadance, and then Spike kills some Changelings, and then Shining decides to search the catacombs, and now she's totally panicked and in crisis mode and the only thing she can think of is keeping Shining Armor out of the catacombs.
Chrysalis is, honestly, not a very good leader and certainly not the Machiavellian planner she thinks she is. She escalated things with Discord by trying to kill him, making herself and her Changelings a personal enemy that he was willing to kill. She escalated things with Spike to the point where he started killing Changelings. And now she's escalated things with Shining Armor.
8327125 Yes. Spike has flaws, they all do, but Ember proves that a dragon in MLP can have nobility of character even if raised by dragons, and unlike Ember, Spike was raised with pony philosophies of friendship and harmony.
It's ironic, actually, that in Not the Hero Anon sees himself as the Element of Protection and dismisses Spike, because Spike is the one who I think would naturally grow into the role of the protector-hero -- the hero whose purpose is to support the other heroes, until they end up in trouble, and then to come in guns blazing to save them. Spike knows how to work well with others, is happy with a support role... and is a dragon, biologically programmed to be fiercely protective of what is his. Which is why Opposition Spike killed Discord and why Harmony Spike is currently a full size dragon.
I really came to love this story very much, especially now that chances are finally looking better again.
Surprised, that there was technically no difference between both Discords... which makes it even better now that the broken Discord is helping to fix things.
But honestly, if they do succeed to cleans all the bearers, I hardly think that most of them could live on, most certainly Fluttershy.
Keeping their memories means purgatory for all of them.
Fluttershy would be left so mentally and emotionally broken, she might as well fall into a coma, never to wake up again. The same goes for Pinkie Pie.
No, no. The way I see it, once this "discordant curse" is lifted, the only solution for them to live on would be a mind wipe. Regrettable and sad, I know, and it irks me because I consider mind wipe invasive and inhuman like many others, but I don't think any therapy or friendly hugs would suffice to help Pinkie and Fluttershy at all.
I doubt any of them could 'represent the elements' again, after all this, not without wiping their memories.
Re-harmonizing 'the bad guys' really isn't doing them any favor, it's actually pretty cruel thing to do by 'the good guys'.
Oh well, at least Discord was sold on the idea, for this to be the perfect revenge on them.
Maybe they could turn back time or something...
On another note, Chrissy is indeed worst bug-horsy. Not to mention worst leader.
Can't wait for this to continue... But I'm really split between this story and 'Not the Hero'.
I think that Spike is something of a paragon of both species: he represents much of the best of Dragon nature combined with much of the best of Pony culture. He has enough flaws to be believable, but is nevertheless extremely heroic, and he has saved the day in more than one canon episode (notably Crystal Empire and "Equestria Games," and contributed significantly to the success of the Mane Six in others (notably "Lesson Zero" and Crystalling).
Contrary to the fans who see Spike as despised by the Mane Six, the canon evidence is that they appreciate and love him. This is of course most true of Twilight Sparkle, to whom he is the adoptive younger brother and Number One Assistant, and of Rarity, to whom he is a best friend and possible future lover.
Fans who complain that he is often given heavy manual labor to perform ignore the fact that he is extremely strong and hard to injure; to Spike, the real problem is usually that the loads he carries are unwieldy, rather than heavy. Equestria is probably a rather soft environment compared to Dragon realms; it may well be a good thing that he's getting physical exercise from such work.
In both Not the Hero and Elements of Opposition, the Spikes native to those worlds get rather raw deals, and bear up admirably under the load. In Not the Hero, Spike sees the affections of the whole Mane Six, and worst of all Twilight and Rarity, alienated from him and fixed on Anon. Nevertheless, he remains loyal to them. In Elements of Opposition, Spike sees them twisted into cruel parodies of themselves, and both Twilight and Rarity become cold and contemptuous toward him (while Fluttershy and Pinkie become monstrously evil). He's still loyal to them, and not due to any failure to notice what's goiing on.
What's key here is that Spike's loyalty is always to his friends' best interests. He will not blindly help them in their self-destruction. When Discord convinces him that they're under mind control in Not the Hero, and when Spike learns that they're torturing and plan to murder a (mostly) innocent version of Discord in Elements of Opposition, he is willing to act against their current aims to protect them from betraying their own better natures.
Spike is a true friend; an intelligent friend, who cares more about those he loves than he does about retaining their immediate approval. We all really need a friend like Spike, when we're about to make some terrible mistake -- someone who is willing to brave our wrath and warn us of our errors.
