Why didn't one of you ponies stop me from doing that?
Well, obviously, because from your perspective all of this is happening in the past and I'm either dead or in stone, but really, if you actually cared, you might have found a way around that. It is so terribly, blatantly obvious when I reread my last chapter that I was mind-whammied into going and confronting Anon... I mean I started out by saying I knew there were better strategies than just rushing in to kill Anon, and doing that would probably get me killed, and I had a plan... and yet I went and did it anyway.
This scares me. Why am I recording this journal if I'm not going to bother to read it? If it never enters my head to check over my prior entries to make sure that they aren't advising me not to do the thing I've just decided to do, then how can I place a check on myself? That's not Anon's doing, I fear; I've always been impulsive. It's an occupational hazard of chaos. Twilight Sparkle should be the one fighting a mind-warper; she could make a checklist where the top item was to check her checklist and then her checklist could list all the things that she shouldn't do and everyone knows Twilight Sparkle will never undertake anything without checking her checklist first, so if she was in my position and writing on her checklist "Don't go kill Anon because it will get you killed and you have a better plan than that," and then she worked herself up into a rage and decided to go kill Anon, she would check her checklist first and there it would be, "don't go kill Anon." Whereas I don't check checklists. And writing a checklist to myself to tell me to check the checklist would fail at the first step because I wouldn't check the checklist that would tell me to check the checklist. So in other words I'm doomed.
Well. I managed to avoid dying this time. And if I start rounding up my gang of misfits to carry my Elements of Disharmony, they might be able to warn me the next time this happens. Elements of Disharmony don't work well together but there's no reason for any of them not to get along with me, I just have to keep them away from each other. Shouldn't be too hard. I'm going to start recruiting candidates as soon as I'm done writing about what just happened. Because after I write this down, I think that anypony who picks this up after I fall will recognize, beyond a doubt, exactly how awful Anon is and how badly Equestria needs to get rid of him.
Trying to kill me? Hah, as if any of you ponies would do different if you had the power to. Turning stallions into mares? You probably don't even believe me that that happened. (Check the census records. Do you have any idea how incredibly, unbelievably dull it is to read census records? Do you know I would rather be chopped into very tiny bits by Anon's sword and fricasseed while still conscious than attempt to forge an entire nation's worth of census records for multiple generations? Seriously I know it is going through your heads right now, "But how can we trust Discord? He could have forged the records himself!" No, I couldn't have, not and retain what I have that passes for sanity. My brain was melting out my ears just from reading a few of those record sets. Besides, I can't count, so you can prove it wasn't me by checking to see if the math adds up. If it does, then boom, I have an alibi.) Making mares into rapists? Can't prove that was Anon. Forcing the Bearers to fall in love with him? You're a species that's okay with the concept of love magic and love potions, so quite possibly you don't find this idea as repulsive as I do. (Which is why I'm better than you. When I break ponies and mess with their minds, I do it in a way that makes everypony convinced it's a change for the worse and should be corrected. Nopony wants to keep my violations of pony minds and personalities around permanently or treat them like they're real. Whereas you ponies with your love magic and love potions think that magically compulsory love is just fine!) Messing with my history? You have only my word for it that it was the true history; certainly Celestia and Luna can't tell you differently.
But when I tell you what just happened, you'll realize that in his own way, Anon has caused as much disharmony as I did, breaking bonds as sacred as the bonds of friendship between the bearers, or even more so. You'd have to be a total xenophobe not to be moved by this story. It bothers me, and you all know what a callous bastard I am.
So as I'm sure you all recall from my last riveting chapter, I became overwhelmed with rage after writing down the details of how Anon erased Celestia's (and presumably Luna's) memories of our actual childhood together in favor of some horribly clichéd melodrama where I killed their father (who was the closest thing I had to a father, meaning I was just a trifle more upset with this turn of events than one might otherwise think), and decided to run off and kill Anon, despite having said to myself at the start of that same very chapter that I wasn't going to run off and kill Anon. To be entirely fair, it's possible I wasn't being mind-whammied; I was really upset, and I've been known to do things that were, shall we say, poorly thought out, when I get sufficiently upset.
Fortunately for me, I wasn't stupid enough to go challenge him openly to a duel or something like that. I suppose villains don't get to swell up with righteous rage and demand that the hero face retribution for his crimes; villains get to sneak around and come up with totally underhanded plans even when they're rushing off and being stupid. Thank chaos for that; I've never been more glad that I gave up on the heroic career path centuries ago. Whammied or provoked, either way I had still managed to retain enough of my cool to come up with a plan.
The library has served as the ladies' unofficial headquarters since they kicked Moonie's flank, so Anon's home is technically there, though on the principle that friendship is sharing they have him going over to the others' homes. A lot. Or several of them get together for a "sleepover" at the library, which seems to involve rather little actual sleeping. (Before you call me a voyeur, I should point out that I have been using the Panauricon to gather this sort of information, which means I can only hear the action, not see it. Thus I am technically an audieur or something like that.) My plan was fairly simple: slip into the library at night while they are all sleeping, cast sleep spells on any ponies around as well as the baby dragon, drag Anon out of bed (in his jammies or the altogether, however he likes to sleep), take him someplace safe (for me, not him) like the Everfree, and slowly strangle him to death. Preferably after breaking both his wrists so that if he could somehow magically summon the Element of Protection to himself, he still wouldn't be able to use it.
As a plan it had some merit. It wasn't an overly complicated deathtrap, it didn't require complex magic, it was fairly simple and it kept all of the innocent bystanders out of it. However, there were some obvious problems that I might have thought of, if I'd been thinking. Strangling someone to death is both slow and boring; if a plan was going to overcome my personal tendency to want to ditch the plan in favor of jazzing things up, it would have to either be exciting in the first place, in which case it would be complicated enough to fail, or I'd have to do it fast and efficiently. I can do fast, but I am not good at efficient. One swipe of my claws in his sleep and he'd have been done for, but then he wouldn't be awake for it and he wouldn't even know he was dying, let alone who was killing him. If my true goal had been his death, I could have just replaced his heart with a baked potato, or something else long distance. But no, I wanted him to know he was dying, and I wanted him to know why, because this was about revenge.
Revenge rarely works out well for me. Can't imagine why not.
Ponies are always very down on snakes for some reason. Why, they call other ponies snakes as if it were an insult. If you want to know the truth, I think they're jealous. See how far they could get without legs. Slithering is a wonderful form of locomotion when you're trying to be invisible without actually using magic to do it; with your body so low to the ground, there's very little contrast, and so you're very difficult to see. Particularly if you are not a bright pastel-colored pony, but colored in naturalistic and mostly dark earth tones. Oh, I'm superb at claiming the center of attention and making sure everypony's looking at me when I so choose, but I'm also one of the stealthiest creatures on the planet when I want to be.
