Discord and Celestia have known each other for over a millennia so he is going to share with her what being encased in stone feels like.
The Before. When everything is fine and joyous
The During. When the confusion and fear envelope you
But there is one thing about this story...There is no end.
* Update *
(OMG Its just a dark story! deal with it! to be honest though I love the debates
but calm down a bit please!)
Based of the story "Silence" by Edger Allen Poe
Inspired by "The Crying Statue" By the Dragon Historian
and "The White Bunny" by Princess Lulaymoon
Rated teen for safety
This is an AU where discord is turned into stone permanently after siding with Teriek.
Chapters (1)
(sighs) And people wonder why I take Discord's side so often. Any entity(Harmony in this case) that repeatedly uses a thousand plus years of isolation as a punishment is neither something I usually can get behind or trust.
Don't get me wrong, its not a bad read, but it is depressing and all it makes me want to do is write a fic about destroying the Tree or Discord committing suicide in the statue, which leads to issues throughout the world if not the universe, or something else that makes Celestia and/or the Tree realized they screwed up.
Cause Discord does NOT deserve this and no one could convince me otherwise.
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You know what I would love for a change? Fics like this that have a happier sequel or bonus chapter. Twilight or someone gets him out of the statue, Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie tearfully and angrily scolding the Tree of Harmony for its cruelty, or even just letting the poor guy die. Hell, I'd just take Celestia or Luna being able to mentally visit him.
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Oh no, I agree. I always enjoy it when some people address how horrifying this could be. My statement was more on the fact that, even with the one's that take this dark angle on it, there are usually only one of two parts it plays. One is like here, where it is shown as a horror with no way out. The others are fics where Discord is out and while it is shown/implied how bad the stoning effected him, no one really cares. Fluttershy might, sometimes Pinkie Pie, but every other pony either doesn't seem to get or just ignores it.
My point? I appreciate these things acknowledging what Discord and other villain, might have gone through, but at the same time, I'd like to see a few more with happier endings, or even just hurt-comfort endings. Little variety and hope in with the bleak eternal punishments.
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I love you both
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If there was a hug emoticon here, I would use it. XP Preferably a Discord one.
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millennia is a synonym of 1000 years
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but can Also be used as a plural
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Its one of those words that technically shouldn't be used like a singular, but often enough is. Probably because it rolls off the tongue a bit better than millennium.
7418034 A tree that used isolation against someone who was quite willing to torture everyone with his 'brand' of fun to the point of breaking reality.
If one might be immortal, and cannot be dealt with in any other fashion, is it cruelty to dispense justice that one could've avoided earning? Why scold the tree for committing justice on cruel tyrants who play puppets with those under them? The focus of the story is on the villain correct, but that allows for one to ignore the plight of those who suffered, should their voices be ignored because the tyrant cries out for the justice that had been served to him? Does one ignore the plight of those who suffered him upon learning he has never changed despite being given a truly major chance?
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I don't want to get into another one of these debates. Every time I do, I feel like I'm ruining the comment section for the author.
But yes, as far as I'm concerned, it is cruel and it isn't justice. I don't believe in justice to begin with, and if I did, I wouldn't have it issued by some Crystal Tree I know nothing about. Nightmare Moon got out after a thousand years and had no desire to change, but instead of being banished again, she was turned back into Luna. Discord equally had no desire to change and at least his way didn't run the risk of killing all life on earth. He got stoned again, and he even had to break out the first time.
Besides, no really gave him a good reason to change- one friend is not enough amongst the constant scorn of the rest. Especially when someone else is offering to be your friend and not judge you for how you want to be.
If the Tree is so powerful, so JUST, than it could have at least either banish him to another universe or let the poor dracon sleep and dream eternally. Instead, we get the clear implication that he is aware of everything, to the point he hears everything Celestia says in the castle.
So no matter what how you try to paint it for me, you are NEVER going to make me buy that extreme long term isolation is a route to go- killing him is more merciful at that point, forget permanent. And if anything, the sheer idea of it makes me want to write fics where this stff comes to bite them in the flank.
Oh, and lastly? We have no confirmation of him torturing anypony. The only one even vaguely implying that is Celestia, his long time enemy. What he did to the Mane 6 was self defense the first time. His so called "betrayal" was him siding with someone who he didn't think was going to try and hold him on a leash.
PS This is like if ants and other insects called justice on you for killing and tormenting many of their ancestor when you were a child.
