Apologies in advance to anyone who doesn't care for my artwork. Please ignore this blog post if it doesn't interest you.The Elements of Chaos - Story Brainstorming · 3:33am Sep 18th, 2017
I think I'd really like to go with a larger, more grandiose story, and the "Elements of Chaos" thing I mentioned in a previous blog post seems like a good route to go on. Here's a quick synopsis I wrote to inspire myself and figure out where I want to go:
When a mysterious unicorn casts a powerful spell on Discord, the conglomerate of his being is scattered throughout Equestria, allowing chaos to spread across the land. Only when the individual elements of chaos are united will peace be restored...
The basic format would be an adventure story with a prologue, six longish chapters (one for each element of chaos), and an finale/epilogue at the end. Currently, I'm toying with how I want to tackle the whole idea of "restoring" the Elements of Chaos. I don't like the idea of the EoC being opposites to the EoH, mainly because I don't want to pin Discord as a villain of sorts. So instead, I went this sort of route:
Possible Elements of Chaos:
- Curiosity. Being too curious and causing problems. (Twilight Sparkle)
- Ambition. Getting yourself into difficult situations you can't handle. (Applejack)
- Insecurity. Seeking out validation too strongly. (Pinkie Pie)
- Narcissism. Becoming too engrossed in one's self. (Rainbow Dash)
- Generosity. Being overgenerous and not paying attention to your own needs. (Rarity)
- Hatred. Hating all things. (Fluttershy)
These aren't final, but I do generally like what I came up with. Not so much Fluttershy's chaos equivalent though. They need to strike the right balance and not be "bad" in their own right, just "too much good" if that makes sense. It's a work in progress. I want each chapter to focus on one of those things, and the most interesting way I can think of is to have a unique (original) character for each that represents that "part" of Discord, with the idea that combined together they represent Discord as a whole.
As an aside, I'm leaning towards the idea of having these characters (as one character that grows as they reclaim the elements of chaos) join forces with the Mane 6 (plus Starlight maybe) and slowly but surely become more like Discord as the adventure continues on. I think that'd be really neat.
I'm also not sold on the villain. I'd prefer not to introduce new characters if possible. But for now, "mysterious powerful unicorn" is the placeholder.
Overall, the story would be quite grandiose and adventurous. I don't want it to be simple in any way. That means magic fights, real drama, feels, you get the idea. Right now this is in the brainstorming phase. Feel free to say anything about it, I welcome any ideas. If I continue with this, I'll be writing my story regardless, so if you want, feel free to take the idea and write your own story too.
" Mysterious powerful unicorn" could mean an ancient but misguided Starswirl. If you're making Discord the hero of the story, it would be interesting to have the antagonist be someone normally thought of as the good guy. Or you could always go with a resurrected Sombra, or an unreformed Starlight or Sunset if you want to play with AUs.
It seems odd to have one of Discords elements match with the EoH though. Maybe Rarity could be insecurity and Pinkie could be creativity or something.
You could swap out hatred for anger. Still has a negative connotation, perhaps, but can refer to a righteous fury.
Other possible elements, if you want to toy with the idea:
Schadenfreude- Taking amusement from other's misfortune. Granted, it's generally bad, but like a low level bad.
Aloofness- Self explanatory. Could mean keeping out of trouble, or ignoring trouble when you see it.
Courage- Over-willingness to leap into danger, possibly endangering yourself and those around you.
Pride- A slightly more neutral version of Narcissism.
Sacrifice- Perhaps a more Discord-y sounding version of Generosity.
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Starswirl is a decent idea. I guess the question needs to be asked: who else would want chaos? I like the idea of turning the idea of villains and heroes on its head though. I like the idea of having Discord's elements match up with the EoH, but if I go the straight "EoC are the opposite of EoH" route it essentially just says that Discord is some sort of abomination that happens to be able to be controlled and taught to do good. But it still makes him feel "lower".
Perhaps, for Fluttershy's chaos equivalent, I could go with passion? Being passionate is good, but being too passionate about something can become an issue. Fluttershy is passionate about animals, but if she never did anything else she wouldn't have actual friends.
Schadenfreude came to mind, but there's a negative connotation there that can't really be reconciled. But that's basically where I'd go with Pinkie Pie's chaos equivalent if I didn't go with the insecurity angle.
I like pride for Rainbow Dash's chaos equivalent. It's just a more neutral way of saying the same thing, but yeah it works a bit better.
Sacrificial sounds good too, for Rarity's.
I'm pretty sold on Twilight's and Applejack's though (curiosity and ambition). Those are fairly solid. What I really need to figure out now is how and why the story happens. I really like the meta-theme of turning villains into heroes and vice versa though, at least on a symbolic level. Not so keen on figuring out how to drag Starswirl into this though, since I don't really know who he is.
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I definitely like Twilight's and Applejack's, they definitely feel the most solid, and very much like their characters.
Passion sounds great for Fluttershy. It's not one I would have thought of right off the bat, but it makes a lot of sense. Just look at how it got out of hand with Philomena, or Iron Will.
Glad I could help with Rarity and Dash
I hate when the right word is right there, but you just can't think of it haha. I have those moments all the time.
Hmm, when do you think you'd set the story? That could help establish what villains are available at the time, although I can't really think of any established villains who would have it out for Discord specifically. Any well-meaning hero could do the trick though. Or you could always go the "Twilight screwed up a magical experiment" route, but that feels cheap.
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I'd set the story in "present" time more or less. Which would probably mean including Starlight and Spike. So...that's a lot of characters, but it's not all that important to juggle them all as it would be for a regular fiction story. We already know who they all are, so they can show up when necessary and not talk so much and it should be fine.
Perhaps Celestia and Luna have the Elements of Chaos locked up somewhere as well? And perhaps they somehow accidentally come into contact with Discord, causing his being to become separated into the 6 different characters. But...I don't want it to be an accidental thing either. Gotta brainstorm a lot more before I start writing anything.
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Hmm, that's a bit of a conundrum. Maybe combine the accident idea with the villain/ Starswirl idea. Like Discord comes across a spell or artifact specifically designed "destroy" him by separating him into 6 parts, which was designed by Starswirl or someone else back during the Age of Discord. But that does venture too closely to the accident territory I suppose.
Maybe Discord did it to himself because he was bored? Then the villain becomes the "evil" part of Discord who embodies the worst of the the six traits while the other six try to reassemble themselves.
Oooor, you could bring the Alicorn Amulet into play. Literally any unicorn could be the villain in that case. Blueblood could be a fun choice for that. Or the Flim Flam brothers. Depends how silly you want to go I suppose.