8326925 I understand his motivation, but he wasn't just killing Discord. My point was that he didn't know he was breaking Discord's soul, and I don't think he would have done that if he knew the details of what he was doing. I think Spike's a good kid in both universes.
8327016 Ah, okay, I didn't think of it as his him being calculative, but yes, I can see it as a rational decision. It does make sense that he'd want to prevent Discord from ever getting released. But yeah, my point was that it's sad that he didn't know he was breaking Discord's soul.
However, if Spike wouldn't have broken the statue, it seems to me much would have stayed the same (for a long while at least). He was pretty much just preventing Discord from breaking out many years later, which, sure, would probably be during Spike's lifetime, but that's many years later, and it didn't fix Spike's friends or anything short-term.
Discord will no longer exist, permanently and forever, not even in the afterlife, because of what Spike did (and because one small change of Discord's thoughts during the first Elements of Harmony attack). Not blaming Spike, what he did was understandable given what he knew, just that the situation is very sad and painful to think about.
You could say that Chaos and Disharmony have won so hard they actually lost.
Great. Now I'm imagining the shapeless abstract concepts of Chaos and Disharmony with Trump hair talking about how they'll be winning so hard they'll be sick and tired of winning.
Here's still hoping that it ends with Discord reharmonizing the Op-Elements and, in the few moments of disorientation before the weight of their monstrous actions catch up with them and presumably drive them all to slit their own throats, flipping absolutely everyone in the dimension the double bird with a parting "You're welcome. Big damn hero Discord out, bitches!" before ripping open a portal and leaving.
Though something I'm definitely curious about is whether the warping of the Op-Mane 6 has any ontological inertia. Does resetting the Elements purge the corruption and instantly restore them to how they were prior (and now facing the memory of all they did), or is the damage to their pysches and shift in their personalities already done? The way I see it, they were given a deep compulsion to act in ways contradictory to their true nature, creating quite a bit of internal suffering from the conflict (for example, the monument to self-hatred that is Fluttercruel), and their current personalities grew naturally from there. Given the compulsion to, say, chop up ponies and eat them, or molest and torture woodland creatures, one is going to sooner or later become the kind of person who is capable of enjoying or at least tolerating doing so. And just like you can warp a tree by exerting constant pressure on it as it grows and it will stay that way if the pressure is later removed, I wouldn't expect a personality born from persistent trauma to vanish the moment that trauma ceases.
Then again, the Elements managed to mellow Luna out pretty quickly, so maybe they've got some built in benign psychological repression function.
I hadn't read this in like a year and a half, and I had promised myself I wouldn't touch it again until you finished it, but I guess I couldn't help myself. And it really feels like everything is coming together! Glad I indulged myself.
Also thanks for sticking with this one and continuing to work on it, can't wait to see the finished product.
that inuendo from pinkie though actualy, i thought that in this word the difference between discords would be that celestia never loved him here or never even took him in.
8336923 No. This Celestia sacrificed everything she ever felt for Discord to Chrysalis so she would be able to be completely ruthless against him, but those emotions were originally there. The only significant difference between the life of this Discord and the life of ours was figuring out that the Elements were operational about forty-five seconds earlier than ours did.
I'm very sorry if someone already pointed this out. It's really something I noticed just now and I wanted to share.
One of the points made in this story is how Order is the opposite of Magic. Normal!Twilight is the Element of Magic and, in a sense, the Princess of Magic as well.
Over the course of later episodes, Regular!Twilight has pulled some things that were positively Discord-like. Appearing in a book Moondancer meant to read? Projecting herself through a ballerina figure? That's some scary stuff, and not just because of the power needed to do so (Starlight has power to spare too) but because of how a mind must work to come up with it. Twilight didn't seem to understand what she was doing freaked other ponies out. It seemed to get worse over time too.
And seeing how Discord has made a hobby of bothering Twilight for fun, I wonder if he's aware of that tendency. Fluttershy is his personal retreat and he loves her, Pinkie Pie is a spiritual kin and refuses to be bothered by what he does (and she appears to freak even him out at times!), but Twilight gets this schoolboy-with-a-crush attention in particular. Perhaps because he can sense there's this tightly-wound ball of neuroses and heroism wrapped around a bubbling core of Magic—including a fuzzy, well-meaning little insanity.
These are incredible stories - book-level quality, characters deeply thought-out, even thought I'm not forgiving OP!Celestia anytime soon. I love your Star Trek stories too.