I summoned clouds – perfectly ordinary, boring, pegasus-made clouds, full of water vapor, nothing to do with cotton candy or chocolate milk whatsoever, or in fact anything chaotic or unusual aside from the fact that they'd been scheduled for a small town north of Ponyville and I'd taken them instead – and used them to cover the moon, throwing Ponyville into dimness. Batponies, cats, and I can see perfectly well in the dark, but the more common pony types can't, so I had excellent cover as I climbed the Golden Oaks library tree, located a window, and slithered in through it. Twilight had wards around the place to block inbound teleportation, but left her window open. I don't actually think this was Anon-brand idiocy on her part; I think my dear little Element of Nerdiness would have made such an oversight under any circumstances. She doesn't think of ordinary pegasi or flying animals as threats, she doesn't expect wyverns or griffins or ikaroi to be coming in her window, ponies can't climb trees and she doesn't expect a threat from bears or minotaurs or cats, and she forgets that in addition to all my marvelous chaos magic, I'm incredible and amazing just on the level of my animal abilities. Twilight sees other mages as a potential threat, and compensates, but who besides Rainbow Dash is going to come in her open window?
Well, me, for starters. I ended up in a guest bedroom, which Anon was notably not sleeping in. Slithering, in addition to being barely visible when you're dark-colored and stick to the shadows, is also almost silent. Twilight's pet owl isn't much of a watch-bird; he spends most of the night hunting for food, since Twilight's too squeamish to catch live mice for him. I'd already confirmed he wasn't on the premises. Had there been a dog present, I might have worried, but Applejack's the only one of the group who has one; Fluttershy has ill or injured dogs recuperating on her premises frequently but no full-on carnivores actually live with her, for somewhat obvious reasons, and Twilight is barely capable of taking care of one pet. It sometimes surprises me that her dragon survived infancy. Checklists or no, Twilight hyperfocuses on things like her studies and really, any book she happens to be reading, and frequently forgets to eat, let alone feed the pets. So no creature in the library was awake, and none had sufficiently good hearing to detect me in their sleep.
Anon and Twilight were both in Twilight's bed, which was too small for a six-head coatless monkey to fully stretch out in, so he was more or less curled on his side, around her. One of his arms was under her neck, and one of her forelegs was under his. It might have looked adorable if I didn't know the monkey had no right to be there. Also, if I thought the sight of ponies being lovey-dovey and snuggly with each other was adorable, which I don't. Also, if I didn't totally despise Anon, which I do. Both were naked, with a thin blanket thrown over Anon's lower body and then Twilight's hind legs on top of that. Of course, ponies are usually naked, but humans are usually not, since they stand on two legs, unlike ponies, and don't hide their genitals inside their body, like me, dragons, minotaurs, and practically every other bipedal creature actually native to this planet, with the result that the male ones have really stupid-looking floppy things hanging between their legs when they're unclothed. (Let it not be said that I have no appreciation for male genitalia. Quite aside from my great appreciation of my own, I've found great enjoyment in the equipment of others, over the years. Sex is much too much fun to limit oneself to playmates of a single given gender. But like any sports or gaming equipment, genitals should be put away when not actually in use, otherwise they get in the way and look quite silly.)
I smirked to myself. Possibly because of how dumb they look without clothing, humans find it humiliating to be seen that way outside of sexual, medical or hygienic contexts. Anon was the sort who expected his death, when it came, to be heroic and noble. Instead he was going to die butt naked and too busy choking to make any brave final speech, far from his friends, with my tail around his neck, and then I'd leave him in the forest to be food for wild creatures. There are more ignoble deaths, but they'd take more work to set up and run a greater risk of him escaping his fate.
Spike was sleeping in his usual bed, at the foot of Twilight's. I frowned at that. Exposing kids who are too young to start having sex yet to sexual situations is just rude. Rather like eating cookies and not sharing any, except that the person you're not sharing with is just as likely to be nauseated by your cookies as to want any. Of course, dragons are infamous for being able to sleep through almost anything, so perhaps they kept their activities restrained to his sleepytimes, but with an entire guest room why hadn't they given the little dragon his own room?
Well, it wasn't going to matter soon, I thought, because I was going to remove the problem from both of their lives, and solve everything.
For a moment – just a moment – I actually considered biting the three of them. If I haven't emptied it for safety or changed what's inside it to some other substance, the venom sac attached to my fang contains a potent hallucinogen. I use it so rarely I sometimes forget I even have it, as biting is rather brute and animalistic – I am an intelligent, sophisticated creature of chaos, not a mindless, speechless beast – and because I prefer to create chaos in pony minds through magic, not drugging them. I did at one point have a cult who actively brought me gifts and showered me with attention in exchange for my biting them with my fang – they called it the Mark of Chaos and did everything in their power to persuade me to let them trip out on my venom as much as possible – but obviously they haven't been around in a while. Normally the thought of biting my opponents never even enters my head. But ever since making the decision to kill Anon without using magic, I'd been feeling very – hmm, how to put this. Very much in tune with my animal nature. The thought of using my claws and teeth and fang was appealing, rather than appalling as it usually is. And with my venom in them neither Twilight nor her baby dragon would be in any shape to be able to fight me; they'd be much too busy cooing at the green elephants in tutus morphing into baby carrots with giant eyeballs.
But no, I decided. I didn't like the idea of using something that many ponies (and griffins, and goats, and minotaurs, and you get the idea) had considered something precious and desirable, and had begged me for, as a weapon. Twilight and Spike and Anon wouldn't appreciate my hallucinogenic venom, and therefore I wasn't going to give it to them. Nyaah. If Twilight and Spike woke up while I was preparing to kill Anon, then fine, they could watch helplessly as I dragged him away to his fate. Once he was dead, hopefully their heads would clear and they'd realize what a favor I'd just done them.
First things first, though. The Element of Protection was still on a chain around Anon's neck, even in his sleep. I examined the chain – not the element itself, it made me rather ill to look at it with my magical senses, just the chain -- and determined it to be a perfectly normal, non-magical, soft gold chain. The Element of Protection radiating its distorted harmonics so close to it would prevent me from using the trick I used on Winnie's chain, and just making it snap with magic. But a gold chain is soft enough for me to tear it with my bare hands. So I slithered over to the side of the bed, reached up, very delicately took the chain from the back of his neck with my eagle talon... and yanked, hard.
