Why you should pity Discord's editor · 9:54pm Jan 14th, 2016
This is kind of how I imagined Discord's original draft of the journal that is Not the Hero looked like (the first few paragraphs), except it would also randomly go off the edge of the page and then double back backwards, or run down, or run up, or have huge gaps, plus there are a lot of places where instead of a word he drew something, and I can't replicate it in the limited HTML here (down, for instance, being an arrow pointing down.)
Discord actually can punctuate and spell correctly if he has to. Most of the time. There are probably words he misspells consistently even when he's trying. But generally speaking if he's not trying to be super careful it ends up like this. (And even when he is super careful his handwriting's terrible and his failure to keep anything in a straight line, or the same size, makes his writing hard to read.)
in the EVent of the not-inconsidrable-possiblty that i shold end up Dead turnd tostone AGAIN or transformed into sum abslutely clicheyd and uterly humorless Evil Avatar of Pure Evilness thereafter t suffer 1 of the a4mentiond fates! I am riting my observats down in hopes that SOMEDAY, somepony might figure out whats actualy going on here & perhaps even be Able to fight back althow it seems quite unlikely given the fall of 2 (((possibly 3 if Moonie counts sepretely))) alicorns and th wielders of the Elements of Harmony and th inescapable fact that if i should fall as well............ put it This way / those 2 alicorns fought me with everything they had and until they found theyr pile of cristal fruit to Stone me with i laughed off everything they tried so if i FaLL Im really not hopeful 4 the future f ponykind. / OH youll all live exsept for those of you who dont but your lives wont b ur own anymore ull be puppets on a stage dancing for the glory of an Alien, and You Wont Even Know it. .. .. BUT its not in my nature to go down quietly!!! i may not survive this but at th very leest im going t doo my best to ensure that somepony hears from me after im Gone. /// What a strange thought. ME, gone. i have quite th imagination but im having a Hard TIme picturing that 1 bad enough to be locked in stone but 2b gone? ForEVER? dead or twisted into something im not? Its.......... not a possibility Im looking Forward to,,,, but sticking my Head n teh sand & pretending it cant possbly happn isnt going 2 work this time & to think how well that strategee has servd me So Far!!!! ah well im change,,,, sooner r later i had to change tactics right? Or theyll b changed for me
Oof, if the editor is Spike like a lot of folks think then I do feel bad for him.
Heck, I feel bad for anybody trying to decipher that mess. And I work in a pharmacy, regularly translating handwritten prescriptions from doctors.
The editor has all my sympathies.
...
While I'm here, I gotta say that, while I looooove the story, there's one thing about Not the Hero that I don't like.
It's inspired me to really want to do something along the same lines. But you're doing it soooo amazingly well that anything I come up with just pales in comparison before I can even write down a concept. Which is probably for the better seeing as I have my own writing projects to do but still, the thought of Spike trying to take on a mind-warping Gary Stu on his own just keeps poking at me.
Well I'll keep looking forward to the next chapter (and the editor doubtlessly putting some snarkier comments in)!
This only reaffirms the hypothesis put forward in Transdementia, that Discord would love the Internet.
Why, in your latest chapter of Not the Hero, did you NOT say why the Flim Flam Brothers don't utilize their inventions to make millions and revolutionize society, instead using their ideas for cons?
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Because it was too long and complicated to go into and didn't have bearing on the point of the story. However, I do know why they haven't been successful.
I can only imagine what the text looked like when he was writing about his meeting with Celestia. That couldn't have been very pretty to edit.
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I don't know about Alara's reason, but my take on the Flim Flam Brothers is that they are a walking cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to be con artists when one doesn't have to be. If they were simply honest, they'd be multi-millionaires by now. They spoil all their very real inventions by trying to figure out how to con people with them rather than simply sell them with an honest (though colorful) pitch.
Discord's journal writing reminds me of House of Leaves.
Is that a good thing?
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I love that you made house blue when you wrote that. :D
Oh man, yes. I bet Discord's writing is a nightmare. In Taxonomy Fluttershy and Starswirl are his editors, so we should pity them.