Souls were virtually indestructible, but if you did manage to shatter one, it wouldn't maintain cohesion. The stuff souls were made of wasn't quite exactly magic, though it was a similar force, and just like the magic bound in a spell would dissipate the moment the spell was broken, the substance of souls couldn't hold together if the soul wasn't bound to itself. Never in all of his own millennia of life and never in the collective memory of Chaos had there ever been a soul that was broken to pieces and yet still existing, still a soul, still aware of its own broken nature. (...) It was trying to merge itself with his soul, take his whole and solid nature and his body and possess them for itself so it could live again.
If Discord hadn't known it was possible for something like a broken soul to exist and had expected any damaged soul to fall apart, how did he deduce there even was such a thing as an insertion of a broken soul into an undamaged one? Did he realize it was theoretically possible, or did something analogous happen to a soul before?
EDIT: Or did he feel magical patterns indicating that this is what was intended to happen?
8370013 He sensed that that was what the other was trying to do because when they touched, the other pushed memories and thoughts into him, and he could see it in the pieces of the other one's mind. Would it have ever worked? Who knows?
Damn, this is some pretty amazing story writing, you always manage to make the story seem perfect in on itself and make the readers desire for more, good job mate.
let me just say. That final fuck you from Discord to Fluttershy was by far the most satisfying thing i have ever felt, and it felt so both times that you did it. You made a good choice really showing us Discords pain at her hooves , this moment wouldn't of been nearly as impactful if you hadn't gotten to all the nitty gritty parts of her character and what she'd down.
He even went so far as to heal the wounds on her body, in her sarcophagus, and to open the sarcophagus to the light of the moon. Every night, the light of the moon replenished some of the magic in Luna's corpse, so she didn't decay. No one else knew.
Ah, yes, the literary technique known as Chekov's Nuclear Wessel.
What's that, you say? There's an unoccupied alicorn body just lying around somewhere? I wonder if there's anyone who could use a spare... Calling Luna/Cadance as new diarchy in this world's future.
Wow. I... I have to say this series is incredible. What you've done with the logic of this world... all the worldbuilding? It's incredible. I don't think that I could ever read this series a second time--it is too hard in several places--but I'm absolutely tracking with this for any updates you provide. I'm kind of blank on what to say right now except "amazing" over and over.
This is without a doubt one of the most well written, heart wrenching stories I have ever read. Everything you do sets you do sets up for another event. Your take on this alternate reality where just one thing changed is genius. I cannot wait for this to be continued. If the Elements of Opposition get back to their original selves, I hate to say that they somewhat deserve it. And the final "Go fuck yourself" from Discord was just beautiful.
What time is it?
THEORY TIME!!!!
1. A weapon that destroys souls...and I mean DESTROYS souls....Okay, I dunno if there is such a thing a spiritual backlash, but if there is that has GOT to play havoc with the wielder's, even if they don't realize the exact nature of what they're doing. What I'm saying is that, in wielding The God Slayer, Op Celestia may have eroded her own soul a bit. Definitely not what turned her full Manic, but a thousand blows from a thousand angles can collapse even the sturdiest structure. Also interested to see if an origin of the weapon will ever be revealed since it seems it's been around nearly as long as the original Avatars. Perhaps a built in failsafe for said Avatars by the universe? In which case, Discord sending it to another dimension in the Harmony universe would just cause it to re-manifest in some form. Ergo, why it was in Willy's hoard in Not the Hero (goes back to read that chapter to find out what Discord did with that after after the Willy fight because there are possibilities there).
2. Going back to Chaos breaking Chaos.......since Harmony Discord will be the one to finally put Op Discord out of his Misery, makes some sense in that context. That being said, Chaos Turbines.....Surprise that Harmony Discord has managed to put off getting those set straight in the Harmony universe. Or that he is not actively trying to more actively dissuade the Tree of Harmony setting up more relays for itself. (Did you REALLY think that Twilight's new castle was just a Castle? XD)
3. Welp, Chryssy just Fyay up. Even if there is something in the catacombs keeping Cadance from being detected magically, the people that would know how to are currently unable (Op Celestia is in another dimension and Op Twilight is sleeping dreams of breaking reality, Harmony Twilight can be explained off as trying to fool peeps). So launching an actual attack just sorta guarantees that, yes, Cadance is in the catacombs and you best look VERY well for her.
A bit more could be added, but I'm still processing, please check back in after this server has finished, Thank you.
I have to say, I didn't expect that the remnants of the other Discord would be the one to convince him to go about vengeance in more of a... roundabout way. Hmm, Discord has had some introspection forced upon him, let's see where that goes...
It's always fun to see Chrysalis losing her shit because something isn't going her way, and good on Pinkie for talking some sense into Shining. I'm presuming that one of Chrysalis' primary goals (which is obviously being neglected at the moment) is to kill Discord?