This woke him up, of course, but I grabbed his free wrist, the one not pinned under Twilight, with my lion paw, and yanked him off the bed before he had time to do much more than thrash. The broken chain slipped off his neck, and the Element of Protection clattered to the floor and went bouncing under the bed. I wrapped my tail around his neck and flew upward, giving me more clearance to let his body dangle down without his being able to touch the floor. Of course he pulled at my tail with the hand I wasn't holding, the one that had been under Twilight before I snatched him off the bed, but my tail is covered in dragon scales and is significantly stronger than a boa constrictor. Pulling at it and digging his miniscule flat claws (I believe humans call them nails, but I can't imagine why – nails are supposed to be sharp, long and skinny, and human nails are none of those things) into it did him no good whatsoever. He also tried to get his other hand free from my talon. He was having a bit more success there – my talon is my more dexterous arm, but not my strongest one, and Anon might have actually been a bit stronger than me there. On the other hand, my talon has claws. Once I dug them into his wrist hard enough, he stopped moving his arm quite so much. He kept trying to kick me, but since he was hanging in front of me, and humans aren't designed so well for back kicks, he just kept hitting my tail or my dragon leg, which, again, dragon scales. I barely noticed.
Twilight, of course, woke up. Her horn lit up, at which point I snapped my fingers and collected it in my lion paw. "Ah-ah-ah, Twilight, you could hurt someone with that if you're not careful!" I said, and stuck it in a wall sconce I had just made for it. It was still alight with the magic she was trying to cast, and shone a dim purple glow in the darkened room.
Then something very sharp bit the back of my tail.
"Agh!" I yelled, and instinctively swung my tail at the thing that bit me, which resulted in me whacking Spike with Anon and sending him rolling across the room. (Dragon teeth can get through dragon scales, apparently.) This put Anon in a position where he was actually able to kick me in the ribs and wing, hard, but I didn't let go of him. Instead I snapped my talon (which for obvious reasons was no longer holding Anon's wrist), and suspended both Spike and Anon in front of me, rings of energy around their necks. Human necks being as weak as they are, Anon had to hold onto the energy ring I had suspended him by, or he'd have strangled under his own weight.
"Anon!" Twilight screamed, and tried to charge me, but I made a flicking motion and flung her backward, into the bed.
I had just had a much better idea than carrying Anon off and slowly strangling him, I thought, and grinned at the three of them. I was going to make him suffer before he died by making the pony he'd mind-controlled into being one of his six fillyfriends sentence him to death.
"How sweet," I said. "Even without your horn, you're still willing to fling yourself bravely into battle with the Spirit of Chaos to save your boytoy and your pet dragon. Tell me, Twilight, what were you planning to do? Stomp on my foot? Buck me in the leg?"
"Let them go!" she screamed at me.
"Mm, not yet. I have a fun game we can play first! It's called 'Who Does Twilight Truly Love?'"
"Let them go now, Discord!"
Anon choked out, "Twi – E'men – unner bed!"
"Oh no no no," I said, chuckling. "Twilight, make one move toward the underside of that bed and you'll doom both of them. And you, monkey, be quiet. The grownups are talking." I tightened the energy ring around Anon's neck enough that he had to gasp to suck in any air.
"Please," Twilight said, her eyes starting to fill with tears. "Please don't hurt them."
"Well, that's up to you, my dear." I let the lights blaze up in the room and surrounded us with cameras, screens displaying the faces of my captives – Spike absolutely terrified, wide-eyed, digging into my energy ring with all the strength in his little claws (uselessly – an adult dragon actually might have been able to cut through that ring, which was why I didn't bother using anything like it on Winnie, but Spike was much too young and weak to manage it), and Anon, gasping and turning purple. "It's time to play Twilight's Choice!"
In front of Twilight's face I manifested a doll, a smiling toy pony with button eyes and a floppy body made of rags. It was made to look remarkably similar to the one she'd made her entire town go mad about the week after she'd turned me to stone. (So many Ponyville residents had dreams about that doll and their own mad obsession for it, it wasn't that hard for me to figure out what was going on, even though I was once again paralyzed in darkness at the time.) I hadn't actually taken her doll or duplicated it perfectly, since to be honest, I'd only seen it in the dreams of ponies and had no idea what exactly the thing looked like or where it was, but it was similar enough that I hoped it reminded her. Another golden, glowing energy ring, just like the ones I had around Spike and Anon, held the doll up by the neck.
"Our contestant for this evening is Twilight Sparkle!" I said. "Now, Twilight, since you're new to our game, here is how it's played. You're going to pick one of these two fine fellows for me to let go. And the other one..." I made a pincer motion with my talon, and the energy ring around the doll's neck contracted violently. The doll's head popped off and went flying, shedding stuffing, while its ragdoll body dropped to the ground.
Twilight started shaking her head. "No, no," she said, starting to cry. "Please, Discord, please let them both go, please..."
"Sorry, no can do! Those are the rules. Two ponies enter, one pony leaves! Well, technically, neither of them are ponies, but you know what I mean." I let the spotlight fall on Spike, and the camera zoom in for a closeup. "Who will you save? Will it be the dragon you've raised from an egg? Your faithful assistant, best friend, and errand boy? The little guy you hatched, who sleeps at the foot of your bed and treats you like his big sister?" The spotlight switched over to Anon. "Or the guy you just met that you inexplicably fell madly in love with and decided to share with all your best pony pals?" I left a spotlight on both of them, and closeups on two different screens, enjoying the look of impotent rage and helplessness on Anon's face as he struggled. I wasn't choking him hard enough for him to black out, just enough to make him very, very uncomfortable in his last moments. Cut my tail off, will you? Try to kill me? Laugh while your sword's Harmony energies disintegrate me? Oh, I was going to get my revenge. First I'd make him suffer helplessness, humiliation and pain, just as he'd done to me. And then I was going to make him watch as a pony who supposedly loved him gave him up to a horrible death to save the creature he obviously thought of as a worthless sidekick, given what I'd been hearing in the Panauricon.
I knew Twilight Sparkle. I'd been watching her since the day she hatched this dragon, after all. I knew how much she loved him. I'd observed her doting on him like a little mother when she was a little filly and he was barely hatched. I'd seen her dream of hand-feeding him tiny little gems and rocking him to sleep in her forelegs, or with her magic. Anon might be her boyfriend, she might even believe him to be her One True Love, but Spike was like Twilight's child, or at the very least like her baby brother. So I didn't doubt for a moment who her choice was going to be.
"Please," Twilight said. "Please, Discord! You – you're not a killer! Otherwise you could have killed all of us instead of just trying to discord us and break up our friendship! Don't do this!"