PSS To the author, I am sorry if this gets out of hand. Or hoof. XP
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I'd really love someday to write a confrontation between him and the Tree of Harmony, if I can just figure out how to make it talk (I mean, I did make it talk in one fic, but it was just a branch that was intended as a cutting to grow a new tree in another universe.) They've done so many terrible things to each other (in canon, the only thing we know of is the plunder vines, but in my universe he created the Everfree to trap the Tree of Harmony and limit its influence), but in the end, he aided the girls in opening the Tree's box, and the Tree accepted his amulet as a key, so it's starting to sound like they can at least work together, if not forgive each other.
I actually have a scene in one story (mentioned, but eventually it will be described) where Discord tries to talk the Tree into turning him into stone again (because he feels profoundly guilty and self-destructive after Tirek), and instead the Tree summons Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie to talk him down off the ledge.
I think turning him to stone for so long was utterly horrible, and was in no sense justice, but depending on how destructive you think Discord was, it may fall under the mad dog rule -- ie, a mad dog is not at fault for becoming rabid, but you have to kill it anyway. It may be that because that was the only way to stop Discord, it had to be done even though it was far, far worse than what he deserved. (I don't think he can easily be killed.) That being said... it was still far, far worse than he deserved, and someday I'd like to see Twilight really grasp the magnitude of what was done to him. (I think Celestia does, and that's why she had him released to be reformed. And Fluttershy does.)
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It depends largely on what you want the origin of the Tree to be in a given fic. One fic I read(yours, maybe?) it was apparently his sister and implied that she turned into the tree for some reason- she seemed to communicate through drops of water Discord could interrupt. One idea I had is that either during the Rainbow-strike or while in stone, Harmony can manifest in a mental form and talk to Discord- she was a very(to him) young spirit in that concept. Though, a more interesting idea would be the Tree gaining its own form. Possibly an alicorn or something else.
I actually had a concept once that the Tree of Harmony is actually the product of a corpse of a creature titled as a "Beast of Harmony"(what it is, is a secret, no spoilers!) whichi s essentially the Predator of the Draconequi. Needless to say, Discord is scared shitless of a living one.
As for the Tree and the Box thing? Eh, I'm of the crowd that believes Discord planned that betrayal to open the box. That, quite possibly, could be Discord's olive branch, or apology,
.....I will LOVE to see that scene you mentioned.
As for the rest?.....I actually have one headcanon(I'm an author, I need many different ones- and at least one has Discord as the literal Devil) that actually excludes the Tree and Celestia of all guilt. It goes back to the elements being turned to stone themselves: justify why that happened anyway you want, doesn't matter for this point to work.
The idea is that because the Elements were stoned, not even the Tree could undo what happened to Discord until they were revived. He might have actually went even through a few cycles of more insane and more sane in there. Celestia, in the second season, either didn't grasp what Discord went through yet or thought that he was just so ancient that a thousand years didn't mean anything to him. After he was resealed, she somehow became aware of it- perhaps a dream-meeting with the Tree itself, or Luna dream walking into Discord's statue and realizing the hell he's been in- assuming that Luna's sealing was different than the statue.
My mental image is that the whole reason the Keep Calm, Flutter On thing worked was because Celestia(and Luna too, possibly) actually apologized to his statue. And just as Discord never had a friend, he's probably never had a sincere apology before, which makes him tentatively curious about the whole thing.
His betrayal than becomes either him faking a betrayal to help Twilight and the Tree, or him taking the lessons of friendship but adding in that it might be best to be friends with beings more like himself.
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I have two universes with Discord myself -- one where he's Q (from Star Trek, the character Discord is actually based on) and one where he's the Equestrian avatar of chaos, one of three entities charged with maintaining the magical balance of the world. In the one where he's Q, he totally planned the betrayal to open the box, and is responsible for the creation of the box in the first place -- the Tree of Harmony is a Continuum expert system, and when the plunder vines had paralyzed it, he hacked it to produce the box. (The idea there is that the Rainbow Power links the girls' life force to Twilight's through the magic of friendship... thus making all of them immortal. Because Q had already promised that he personally would not make Fluttershy immortal.) But losing his powers wasn't part of the plan -- the person who was supposed to learn the friendship lesson was Tirek, Q underestimated Tirek's level of sociopathy, didn't realize that Tirek was capable of taking his own powers (not the power of the Continuum, or he'd have been unbeatable, but the power that allows Q in a flesh body to contact the Continuum and draw energy from it -- without that, he was genuinely powerless.) The lesson he actually learned wasn't "don't betray your friends" but "don't manipulate your friends and try to play puppets with them even if you have a benevolent reason that's to their benefit."