You forgot to add "or both". Also, shouldn't Chrysalis's body transform if she shares love with someone?
8325564
Sharing love magic that you've collected to eat vs. sharing the actual emotion of love that you are experiencing is like the difference between eating food and then vomiting it into your baby's mouth like birds do vs. breastfeeding. No changeling feeds any other changeling with their own, personal, feelings of love, until Thorax figures out how to do it. When Chrysalis talks about sharing love with other changelings, she means "sharing love that was harvested from ponies for food."
I like where this is going... I mean, I don't 'like' it because it's terrible and even the best possible ending is pretty sad, but in a story sense this is all top-notch.
So anyway, why can't Discord feed broken Discord chaos magic so it can fix itself? And also, Twilight could probably just erase the bad memories of the Opposition six. They probably have a medical obliviate type spell on hand for just that reason.
Now I want to write down my most optimistic guess at where this could all end up.
Broken Discord gets fed by Harmony Discord and then goes into the death lands to pick up Luna, conveniently erasing all the bad memories (more than usual because of his broken status, and because he wants them gone) and both Discords still keep the 'don't let things get so far out of control' lesson. And as mentioned above, after Harmony is restored, Twilight obliviates all the Opposition memories from everyone who needs it, and so everyone can effectively restart there in a more PG (in all respects) place. Also, let's throw in Matrisse getting tracked from the Diadem and destroyed. Now, an Opposition universe without the chaos engines sounds pretty terrible; it'd end up completely static eventually, so let's say a Discord puts them back after everything's done. Well, I'm done. There's probably a lot more to wrap up but that's just what I had in mind.
I love your work, by the way.
Hm. I spent the back half of the last chapter hoping for another Discord scene to see what happens after he escapes... and then the next chapter is mostly Discord... but we still haven't seen the aftermath of the escape...
This is both brilliant and very annoying.
8325827
I'm pretty sure that the only thing holding Op Discord's soul from oblivion is the fact that the Elements of Harmony's seal is still in effect, effectively keeping the individual pieces from turning to metaphorical dust. It's not that Opcord needs power to reform, his soul is so broken that the only chance he had of reforming is co-opting another Discord's. By grafting the piece of the Tree of Harmony into Op dimension Tree, it'll be the same as doing a system wide reset. Cleansing the impurities from the Elements and undoing Opcord's seal, allowing his soul to fade to nothingness.
8326019
Then isn't that, like, the stupidest thing ever to do? What if there's some other ancient entity sealed by the power of the Elements? Whoops, It's free now? Although, this does have plot possibilities...
It is deeply amusing to me that in the Opposition verse, both the Avatars of Chaos and Order are shattered and broken to a degree that they cannot take any kind of action while Harmony and Disharmony are fused into an incoherent, barely-functioning mess.
You could say that Chaos and Disharmony have won so hard they actually lost.
This is also funny to me.
On an aside note, watching Chrysalis flail about as she watches her plans fall apart is also pretty hilarious.
I love this chapter. It was great.
Damn. Broken Discord's best hope is to stop existing? That's... really painful. Especially considering he's in that state just because of one tiny difference in the timeline. And because poor Spike was so infuriated that I doubt he understood exactly what he was doing when he broke that statue. Not something I want to think about at all.
(But yay! An update!)
Just as I'm re-reading and re-fresh the page, I see A NEW CHAPTER! OMFG, I LOVE THIS SO MUCH! SO QUICK! EEEEEEEE!
Kinda went crazy on the underlining a little there, didn't you? It got a little distracting, tbh.
I love broken-Discord's snarky caveman-talk, though. All the more because I get to describe it as "snarky caveman-talk".
Fanatic chapter! I was grinning like a lunatic the entire time!
Hohoho, this chapter... so much emotion, explanation, ends and beginnings, the way things are wrapping up, I feel so much! And it's so amazingly structured! The characters are so well written. The development and tension! As always, I can't wait to see what the future entails... I hope you keep working on keeping us posted with is. I literally thought this chapter would come out like around September. And it came out a day after my birthday, which is good enough! There are just so many other things to say, but I need to get back to rereading the story because I forgot some things and I want to experience this again and again! You can guarantee I'll be back .
8325827
Op Discord's soul will evaporate. No chance to go to the death realm. Though I wish your theory where the case, story comes first. A completely happy ending doesn't seem likely. As for Twilight, I don't think she can erase somepony's memories with them being reharmonized, I mean she could do it, but they'd still be their opposition selves and things would just restart. Not good either. With Discord giving Op Discord chaotic energy, come on man, he just got it back and he doesn't give a shit about Op.