"Oh, but that's not what Anon thinks," I said, and shook him by his ring. "Anon thinks I'm a vicious murderer. Anon thinks I rip ponies apart with my teeth and laugh about it. And whatever Anon believes, apparently, that's what we're all supposed to be! I wouldn't be a killer, no, but it's plainly what Anon wants me to be, and far be it for me not to give Anon what he wants, just like everypony else does!" That was as close as I felt I could come to telling the truth – I knew I couldn't actually explain that Anon had overwritten Celestia and Luna's memories to make them think I was a killer, or that Anon had been warping our reality to make everything happen the way he wanted it to. I was actually a little surprised I'd gotten away with saying as much as I had, but I guess it was cryptic enough that he, or his power, was too stupid to figure it out. "So today I can be a killer, Twilight. One of these two will live and one will die. Right here, right now, right in front of you. Which will it be?"
"Twilight," Spike whimpered – I wasn't choking him too hard for him to talk. "Please..."
I saw Anon mouthing "Save the kid" at her. Oh, how heroically droll. I knew he was only saying that because heroes are supposed to, and that he didn't think for an actual moment that she really would—
"Anon then," she said, and choked on a sob, her head lowered.
I stared at her. Had I heard that right? "Excuse me?"
"Anon, then! Let him go! Equestria needs him – needs him more than, than... Spike..." She collapsed to four knees, crying. "Let Anon go and kill Spike, then, if you have to kill someone! Equestria needs him... I need him! Please, let him go!"
I didn't look at the screen that showed Anon's face. My eyes fell on the one that showed the little dragon's. His eyes so wide and horrified, filling with tears, the betrayal plainly crushing him. And then he squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his paws from the ring, his head bending forward as much as the ring would allow. I can sense disharmonious emotions. Usually, I enjoy them. Usually, when I feel such despair radiating from a creature because I pushed a family member into abandoning or betraying them like that, it gives me gleeful satisfaction.
But this stunned even me. I'd made pony mothers reject their foals before, but not to death. Not for the sake of their deep and profound mind-whammied love for someone they'd met a month ago. And not someone I'd been watching their entire lives, someone I'd seen love and care for the one they'd just betrayed.
For a moment, just a moment, I was about to do it. End the little dragon's life. Force Twilight Sparkle to live with the consequences of the choice she'd just made, for the rest of her existence. I was utterly disgusted with Twilight, and I wanted her to suffer for the choice she'd just made.
But I hadn't come here to do that. I'd come here to kill Anon, and my little game had just failed, and by the terms of the rules I'd set up I was supposed to let him go now, but I was more disgusted with him than I had ever been. It wasn't Twilight's fault she had never been strong enough to resist Anon's power. I wasn't strong enough to resist Anon's power.
I'd just been played. He was trying to turn me into a sadistic killer who'd murder a little boy, after forcing his older sister to sacrifice him. I'd said it myself, I was going to be a killer today because that was what Anon wanted me to be. And of course I couldn't kill Anon himself, the heroic narrative would never allow that. I was supposed to kill the baby dragon to prove what an irredeemable monster I was. And I'd have done it, too, if I hadn't been staring at his face in the screen at the moment Twilight betrayed him.
I remembered crying in a cage, begging for my mother to come back for me, to save me, and I remember the moment when I realized she never would. Now that I'm an adult, I know that she couldn't come back for me because she was dead. But at the time, when I was so desperate and alone and I needed her so badly, the realization that she wasn't coming felt like abandonment, the same as it had felt the night she died and they all died and I was left all alone, and no matter how much I called for her she never came.
And Twilight wasn't even dead. She'd just abandoned Spike to die, in front of his face. I knew she was mind controlled, but he didn't.
I didn't want the baby dragon dead. The fact that I'd even thought for a moment of going through with it and killing him horrified me. And in that moment when I was stunned, reeling in my mind with horror, Anon twisted himself around, hanging onto the energy ring with both hands, and kicked me in the face.
Now I was really stunned. I dropped them both, the energy rings vanishing. You'd think Anon would need time to recuperate after nearly being strangled, but no, he grabbed me by my tail and swung me into the wall, hard. "You son of a bitch!" he screamed at me, repeatedly flailing me at the wall, first in one direction and then in the other, which led to my hitting a lot of furniture along the way too. I might have enjoyed the mess I was making of Twilight's room if it wasn't being made by me being flung back and forth. Half my antler snapped off, my jaw broke, and I ended up with whiplash, a horrible ache in my back and neck, and a concussion. "You fucking asshole! How dare you put Twilight through that! How dare you!" I was too dazed to fight back or even struggle very much, it all happened so fast.
"Anon! I've found the Element!" I heard Twilight say.
Anon dropped me. "Give it here. I'm going to end this fucker once and for all."
I lifted my head, and saw Spike staring at me. Well, actually I saw three Spikes staring at me and a lot of random blobs of darkness floating around the room. Twilight had gotten her horn back when I'd lost control of my magic, so my spotlights were all gone but the normal magical room lighting was on, and they weren't playing nice with the concussion I'd just acquired.
There was Twilight, still focused on Anon, bringing him a weapon to kill me with, paying no attention to her little dragon at all. There was Anon, full of self-righteous fury, entirely focused on beating and killing the villain and not at all on helping my victim. And there was Spike, all three of him, eyes still full of tears, looking at me with an expression I couldn't read. Sadness? Weariness? Emptiness?
Twilight's choice didn't surprise him, I realized. It had horrified and shocked him, but then when it sank in he'd decided that it didn't surprise him after all. Somewhere, somehow, he'd learned that he was worthless to the ponies he loved, or at least, not worth as much as Anon was.
I don't do empathy so I'm still trying to figure out why I reacted as strongly as I did. Maybe because he's a dragon, and as a draconequus I'm closer to his species than I am to ponies... though I'm pretty sure that can't be it, given how many dragon hatchlings I killed during the war. Maybe because I've never seen a pony foal abandoned and betrayed the way I was unless I myself caused it, and I'd done nothing to make Twilight choose Anon. Maybe just because I was so surprised at her choice. I don't know.
I was sick and dizzy and it was hard to concentrate on my magic, but I wasn't going to let Anon kill me. I wasn't going to leave the world in the hands of this creature that could make a mare give up her little brother to be killed and feel righteous about it. He thought Twilight's anguish from making that horrible choice was because I forced her to it, but it was his fault. His power had orchestrated this whole thing, and I had just nearly fallen for it.
He raised the small crystal to the air, summoning power as he had before. The gem lengthened into a sword; his armor materialized around him. And I snarled at him, tongue thick with a concussion and the fact that I'd bitten it several times while he was smashing my head into the wall, "This isn't over, monkey boy."
Then I teleported.
Okay, on writing this down I can see how ponies might take this story the wrong way. I do look pretty villainous here, don't I. I mean, if I'd stuck to the plan and hadn't involved Twilight and Spike, Anon would be dead and feeding the wildlife in the Everfree, Twilight would never have sold Spike out and the world might even be returning to normal right now, except for the part where I'd be coming in with my chaos. But no, I had to gloat, I had to try to torment Anon with being abandoned by his loved ones the way he made Celestia turn on me, and now boy don't I look stupid.