I don't like "Discord planned to lose his powers to Tirek" because it totally cheapens that moment when Discord actually gets real for a moment -- when we see him, heartbroken and helpless. I can't believe he planned that. I can believe he had a plan involving pretending to sell out to Tirek so that Twilight would have an opportunity to win the key to the box, but not that losing his own powers was part of the plan. I think that if Discord had a plan, it didn't work out the way he wanted it to -- which, of course, is fitting for chaos. He gets the results he wanted but not the way he planned on it.
I totally agree with you about the Tree losing the ability to do anything, including free Discord, once the Elements were turned to stone. I also suspect it was neither the plan of Celestia nor the Tree to banish Luna for a thousand years; something went wrong there. Celestia might have been planning to free him once she and Luna had fully restored a stable government, except that said stable government was mostly in Celestia's hooves and Luna was getting more and more jealous and feeling unloved, so they never got to that point before Nightmare Moon. That being said, Celestia did say in Return of Harmony that she hoped they'd hold him forever. I think Discord rattles her more than any other villain she's ever dealt with, and that she said that because right at that moment she was scared and angry and feeling stupid for ever thinking reconciliation with Discord might be possible. Once he was re-stoned and she calmed down, she was able to think things out better.
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Ahh, okay. Allow me to reclarify myself: I mainly just believed he planned the betrayal thing. The personally losing his powers thing I can go either way on. Had an scene idea once where Discord explains that the reason he did betray them was of his "chaos instincts", basically a gut instinct on a cosmic level that generally keep him from doing anything stupid. Last time he didn't listen to it, he end up in stone, so that it lead him to being powerless, he was beyond confused and scared until the very end.
I agree with everything in the third paragraph. I'm on Discord's side usually, but that doesn't mean I bash his enemies. I think what went wrong is that the Elements, in canon at least, need more than one bearer. And Celestia? Yeah, something was really bothering her when he showed up....Maybe she thought he might have had a claw in Nightmare Moon? That or he paid an unseen visit to Luna and teased her about it- cause, seriously, the only other reason Luna might not have shown up is if she was still weak....S1E1 to S4E1 is one year, so, that could make sense.
PS Weird observation. Discord's tail moved over the thousand plus years to encircle that pedestal. I wonder if that ever freaked Celestia out.
PPS Weird idea: We can obviously argue it wasn't his intention, but I personally believe Discord helped Equestria early on, giving the three previously conflicting tribes a common enemy to put aside their differences for. And, possibly, motivated the ponies into putting the sister's into power.
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Forcing your own way onto..
I'm sorry what, I was going to debate this but what. Considering that we have no way to communicate with insects, insects neither have sentience or the ability to rationalize, but what you just basically said was Discord was a child, and that ponies compared to him are measly insects who should let him have their way with them.
This is some intense level of villain apologism that I haven't seen in a while and there is nothing I can say that'll shift that.
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Well, it is. Discord is, essentially, a higher life form that can warp reality at whim where as ponies are short lived creatures of laughably(to him) finite power. Just because a creature is sentient by our definition, doesn't mean its sentient by a high life form's definition. Fluttershy can perfectly understand so called non-sentient lifeform, so for one like Discord, simply understanding a creature's language and such is a very, VERY low bar for sentience.
Also, everyone makes the argument that Discord was like a child. This is the other half of that logic that people like to ignore. Only difference is that Discord just messes with the figurative ants, not kills them or their entire colony.
And its less villain apologism and more "I'm tired of people acting like there is no possible justification for what Discord did." Because there are a hundred reasons that make sense: A. Higher life form, so empathizing with lower life forms is very hard for him. B. He lived in Equestrian lands prior to the ponies and didn't like the pests messing with his home. C. He didn't want ANYTHING near the Tree of Harmony, his true enemy. D. A personal favorite, he is in some form a consequence for the victory(or whatever you want to call it) against the Windigo.
But my biggest, ultimate reason for being on Discord's side? After a thousand years in stone, isolated from the world with just his own hate, he did not ONCE make an attempt on anypony's life. Not Celestia's, not the Mane 6, and not even the Tree.(Plunder vines were a thousand years ago, don't count in that moment) He tried to secure his own survival without causing death. And its canon he's aware in there, so no getting around that.
So forgive me if I'm tired of the Discord-hate train that seems to conveniently forget that Discord's "punishment" would have given him a perfectly good reason to go on a killing spree, but didn't. We have seen what Discord has done, but most seem to ignore how much worse he could have been.
Also, I never said that the ponies were wrong to fight back against him. Just as ants are free to bite you. I said that the thousands of years of pure hell was overly cruel for canon Discord, who has shown the least amount of malicious intent of most villains. And that expecting him to see it as justice is, at best, laughable.
Again, sorry.
Question, if you break the statue, would that theoretically kill him?