8325849
Ha, I hoped the chapter would end with Discord showing up saying something like 'I'm back, babies!' And rescuing Twilight and Co, everyone getting shocked, some explainatons, etc. Then next chapter they would all reunite and try to find the missing tree peice and Shining finds Cady, with hell ensuing once again, the oppistion six on their tails and Op Spike also doing something epic. As awesome as that would've been, I think some of those things still might happen in the next chapter, just not the way I described it, and more.
8326555
Me and you both.
This is awesome, because it's about Discord confronting the consequences of the actions of another himself. And -- as you point out -- not another himself who comes from a more monstrous background or has a more monstrous personality, but merely another himself who succumbed to the temptation to more monstrouly abuse his powers.
What makes it really gut-wrenching is that you get to see Opposition-Discord's Pet the Dog moments. For instance, the reason he's attracted to Fluttercruel is that he loves her core personality, even though he doesn't fully realize what that implies -- her most extreme cruelties and depravities bother him. '
The very sad thing about this is that, maybe, even Fluttercruel might have mellowed him (as Harmony-Fluttershy did) , and they both might have healed one another -- save for the fact that he'd Unbalanced both her and her friends too severely by that point. Just before she betrayed him, he had clearly fallen in love with her. For real.
This is an object-lesson in the dangers of extremism. One should be very careful before one pronounces an enemy irredeemable. Because one just might be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
8326435
I understand Opposition-Spike's motivation in smashing O-Discord. Even though his Mane Six won, they won at the. price of all becoming terribly warped. I would guess that the new coldness and cruelty of Twilight Sparkle and Rarity hurt him the most, but he loved all of them, and all of them were to varying degrees twisted by what happened to them, and what they had to do to win.
It's to O-Spike's credit that he was able to think rationally and generously enough to realize that Harmony-Discord wasn't as evil as O-Discord. And morally enough to realize that not even O-Discord would have deserved what Fluttercruel was doing to him.
8326061
All entities who could be freed after being banished by the Elements would already have been freed or in the process of being freed when the Elements reset on being assigned to the current Bearers (which is how Discord himself got free). And anything that got loose while the Elements of Opposition were active regretted it (Tirek, for instance, was killed. As were Sombra and Ahuizotl. Chrysalis and Starlight Glimmer are the only major villains from the series that are alive in the Opposition universe.) Also, a lot fewer things were sealed with the Elements because Celestia had a hammer and monsters looked like a nail. She was being overprotective toward her Luna, using Godslayer/the Hammer of Celestia to destroy enemies rather than involving Luna and using the Elements of Harmony.
8325827
If you pour water into a broken jug, it doesn't stay in the jug and it doesn't repair the jug. Chaos magic won't fix a broken soul. No magic known to any of the characters can.
And destroying Matrisse would be a terrible idea. Even shattered, Matrisse is still maintaining the laws of physics and ensuring that magic doesn't make the world completely fall apart.
8326925
The other thing is that Spike didn't do it for revenge. He did it out of fear, and a fairly rational fear at that. He's long-lived, and none of the Bearers are immortal. Discord got loose because the Elements changed Bearers. What will happen to the world when the current Bearers die? If Discord had ramped up to be as monstrous as he became (his cruelest stunts were reserved for Changelings, but note that he set parasprites on ponies he'd turned into mobile trees and had clothing eat ponies, and Celestia mentioned him doing things like turning ponies into sapient tomatoes and then leaving them near vegetation-eating woodland creatures) from just a year or so of being free, what would he be like after a hundred years ago of stewing in his own rage at being defeated?
Spike felt like he didn't want to kill Discord, but that he had to, to protect Equestria from him. He had no idea how deeply Discord regretted what he'd done, because Discord would never reveal a weakness like that to anyone -- Fluttercruel might have had some idea, but Spike certainly didn't. He had no idea Discord could potentially be redeemable -- Celestia, the only one who might have known, had given over all the positive feelings she had toward Discord to Chrysalis to devour permanently, to strengthen her ally and give herself more ability to do what she thought she would have to do to stop him. So as far as Spike knew he was dealing with a deadly enemy who was only temporarily restrained -- as a dragon, while emotionally a century feels as far away as it does to any child, his rational mind knows he'll be alive then to see it. And being a dragon, he's naturally better able to handle the thought of killing someone -- though since he was raised with pony morality, it bothered him to do it and it's consumed him with guilt ever since.