In my defense, I can't know that Anon made me come up with all those mustachio-twirling idiocies; I've been known to do some awfully dumb things in the pursuit of villainy all by my lonesome, like, um, standing around and putting a target on my chest for the Elements to fire at because I was so convinced they couldn't have pulled themselves back together that I didn't bother to look. And I'll confess it, the thought of making Anon suffer emotionally because his lover abandoned him to die was, and still is, much more viscerally satisfying to me than the thought of killing him. I mean, I'm the Spirit of Disharmony, not the Spirit of Death. Crushing love and destroying relationships is my bread and butter, and doing it to an enemy who didn't deserve that love in the first place (and who more or less did the same thing to me by retroactively erasing the one love I ever had) is a very, very attractive notion, even now. So, you know, it's possible that I did all of that on my own, from idiotically and impulsively charging off to kill Anon, to deciding to drag it out with a sadistic game so he'd suffer more.
But isn't it a remarkable coincidence that if I hadn't dragged myself away at the last second, I'd have ended up validating Anon's belief that I'm a monstrous killer, without actually getting to kill him?
I'm not the sort of draconequus who presents ponies with murderous Hobson's Choices. I'm just not. No-win choices, yes, but not murderous ones. So I, personally, am convinced that that entire incident was orchestrated by Anon, except for the ending, because he, or his power since I'm fairly sure he's not doing any of this consciously, didn't expect me to have any empathy for Spike whatsoever. (Still not completely sure why I did. Maybe because it was the only thing that could break me out of following the pattern some other force was pushing me into, and chaos is all about breaking patterns and defying expectations. Maybe my own power helped me resist by making me suddenly see myself in a baby dragon. Again, I can't know.)
The point is, regardless of whether or not I'm an irredeemable bad guy... you can see how awful Anon is, right? I mean, I'm correct in this, and making Twilight betray her baby dragon was beyond the pale? That is how ponies would perceive this, right?
Well. I'm not letting this happen again. I have three Elements of Disharmony now, and a few candidates to hand them out to. By using the Panauricon, and by taking the form of Twister or other random ponies and questioning the locals in Ponyville, I've identified several ponies (well, okay, one is actually a griffin) who've been in conflicts with the Bearers, and confirmed that three of them have such ludicrously overblown feelings of anger that it's obvious they're being controlled by Anon into being continuing antagonists. For one of them in particular, I happen to know he didn't feel that way between the time he was humiliated by Rarity and the time Anon entered the picture; Prince Blueblood is Celestia's nephew, and spends enough time in Canterlot Gardens that I had opportunity to observe him before and after.
I'm sure he was quite irritated and humiliated by Rarity's behavior during the Gala (oh, if only stone eyes could have seen! I was right there, listening to most of it, and it was gloriously chaotic... that much chaos, and so much of it created by the new Element Bearers, so close to me, when the bonds that held me had been growing steadily weaker for a decade... it warmed the cockles of my heart. Quite literally. The immediate proximate cause of my first escape was that when I pushed disharmony out at a group of foals, three of them responded by getting into a hoof-fight over moi and what I represent, directly in front of me... but the reason that wondrous bit of disharmony got me over the top and allowed me to break free had been all the chaos of the Gala. But I digress.) He never brought it up, though. He continued to take his walks in the Garden and seduce his weekly mare-toys and terrorize his servants with no reference to "that hideous peasant unicorn" until after Princess Pinkness married her boytoy, and now he more or less bitches about Rarity constantly.
So I'm pretty sure that Rainbow Dash's former griffin pal and the unicorn showmare that Twilight outshone once were probably not nearly as obsessed with getting vengeance on the Bearers before Anon's power got hold of them. Not really sure how they match up to the Elements I have, though. Blueblood's a shoo-in for Arrogance if I ever did see one, and the griffin's got enough anger issues to qualify for Rage, but Greed doesn't quite fit the showmare. She'd be better for Deception, except that I'm fairly sure Deception is not where I left it. Well, I have my suspicious as to where it might have ended up, so maybe I should go find it, and meanwhile look a bit harder to see if I can find a good match for Greed. I did find a pair of con artists who had a run-in with Applejack once, but it's hard to split an Element between two ponies, and especially an Element of Disharmony. I'll have to interview them, see if I can make them work.
Blueblood, though, is a definite. And now that I know Celestia has been corrupted and anything she ever felt for me is gone, I feel no qualms at all about recruiting her nephew into my nefarious schemes. He already hates Anon, apparently out of mindless racism, though it might just be Anon's power ensuring that he makes a good antagonist. So I suppose I'm headed back to Canterlot. Wish me luck, future ponies!
Good luck, luv.
awesome chapters you are are doing a amazing job i can't wait for the next chapter
As soon as 3 hours have passed I will read this because I should probably sleep until 6 o'clock.
5657995 well, to be fair, anons desires don't depict him that well. It doesn't even seem to be deeply buried desires, just his outright desireeeeesss"
Wow... winner for the Moral Limbo contest is Anon with help from Twilight. How low can you go indeed.
Poor Spike. This is just making me resent Anon even more than I already did.
Yes, discord, give the elements to the ponies anon WANTS to be antagonists.
Poor Spike :(
Got to say, this and 'King' are in my top five fav stories on this site, I really hope to read more soon!
Huh. You'd think with the way the fandom has always idolized Trixie that she'd be more likely to actually have had a sudden turnaround into a woobie that Anon can help and befriend. Since Trixie remains seemingly mostly unaffected, then, she seems like the only one it'd actually be a GOOD idea to give it to.
Otherwise, I have to go with 5711820's assessment. Not a good plan to give the Elements of Disharmony to the characters that Anon WANTS to be the villains... >_>
I'm getting the distinct impression that Spike will be the key to resolving the issue with Anon one way or another. I could be wrong about it and Spike is just a lens through which Discord further refines himself, but I'm getting the impression he is important. Especially if he is now tagged.
My heart broke for Spike.
And thus, do we bid farewell to Twilight Sparkle. Her logic, her reason, her complete sensibility are no more, for she did not reason that since Equestria had done fine without Anon for a thousand some years, it would do fine without him for another thousand some years. We need a new name for this shell of a mare.
Goodbye, Twilight Sparkle.
Hello, Idiot Pinhead!
I love what's been done with Spike so far, reflecting the fact that most anon in Equestria wish fulfillment fics acknowledge that Twilight has a baby dragon assistant around, but otherwise completely ignores his existence as a character. I'm really hoping Spike plays an important part later on. Like Discord abducts him, shows him the journal and is actually able to explain things to him and get him on board because he's just so completely ignored and pushed into the background by Anon's narrative that the mind warping field rarely pays any attention to him.
