Don't Blink · 4:22am Feb 28th, 2023
This blog is meant for those who've read Better To Ask Forgiveness. If you haven't yet and want to avoid spoilers, you've been warned!
So. Wow. This performed well. Spent several days in the Featured Box, and gave me a heart attack with an Equestria Daily scout. Far beyond what I ever expected for it.
Then again, it is a Discord story. He's a character who tends to steal the show, the props, the costumes, and the stage it's set on all at once. All the same, for a one-scene, under-4k-words tale presenting a headcanon, it seems to have won over a staggering amount of people.
It's also the first story I've launched with the Verse label on it. I've edited previous stories to include it, but that's different from sending a story out into the wild with that attached to it immediately. I almost thought it would scare folks off, even with "standalone" noted. Apparently not!
Anyway, for all new readers seeing this for the first time: Hi. After I write a fic I like to do a journal afterward reflecting on it, going over setting elements and characters involved, along with any other random thoughts that come to mind.
And without further ado, onto exactly that!
Setting:
Time Travel
Canon gives us two very different versions of time travel, at different times, and so part of being a fanfic author is deciding how to reconcile that.
For my part, I went with the version that the show initially presents, and that the comics utilized when they decided to unveil Discord's time machine. Everything is a stable time loop, because the present around you is based on the actions you'll take in the past (tenses and time travel is fun). In this case, it's a reformed Discord kicking off the events of his own reformation.
I find time travel stories are more interesting when you know that what's done won't be undone, and so the fun becomes the process of discovering the details of the paradox that's unfolding. It's especially interesting when the characters know the past can't be altered, and so aren't wasting their time trying to prevent something they won't be able to or otherwise do something that's impossible.
That said, I won't pretend that the wild time shenanigans that the season five finale whipped out didn't result in a lot of very intriguing alternate timelines, so I may need explore what precisely Starlight Glimmer did, and how it may differ from she thought she did...
But that's a story for another day.
Characters:
Discord
I feel like FanOfMostEverything said it best in the story's comments:
Even when he’s trying to be nice, Discord can’t help but be a disruptive and disorienting presence
Because that's what I was going for in a nutshell. Discord, enemy or ally, is an experience, and not one most are equipped to handle.
This story came about from reading issue #24 of the comics (a panel of which provided the cover art) and then realizing that casually going back in time to take a piece of friendship advice incredibly literally is something fitting as Discord logic. Combine that with the fact that the show never gave us a satisfactory answer for what Celestia was thinking releasing him, and here we are nearly 4k words later.
I never move into Discord's actual point of view, however, and that's intentional. He gives his reasoning for being there and gives his apology, but it's left up in the air whether that's all there is to it. Does he realize that this little chat was the catalyst to his reformation? Is that the primary reason he does it, because he remembers being witness to it when he was still in stone and figured out what must have gone on, or is that just a side-benefit? How confused was stone-Discord being witness to this, and did he assume his future self was playing a trick with it?
It's a mystery, and I think Discord would prefer it that way. Everyone knowing exactly what he's thinking would be boring.
Celestia
Writing Celestia is... interesting, for me.
She hasn't really been placed front and center in my writing before. She's been involved in scenes in other works, but it's her playing a role very similar to her one in the show: sending the actual protagonists of the tale out on their mission. This was spending a prolonged time in her head, when, instead of grappling with a situation that she's been preparing herself to present to another creature, she's been caught completely off-guard.
The comics can make Celestia a little more... violent. The Celestia in this oneshot is the same who does vicious battle with her own evil counterpart without caring that killing them will kill her too, or who mutilates an army of changelings. When Discord appears in front of her, she taps into that part of herself, the part that is fire and rage and power...
And fear.
That's another thing that came up in the comments, that Celestia is traumatized. When Discord is in stone, she can consider killing him, but her better nature wins out. Killing a helpless enemy leaves a bad taste in her mouth, and she already has plans in motion to better contain him. But when he's right in front of her, seemingly thrown off his chains with no explanation? She reacts to an immediate threat, and a frightened Celestia gives herself over to the sun.
Still, when that doesn't work, she thinks. She stalls for time and sends a coded message out. And after he's left, she thinks through what went on and doesn't jump into any course of action immediately. And I like to hope that her thought process, and where she ends up in Keep Calm and Flutter On, make sense.
Other Notes
- The story's title comes from the phrase "better to ask forgiveness than permission." Because you can safely assume Discord did not run this time travel idea past anyone before he did it.
- The chapter title comes from the Doctor Who episode Blink, which has the Doctor referring to the progression of time as a "big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff" in an attempt to explain the time loop in the episode. I felt it fitting when the comic that I took Discord's time travel capabilities from includes its own Doctor Who references in his time machine (which is "smaller on the inside"), his red fez and bowtie, and more that didn't find its way into the oneshot.
In Other News...
- If this is your first story of mine and you'd like to try something else in my catalogue of a similar length, there's my exploration of pony Flash Sentry in Flash Memory, or my AU tale of what Rarity would be like if she were born a diamond dog in Every Dog Has Her Day.
- I recently launched the start of a longfic, Lightning Rod, which surrounds the events leading up to the theatrical movie. It's a sequel, but its prequel story, A Moonlit Storm, is only around 16k long, and won a contest to boot!
Glad to hear i hit the nail on the head. Again, excellent portrayal of these two and their relationship with each other. I really don't think Discord realizes just how deeply he hurt Celestia, even with the apology. It's sad in its own way.
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Celestia does note that Discord is still referring to some of the things he did to her in very child-like terms. While I do like to keep exactly what he's thinking a mystery, I will say that I don't think it's a stretch that a creature who can casually do and undo things with a snap may struggle with the idea that the things he does leave anything permanent behind, including emotional scars. But as he says, he has all the time in the world to figure this redemption thing out. There's hope.