8326435
He didn't know the reason the Hammer of Celestia can kill god-tier entities is that it destroys souls. He knew it would kill Discord, and he came to the decision to kill him more or less coldly and rationally, not out of rage -- he was afraid of what would happen when Discord inevitably got loose again. But he had no idea he was actually destroying Discord's soul. I doubt he'd have used it if he'd known that's what it does.
8325495
It was kind of hard to deal with Chrysalis because she wants a few things, and the ways she sees to achieve them might look contradictory, but we never get into her head. She's changing plans and adapting to circumstance just like everyone else but we can't see it.
She was okay with Discord being held prisoner and tortured, as long as there was no chance he could get away. She wants Discord neutralized -- imprisoned or dead, but either way, unable to come after her Changelings, because she doesn't know he's not the same one, and even if she did know... she started the fight with Discord because disharmonized ponies don't feel love and because Discord couldn't resist the temptation to mess with her. She'd fear the same thing happening again even with a different Discord. On the other hand, she also wants to remain Celestia's trusted second, an ally whose counsel is given enormous weight, essentially Celestia's partner in rule -- which would not stay that way if Luna were to come back from the dead. And she doesn't want Celestia or Shining Armor to find out what happened to Cadance, which means she doesn't want anyone in the catacombs and, again, she doesn't want Luna, who can find things out by walking in dreams.
So when it looked like Celestia was going to use the Mane 6 as hostages to force Twilight to resurrect Luna, Chrysalis sent Changelings to aid in their escape... but also sent an assassin to kill Discord, because she doesn't want them freeing Discord. When the assassin failed, and Opposition Twilight assured Chrysalis in a letter that she planned to kill Discord that evening, Chrysalis' objectives changed. She let Changelings assist Shining Armor in obeying Celestia's orders and subduing the Mane 6 because as Celestia's ally and Shining Armor's romantic partner she'd have a hard time explaining why not... but she doesn't take it seriously enough to show up herself until Celestia's out of play, which means the whole resurrect-Luna thing is off the table and now she's fighting to keep the Mane 6 from escaping and freeing Discord before Opposition Twilight kills him. Then it gets personal because they keep trying to tell Shining about what happened to Cadance, and then Spike kills some Changelings, and then Shining decides to search the catacombs, and now she's totally panicked and in crisis mode and the only thing she can think of is keeping Shining Armor out of the catacombs.
Chrysalis is, honestly, not a very good leader and certainly not the Machiavellian planner she thinks she is. She escalated things with Discord by trying to kill him, making herself and her Changelings a personal enemy that he was willing to kill. She escalated things with Spike to the point where he started killing Changelings. And now she's escalated things with Shining Armor.
8326996
You clearly agree with me that Spike is noble, then. In his fundamental character. Also, an uncorrupted Twilight Sparkle has been his role model.
8327125
Yes. Spike has flaws, they all do, but Ember proves that a dragon in MLP can have nobility of character even if raised by dragons, and unlike Ember, Spike was raised with pony philosophies of friendship and harmony.
It's ironic, actually, that in Not the Hero Anon sees himself as the Element of Protection and dismisses Spike, because Spike is the one who I think would naturally grow into the role of the protector-hero -- the hero whose purpose is to support the other heroes, until they end up in trouble, and then to come in guns blazing to save them. Spike knows how to work well with others, is happy with a support role... and is a dragon, biologically programmed to be fiercely protective of what is his. Which is why Opposition Spike killed Discord and why Harmony Spike is currently a full size dragon.
I really came to love this story very much, especially now that chances are finally looking better again.
Surprised, that there was technically no difference between both Discords... which makes it even better now that the broken Discord is helping to fix things.
But honestly, if they do succeed to cleans all the bearers, I hardly think that most of them could live on, most certainly Fluttershy.
Keeping their memories means purgatory for all of them.
Fluttershy would be left so mentally and emotionally broken, she might as well fall into a coma, never to wake up again. The same goes for Pinkie Pie.
No, no. The way I see it, once this "discordant curse" is lifted, the only solution for them to live on would be a mind wipe. Regrettable and sad, I know, and it irks me because I consider mind wipe invasive and inhuman like many others, but I don't think any therapy or friendly hugs would suffice to help Pinkie and Fluttershy at all.
I doubt any of them could 'represent the elements' again, after all this, not without wiping their memories.
Re-harmonizing 'the bad guys' really isn't doing them any favor, it's actually pretty cruel thing to do by 'the good guys'.
Oh well, at least Discord was sold on the idea, for this to be the perfect revenge on them.
Maybe they could turn back time or something...