This is a very good story, I never seen something like this been made before so I am happy with it.
All in all, Discord is trying very hard to reset everything, but the Super Marty Sue of 'Anon'... Eugh! Is making it nearly impossible.
What got me worried is his focus on the Disharmony, why is he so fixated on them. He should be questioning why he even wants them that badly in the first place. This has all the smell of a setup, it stinks.
What Discord needs to do is bring something from outside the sphere of influence of Equestria, even going to the world of 'anon' to try and bring in another human to break the influence.
This in itself would be hard as he would be tempted to bring a jaded human and what not. The best bet would for him to get someone that is normal, intelligent, reasonable, and has some experience in fighting. From what I seen, Anon just happens to know what to do, or his powers just let him.
If you get another human to counteract that power, but who also has experience in fighting, will be able to top 'Anon' super power.
Anon- making it up as he goes
Trained human- knows what he is doing but understands how combat works.
A trained mercenary, soldier, cop, or even a fighter would be the best bet.
Heck a pegasister would even be better, as it appears Anon is getting all he wants, getting a pegasister on his case would cause Anon to panick at what not.
Also, i am looking for worlds to dabble in and this seems to be a very interesting one. If you are interested in the idea, send me an email and I will describe it to you.
5712156
You know, that doesn't actually sound like such a bad idea.
Another human doesn't really fit into the whole wish-fulfilment-stick Anon's doing.
So, naturally, that human would need to be a brony/pegasister an a critical thinker to recognise the horseapples Anon's pulling off.
I concur that pegasister would be preferable, since a female would be have it easier to relate to the main cast and would not really act as competition for Anon.
Better yet, someone who's older than Anon, because age equals reliability, credibility and wisdom.
Since Anon is the cliché of a bad author avatar / self-insert, I think it is obvious what we need to counter that...
Now, who can tell what I'm getting at?
Oh, poor Spike. That's going to cause some disharmony in Ponyville, I'm sure...
...hey, I wonder how Spike would do with the Element of Greed? If it helps to keep Spike's things closer to Spike, would it help to bring Spike's Twilight back?
Jesus my heart just stopped when twilight chose anon over spike. Damn that was just horrible.
This story is so freaking good, fuck...
I have to constantly remind myself not to actually hate Anon, because though he is stupid and also the cause of a lot of... well, issues... He isn't actually doing it on purpose (that we know of). And that makes me feel a lot of conflicting emotions. Which just makes me feel that this story is even better for it.
So good...
Wow this is a reeeeeeally good chapter poor Spike, What I wish could have happened is Discord when Twi sold out Spike just shake his head, given Twilight a 'Reason you suck' Speech and dumpped Anon on her teleporting away with Spike explaining to the little guy why he's trying to do and requirt him to help. at the very least Spike'd be able to help keep Discord mentally in check a little by doing what he does for Twilight making checklists and checking Anon's not making Discord go loopy again XD
Interesting. I do hope that Spike notices how Discord deliberately chose not to carry through on that. Twilight and Anon will of course see it as Anon brilliantly saving the day, his kick being the only thing that saved them. One of the few advantages Spike has is being ignored by Anon, so it's possible for him to see what really went on there. Especially with Discord's intro speech about Anon being the one to believe he is a murderer.
Dammit Alara. At this point, I don't even know if I hate ANON or Evil Fluttershy more. I mean, at least with E Fluttershy I know she's not going to kill Discord. Anon's just... everything I hate mixed together. I really hope this story has a happy ending. Or, at least Discord doesn't die. *sigh* This story is not good for my blood pressure, but I love it.
Weasels/Ferrets/Whatever they were confirmed for not being carnivores, and fish confirmed for not being meat. Unless this is an AU tag thing.
HATE. ANON, LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO READ THIS FIC. THERE ARE SEVEN BILLION BILLION BILLION ATOMS IN THE HUMAN BODY. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE ATOMS IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR MARY SUES AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE!
Oh Spike....
5712231 Yes a human would work wonders especially if discord got the right one. Personally I would want to get perhaps the HPMoR Harry Potter since he would notice right away any brainwashing because of his "methods of rationality" he has trained in also he's freaking GENERAL CHAOS in his universe. Discord could just use his magic to do a vaguely specified summon to get a powerful ally that would be on his side of chaos and it would just flow perfectly. Harry loves to understand and exploit rules of all kind so that would mean hes good at using order, he is just as twisty or even more so than Voldemort and Dumbledore (possibly both of them combined his home universe versions) which makes him right at home in chaos, and the fact his overall goal is to make all of humanity immortal and get them to colonize the galaxy and perhaps the universe eventually he is definitely not weak to harmony. hmm he would probably automatically ascend to godhood the microsecond he arrived in Equestria and would realize very quickly. Though because that happening would cause discord to win automatically there's no way it would ever happen.
Also I will be very appalled if you decide not to give Spike an extremely central and critical role to the story after you talk about how anon completely ignored Spikes existence. I really hope you don't show yourself to be a massive hypocrite.
OK, the less I know about your cockles, the better.
5712405
I thought they were raccoons, which are omnivores. Unless there was something I missed. Discord didn't say nothing at Fluttershy's eats meat, just that nothing is a pure carnivore. Though technically, dogs aren't, judging from how thoroughly mine cleans my plates off.
5712559
Quite aside from the fact that Methods of Rationality Harry Potter is himself a Gary Stu (an entertaining one, but still), the only universe Discord can get to right now is Anon's, otherwise he'd run away. And Anon does not come from a universe where Harry Potter is a living being rather than a fictional character.
5711820
Well, to be fair, he kind of has to, because those are the only characters allowed to hate Anon. Everyone else loves Anon and thinks he's wonderful. Discord himself is free of that particular whammy because Anon wants him to be the villain, after all. (He's free of most of the retroactive world alteration whammies because he was in stone when they were done, but given that Anon's power can pull him under and make him follow Anon's script every time he gets close, the only reason he's allowed to continue to hate Anon and want to defeat him is that Anon wants him to be a villain. So he's kind of stuck with using Anon's antagonists because that's all he's got.)
5712156
Discord wants allies. The magic items themselves are only a means to an end, a way of granting a small measure of his own power to an ally without actually losing any of his own power. Because a previous avatar made the Elements of Disharmony, they aren't any skin off Discord's nose; unlike the physical Elements of Harmony, which were grown as objects by that specific tree and required draining its power to work, the previous Chaos avatar who made the Elements of Disharmony is long gone. So Discord can't make such objects himself without draining himself. That's why he wants the ones that already exist. They can't make him, personally, any more powerful, but by giving them to allies, he can give those allies a usable weapon against Anon.
I've said this before: getting a human would not help Discord. At all.
Firstly, Anon's power is not a power any other human has. He doesn't have the power because he's human. It will eventually be revealed why he has this power, but trust me, it is not something any other human shares. This means that any human brought in has no more defense against being sucked into Anon's script than Discord does.
So in a bad Gary Stu there are only two possible roles for another human. The other human can be an ally and friend to the Gary Stu, possibly in a Dragonball Z kind of way where they start out as an enemy, get their ass kicked, and become a friend. Or, the other human can be a foil, an evil counterpart. But since the other human wouldn't have magic, they're only going to be sufficiently evil to justify Anon trying to kill them if they are completely and totally evil -- we're talking like child molesting serial killer here. So either Discord would be bringing over an "ally" who'd betray him and befriend Anon, or he'd be bringing over a monster who'd do terrible harm to the ponies Discord is trying to save. The complexity of there being a second human who opposes the goals of the Gary Stu but isn't evil is not something you find in a bad Gary Stu story.
If Discord wanted a combat-trained ally, he'd be better off getting someone from the Taur nations, which are pretty much always fighting with each other, or a dragon from the dragon nations in the far south, or a reindeer, because reindeer constantly have to fight the caribou (yes, biologically they are the same species, reindeer are caribou. Neither side will listen to you if you tell them that, though.) Or a zebra; zebras live in the most dangerous region on the planet, in an area swarming with non-sapient predators, so although zebras are peaceful with other sapients, there are still a lot of combat-trained zebras who protect other zebras from lions, hyenas, wolves, and so forth. Or a member of the griffin armed forces. Equestria may be so peaceful, and so reliant on magic, that nopony is all that well trained in combat, but that is not true of all the species on the planet. A modern human wouldn't actually be all that useful unless their weapons were brought over as well; how many humans are genuinely good at swordfighting anymore? As in, they do it in combat, not as a sport? Human soldiers nowadays use sophisticated technological weapons that don't exist in Equestria, and I wouldn't want to rely on a gun created by chaos, would you? So Discord can't really supply them with what they're used to.
But aside from all that, Anon's narrative powers would suck a human into his storyline. He literally could not possibly ignore or overlook a human from his own world (or any other human world, but Discord can only get to Anon's world.) So a human is the worst possible ally for Discord to make.
5712885 Fine, a legit reason. Gary Stu aside, Discord is in bad place. Still, there is the human world to fall into.
Not weapon wise, but just to cause general chaos by posting up R-rated pics of the mane6 just to piss him off. Discord seems to be able to resist more often than not, doing things beyond what Anon expects of him should start driving him mad. Really, he doesn't have to fight him, but he can cause problems.
Invading dreams, making nightmares for him (He doesn't have to win, just cause an overwhelming monsters and what not to wake up)
Flood the tree
Have a monster appear in the closet from time to time, easy enough to kill but a pain once it becomes apparent they wont stop coming out.
reorder the books (Drives twilight insane, thus giving problems to anon)
Pick all the apples (Drive Applejack mad, giving anon problems)
Drive the animals away
Take all the flour away
Take all the gems and sewing items away
Make it impossible for Rainbow dash to do her job
Infest the house with termites
Infest it with bugs in general
Have Trixie show up to put on a show, and then leave, then show up again to claim somthing before leaving again. (Do this several times to let them stew in paranoia)
Gilda shows back up to apologize to Rainbow Dash and Pinkie (Going have to mean it too, Applejack and all, going to cause them to wait for the hat to drp)
Have the Flim Flam brothers actually sell something that is beneficial and helpful to the masses (Start trying to tell everyone that its bad, when its actually good)
Scores of things that can drive Anon looney without actually confronting him, he isn't killing anyone, but it will make Anon try to find him all the more apparent, thus driving him out of Ponyville into the world at large to allow Discord to think on what to do next while he is away.
5712231
Oh hayll no. The last ally Discord ought to go looking for is the one who tortures him for the entertainment of others on a regular basis, don't you think? :-)
Somehow, I knew this was coming, but it's no less painful an experience for it.
Though, I am disappointed that Discord didn't have any opportunity to say anything to Twilight before Anon broke free and kicked him, or to otherwise end that encounter on his own terms. Even if it was just giving her a look of disgust and letting the both of them go before teleporting out, he could've done some real damage to Anon's narrative there. But I suppose that such a thing never would've been allowed to happen in the first place.
5712951
This is actually the plan, except that he wants allies to help him with it. If he spends all his time coming up with stupid distractions, then he has no time to actually think through what he's going to do. The Bearers of Disharmony are supposed to help him with the stupid distractions and make Anon think that Discord's big master plan involves the Bearers of Disharmony, when all they were ever intended to be was distractions and annoyances.
5713019 agreed
5711917 The problem with that is that if Spike ever takes a more active role or becomes more assertive, Anon will notice him he will get mind warped as well.
5713091
Anon won't notice Spike unless Spike is actively interfering. Spike sassing Twilight or being gone for long periods of time would not be something Anon would care about.
So... Discord's minewarping is better because it's worse. That's about the kind of logic I expect from him.
If only.
Can't imagine why.
… you forgot the sleep spell, didn't you?
Actually your talon has talons and – nevermind, Discord's talon probably also has claws.
HE'S ACTUALLY SAYING IT!
The question is, will Twilight be too stupid? Probably, since she's usually neck deep in Anon's aura, but I can hope.
This reminds me of a few chapters ago, when someone was wondering why Discord doesn't put back Matrisse together, or bring a shard of it with him, to cancel out Anon's aura; there's no guarantee that Matrisse is stronger than Anon.
Well look how strong the puny ape is. Jeesh. Isn't Discord like twice his height?
So why give him what he wants? Pick someone else!
OH GEE I WONDER WHY.
Oh Spike...
There's no way for me to try and withold judgement on Anon now. Before I couldn't blame him because he was just stupid enough not to realize what's happening, but this confrontation was _so_ much more blatent. Between Twilight claiming Discord doesn't kill ponies and Discord's response it should be obvious that something's wrong. I don't mean that they should know for sure what's going on, but Discord is known for being cryptic and giving out riddles... If Twilight retained enough of her picture of Discord to think that he wouldn't kill a pony, then how could they not question his response? How could he not question the fact that Twilight chose him over what is for all intents and purposes her pseudoson/brother? It's clear he's at least partially aware of the depth of Twilight's and Spike's relation. Is he really so idiotic as to not question how Twilight would choose him over Spike given their history? That's only the product of Anon's stupidity... And ignorance is only so good an excuse. Unless Anon is just as much a pawn here? If this is an unconscious power, it's entirely reasonable that Anon would consciously disagree with the unconscious results.