On another note, Chrissy is indeed worst bug-horsy. Not to mention worst leader.
Can't wait for this to continue... But I'm really split between this story and 'Not the Hero'.
Still best Discord on all of fimfiction.
8327173
I think that Spike is something of a paragon of both species: he represents much of the best of Dragon nature combined with much of the best of Pony culture. He has enough flaws to be believable, but is nevertheless extremely heroic, and he has saved the day in more than one canon episode (notably Crystal Empire and "Equestria Games," and contributed significantly to the success of the Mane Six in others (notably "Lesson Zero" and Crystalling).
Contrary to the fans who see Spike as despised by the Mane Six, the canon evidence is that they appreciate and love him. This is of course most true of Twilight Sparkle, to whom he is the adoptive younger brother and Number One Assistant, and of Rarity, to whom he is a best friend and possible future lover.
Fans who complain that he is often given heavy manual labor to perform ignore the fact that he is extremely strong and hard to injure; to Spike, the real problem is usually that the loads he carries are unwieldy, rather than heavy. Equestria is probably a rather soft environment compared to Dragon realms; it may well be a good thing that he's getting physical exercise from such work.
In both Not the Hero and Elements of Opposition, the Spikes native to those worlds get rather raw deals, and bear up admirably under the load. In Not the Hero, Spike sees the affections of the whole Mane Six, and worst of all Twilight and Rarity, alienated from him and fixed on Anon. Nevertheless, he remains loyal to them. In Elements of Opposition, Spike sees them twisted into cruel parodies of themselves, and both Twilight and Rarity become cold and contemptuous toward him (while Fluttershy and Pinkie become monstrously evil). He's still loyal to them, and not due to any failure to notice what's goiing on.
What's key here is that Spike's loyalty is always to his friends' best interests. He will not blindly help them in their self-destruction. When Discord convinces him that they're under mind control in Not the Hero, and when Spike learns that they're torturing and plan to murder a (mostly) innocent version of Discord in Elements of Opposition, he is willing to act against their current aims to protect them from betraying their own better natures.
Spike is a true friend; an intelligent friend, who cares more about those he loves than he does about retaining their immediate approval. We all really need a friend like Spike, when we're about to make some terrible mistake -- someone who is willing to brave our wrath and warn us of our errors.
I love how you handle him.
8326925
I understand his motivation, but he wasn't just killing Discord. My point was that he didn't know he was breaking Discord's soul, and I don't think he would have done that if he knew the details of what he was doing. I think Spike's a good kid in both universes.
8327016
Ah, okay, I didn't think of it as his him being calculative, but yes, I can see it as a rational decision. It does make sense that he'd want to prevent Discord from ever getting released. But yeah, my point was that it's sad that he didn't know he was breaking Discord's soul.
However, if Spike wouldn't have broken the statue, it seems to me much would have stayed the same (for a long while at least). He was pretty much just preventing Discord from breaking out many years later, which, sure, would probably be during Spike's lifetime, but that's many years later, and it didn't fix Spike's friends or anything short-term.
Discord will no longer exist, permanently and forever, not even in the afterlife, because of what Spike did (and because one small change of Discord's thoughts during the first Elements of Harmony attack). Not blaming Spike, what he did was understandable given what he knew, just that the situation is very sad and painful to think about.
8328038
I agree. Spike wouldn't have done it if he'd known he was actually shattering Discord's soul. He's not that cruel.
8326171
Great. Now I'm imagining the shapeless abstract concepts of Chaos and Disharmony with Trump hair talking about how they'll be winning so hard they'll be sick and tired of winning.
Here's still hoping that it ends with Discord reharmonizing the Op-Elements and, in the few moments of disorientation before the weight of their monstrous actions catch up with them and presumably drive them all to slit their own throats, flipping absolutely everyone in the dimension the double bird with a parting "You're welcome. Big damn hero Discord out, bitches!" before ripping open a portal and leaving.
Though something I'm definitely curious about is whether the warping of the Op-Mane 6 has any ontological inertia. Does resetting the Elements purge the corruption and instantly restore them to how they were prior (and now facing the memory of all they did), or is the damage to their pysches and shift in their personalities already done? The way I see it, they were given a deep compulsion to act in ways contradictory to their true nature, creating quite a bit of internal suffering from the conflict (for example, the monument to self-hatred that is Fluttercruel), and their current personalities grew naturally from there. Given the compulsion to, say, chop up ponies and eat them, or molest and torture woodland creatures, one is going to sooner or later become the kind of person who is capable of enjoying or at least tolerating doing so. And just like you can warp a tree by exerting constant pressure on it as it grows and it will stay that way if the pressure is later removed, I wouldn't expect a personality born from persistent trauma to vanish the moment that trauma ceases.