Still... If that little performance leads to Spike taking on the Element of Greed... I don't think I'll be able to look past Anon's actions even if he's not in control of them.
Sounds like something Ross Scott would use in Freemans Mind.
I love this story, it makes me feel so bad for Discord. I hope that you will make a sort of sequel when this story is done about Discord's current (season 4/5 time) relationship with Celestia and Luna, or that they find the journal or something like that. With your imagination it could be Amazing.
Unfortunately I can only see four possible ways this ends and none of them are good for Discord.
1. The Quote Luna said in her dreams is actually true(that Anon can't leave before Discord is gone/dead) and Discord sacrifices himself to save The ponies(pretty unlikely, since this is Discord)
2. Discord dies and someone(probably fluttershy or celestial sisters) finds the journal.
3. Discord somehow wins in a fight against Anon. In frustration Anon wipes everypony's memory and returns Discord to stone after which Anon goes home making them believe it never happened. Later someone finds the journal.
4. Discord goes out in a blaze of glory killing Anon, but also dies himself, leaving a very tragic(please DON'T let this happen) ending.
Can't wait for more.
Re: Fluttershy and carnivores, I'm just going to leave this link to my usual argument against her having issues with certain ecological niches.
Wow. Ouch. As if being Spike wasn't bad enough in this scenario.
Oh ho. Well, this may be an interesting development. There's something to be said for flying under the radar. And hey, Greed seemed to work out for a dragon before. After all, is it so wrong to want your sister/mother/best friend back?
Now that Discord has gotten the indignation out of his system, this is sure to take a turn for the even more interesting.
5712973 (Please PM me your response) Who are you talking about, and what's a Panauricon?
5713091
Which is why he'd need to work "off screen" as much as possible, just like Discord is able to mostly be himself when not directly in anon's presence. Spike should be able to get closer as he could hang around the library without anon's narrative taking much notice.
5712885 Additional tidbit because HiEs in these scenarios are my bread and butter: basically what you've stated here is true if Discord did bring another human over, he'd be proper fucked (as in the human) no matter what. The two scenarios your portray are the most likely outcome, but the sad thing is that would be the most likely outcome, irregardless of the morality or abilities of whatever human discord brings over. He could bring over the most morally upstanding, meek, humble and principled philosopher who would oppose Anon on everything he's been doing up and down... and Anon's reality warping powers would turn this veritable saint into the child molesting horrorterror evil bad guy his story needs him to be for daring to oppose Anon or even for having SYMPATHY for Discord. Which, frankly, is even more terrifying than if Discord just yanked any number of Earth's resident animalistic pyscopaths to fill this role for Anon.
Calling in warriors from this world's more warlike nations and races would be wise if Discord wanted to swarm Anon with hordes of enemies, he could do the same with humans as well by just reaching across the multiverse (something I always hated in stories but its established as a thing here) and just grabbing a couple of champions from more melee orientated eras, a roman Centurion on his own, a knight, a samurai, a mughal warrior, anything you cared to name. But in both cases it'd be pointless as Anon would roflstomp these poor mortal warriors, turn them against Discord or whatever other horror his story needs them to be warped into becoming.
Another option is Discord calling a time out and calling another god in for help, sure he'd need to do ALOT to convince them to help, a god whose portfolio is time would be endlessly useful in this regard, but that god would likely run into the same problems Discord is and suffer reality warping and God help us all if anon kills the local reality's god of fucking time. Officially breaking causality yet reality still works because his reality bending powers decree it must therefore making ALL OF REALITY dependant on Anon's continued fuckery. So calling in the heavy artillery support is a no go.
At this point I think Discord might be better served attacking anon with golems or robots. Because why the fuck not at this point. Its as likely to work as anything else.
5713841
It's true, Fluttershy is a lot more down with the concept of "life feeds on life" than anyone gives her credit for. I don't think, though, that I've ever seen a resident pure carnivore living at her home -- a cat, a wolf, a dog, a ferret, an owl -- though she would certainly take in and take care of one, and she has no problem with befriending manticores. The problem is that an animal whose entire diet is organized around hunting might not be able to control its impulses so well (My family has a hunting cat who makes problems for the guinea pig and has been seen eyeing my son's conyer.) Raccoons are omnivores and opportunistic scavengers; they will kill and eat small creatures, but it isn't the basis of their entire diet in the wild. Whereas feral cats don't seem to know what to do with themselves when they're not hunting.
In any case, I have consistently portrayed Discord as assuming that Fluttershy is more upset with animals eating animals than she actually is (in the story that Something Different was supposed to first appear in, in the regular universe without rapist waitstaff, Discord asks Pinkie not to tell Fluttershy that he ordered crabs, and he hasn't actually admitted to her that he's not a pure lacto-ovo vegetarian. He also hasn't done his stunt with making a dead chicken with his powers and then eating it, in front of her, though he did that with Tirek, who is also an omnivore and found the chicken tasty.) So Discord may be making some unwarranted assumptions here; in this universe he barely knows Fluttershy, and in the universe where he knows her well he still makes that mistake. But I still don't think she has any pure carnivores as pets. Visitors, yes, pets, no. Though if I have missed any episode in which she turns out to own a snake, then I could be wrong.
5713771
For the record, 1 isn't true, because it's based on the notion that Discord was somehow responsible for bringing Anon here in the first place. He's not. The likelihood that Anon will fuck off and go home if he thinks Discord is alive and free is very low, but it is possible for him to do so. That one wasn't even Anon's idea; that was Luna's dream justification for how she could get both Anon and Discord out of her dream without dreaming of harm to Anon. Luna's subconscious knows that she can't be a hero as long as Anon is present.
5713962
Panauricon is based on the idea of the "panopticon", which means "a device that sees everything." Discord has listening spells planted all over Ponyville and Canterlot, and because he can understand many, many conversational threads at once and comprehend cacophony, he can listen to this roar of sound from all over the place and learn from it. So he's basically spying on everyone, with audio bugs.
oh oh oh...and and and!
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/000/681/what-you-did-there-i-see-it.thumbnail.jpg
5716689
Yes, I thought trippin' balls on a psychedelic hallucinogen made a lot more sense for what that did than somehow being... enchanted into a magical chastity belt? I mean, how is that even supposed to work? :-)
5714491
She does hang out with that bear in a few episodes, but I think he has his own place. Not sure if bears eat enough berries to count as omnivores but I'm certain they can't live on a vegan diet. She did have a falcon and an eagle in the episode where Rainbow gets Tank, though. Then again she also fed some fish to something in another episode, so maybe she worked out an understanding with them. Most animals in Equestria seem unusually intelligent but I don't think that's ever been shown to apply to fish.
Edit: I go and say all that about the fish and then I actually click FoME's link and see the fish looking all happy to see Fluttershy. Now I have no idea.