Then again, the Elements managed to mellow Luna out pretty quickly, so maybe they've got some built in benign psychological repression function.
This last chapter was great. Thank you for continuing such a great story and I can't wait to see what happens next.
I hadn't read this in like a year and a half, and I had promised myself I wouldn't touch it again until you finished it, but I guess I couldn't help myself. And it really feels like everything is coming together! Glad I indulged myself.
Also thanks for sticking with this one and continuing to work on it, can't wait to see the finished product.
OMG I feel like I've waiting for this since forever, but it was all worth it, thank you for the update
that inuendo from pinkie though
actualy, i thought that in this word the difference between discords would be that celestia never loved him here or never even took him in.
8336923
No. This Celestia sacrificed everything she ever felt for Discord to Chrysalis so she would be able to be completely ruthless against him, but those emotions were originally there. The only significant difference between the life of this Discord and the life of ours was figuring out that the Elements were operational about forty-five seconds earlier than ours did.
Very happy to see this updated! Great, thanks!
♡
I'm very sorry if someone already pointed this out. It's really something I noticed just now and I wanted to share.
One of the points made in this story is how Order is the opposite of Magic. Normal!Twilight is the Element of Magic and, in a sense, the Princess of Magic as well.
Over the course of later episodes, Regular!Twilight has pulled some things that were positively Discord-like. Appearing in a book Moondancer meant to read? Projecting herself through a ballerina figure? That's some scary stuff, and not just because of the power needed to do so (Starlight has power to spare too) but because of how a mind must work to come up with it. Twilight didn't seem to understand what she was doing freaked other ponies out. It seemed to get worse over time too.
And seeing how Discord has made a hobby of bothering Twilight for fun, I wonder if he's aware of that tendency. Fluttershy is his personal retreat and he loves her, Pinkie Pie is a spiritual kin and refuses to be bothered by what he does (and she appears to freak even him out at times!), but Twilight gets this schoolboy-with-a-crush attention in particular. Perhaps because he can sense there's this tightly-wound ball of neuroses and heroism wrapped around a bubbling core of Magic—including a fuzzy, well-meaning little insanity.
These are incredible stories - book-level quality, characters deeply thought-out, even thought I'm not forgiving OP!Celestia anytime soon. I love your Star Trek stories too.
If Discord hadn't known it was possible for something like a broken soul to exist and had expected any damaged soul to fall apart, how did he deduce there even was such a thing as an insertion of a broken soul into an undamaged one? Did he realize it was theoretically possible, or did something analogous happen to a soul before?
EDIT: Or did he feel magical patterns indicating that this is what was intended to happen?
8370013
He sensed that that was what the other was trying to do because when they touched, the other pushed memories and thoughts into him, and he could see it in the pieces of the other one's mind. Would it have ever worked? Who knows?
>>alarajrogers
Oh, I see.
Damn, this is some pretty amazing story writing, you always manage to make the story seem perfect in on itself and make the readers desire for more, good job mate.
let me just say. That final fuck you from Discord to Fluttershy was by far the most satisfying thing i have ever felt, and it felt so both times that you did it. You made a good choice really showing us Discords pain at her hooves , this moment wouldn't of been nearly as impactful if you hadn't gotten to all the nitty gritty parts of her character and what she'd down.
Very well built up
Well things are finally looking up for our heroes. No ones in danger... for now.
Though the elements of opposition have been kind of quiet lately. Something tells me they aren't quite done yet.
Happy fourth anniversary of this story!
Psst waiting for more.... I really want to see the ending!
Ah, yes, the literary technique known as Chekov's Nuclear Wessel.
What's that, you say? There's an unoccupied alicorn body just lying around somewhere? I wonder if there's anyone who could use a spare... Calling Luna/Cadance as new diarchy in this world's future.
Wow. I... I have to say this series is incredible. What you've done with the logic of this world... all the worldbuilding? It's incredible. I don't think that I could ever read this series a second time--it is too hard in several places--but I'm absolutely tracking with this for any updates you provide. I'm kind of blank on what to say right now except "amazing" over and over.
This is without a doubt one of the most well written, heart wrenching stories I have ever read. Everything you do sets you do sets up for another event. Your take on this alternate reality where just one thing changed is genius. I cannot wait for this to be continued. If the Elements of Opposition get back to their original selves, I hate to say that they somewhat deserve it. And the final "Go fuck yourself" from Discord was just beautiful.