• Member Since 17th Dec, 2011
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DannyJ


I'm just here to write.

T
Source

Lyra thinks Discord is an idiot for not thinking to dodge when the Elements of Harmony were about to strike him. Discord thinks this is the perfect opportunity for a game.


Part of the Borderworld.

Now with audio reading by Dreamless Portal. Chinese and Spanish translations also available.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 454 )

This has the Draven stamp of approval, the only one that truly matters to Danny. Good story 10/10 would giggle again.

That was hilarious. I couldn't help but think of this when I saw the title.

This is a wonderful fanfic that I truly enjoyed reading. I'm so glad I found this especially with out being so new, I will be forwarding it on to my fellow discord lovers :)

In that moment, I could finally see just how far I was taking this whole thing. I didn't want to lose, but I was going to extremes that I would never have considered if I were in my right mind. It wasn't even about the wish anymore. It was about winning.

Welcome to testosterone.


Now we know just how deus ex machina-y the Elements are. And why you shouldn't ever question Discord.

At that moment, inspiration struck.
"...What happens if I kill Twilight and her friends?"

Goddamn, I couldn't stop laughing.

5342814 I was thinking the same thing.

Huh. Twas actually not that bad. Jk. It was AWESOME! :yay:

This was pretty damn cool...

It always bothered me, that Nightmare and Discord simply stood there and took the hit- but if the Elements not only shield their users, have cross-dimensional homing abilities, and they strike quicker the more one attempts to dodge, then it makes loads more sense.

I'm not mentionin' Tirek due to the fact that he actually tried to fight back with all the magic in Equestria (including Discord's).

Again, I don't what I was expecting.

You accidentally a word.

Holy crap, that was great. And Lyra is forever doomed.

I'd love to hear music from Discord's band, though.

5342963 :rainbowlaugh: great minds think alike

This is awesome. I'm taking this as headcanon. (For Last Draconequus anyway; a different set of rules applies to Next of Kin to Chaos.)

The interaction between Lyra and Discord is fantastic. I think I like this version of Lyra better than any of the others I've run into, as well.

5343014

It kind of bothered me too, but then, it bothered everyone, really. And that was kind of the inspiration for the whole fic: this common complaint about the Elements that, while a valid criticism of the show (because it's clearly not something the writers ever thought of or thought to address), can be easily explained in-universe as was done here.

It's a running joke in the fandom that the Elements of Harmony are actually useless and the villains could've won by stepping to the side, and I've laughed at that joke plenty of times, but for my money, any serious interpretation of the Elements that doesn't at least give them the homing attack just doesn't make sense to me. A superweapon that really could be avoided by just taking two steps to the side would not have anywhere near the success rate that the Elements do. Such an interpretation retroactively cheapens Nightmare Moon and Discord's characters, cheapens their stories by making their defeats more contrived, and cheapens the Elements themselves and the rest of FiM's mythology by extension.

At least, that's what I think.

5343069

Fixed, and thank you for pointing that out.

I imagine the Sowers' music to sound like kids screwing around with the instruments in music class. To Discord's ears, it is heavenly, and any time one of his bandmates starts playing something that sounds like actual music, he will frustratedly stop practice right away and tell them that they're not off-key enough.

5343099

I'm taking this as headcanon. (For Last Draconequus anyway; a different set of rules applies to Next of Kin to Chaos.)

oi61.tinypic.com/bh16cj.jpg

This story has stopped my griping about characters not being able to dodge slow-moving finisher death beams. You are truly a miracle worker.

Next, do one that helps me come to terms with how soulless bad guys always hesitate when they have the perfect opportunity to kill someone off.

5343178

Next, do one that helps me come to terms with how soulless bad guys always hesitate when they have the perfect opportunity to kill someone off.

Being a miracle worker is not the same thing as being God, you silly goose.

Also, I just learned that I'm in the feature box. I haven't had a story up there for a damn long time.

I wonder if it's the cover art?

Discord should have teleported to Detroit. No Harmony can ever enter there...

Of course, then he'd be stuck in Detroit... :fluttershbad:

So I guess getting stoned again was the better option after all. :trollestia:

That was so great!

There's still the question of why he didn't simply dispose of the elements when he had them in his control. Dropping them in the ocean, or in a volcano, or on the moon would have done the trick. Or just scattered the bearers across the globe with their memories erased. Just for starters.

5343268

Discord's great flaw has always been that he is blinded by his arrogance. "Just in case" measures like that make sense to us, because if it were you or me, we'd consider the possibility that the first plan would fail. But for someone who thinks the first plan is completely foolproof, it would just seem paranoid.

It's my headcannon that he has "All Memory" like Death from Discworld. (Or Doctor Manhattan)

He remembers everything that has happened, and is going to happen. He didn't dodge because he remembers he didn't dodge. If that makes sense.

Admittedly, some of his later episodes turns down his God like powers quite a bit.

Two things: As RealityCheck points out, I wish Lyra would have asked why Discord made things so easy for the Mane6 in the first place instead of stopping them in the beginning before they were ready to take him down. Also surprised Disocrd only had, like, sixteen seconds of response time. Shouldn't the presence of Rainbow Dash, the confident, focused looks on the ponies' faces, and the fact that they were in color again have tipped him off before they started glowing? I mean, they walked right down the street towards him so he had plenty of time to make these observations.

The other main thing I want to bring up is that this story needs a bonus chapter where we can see some of the reactions from the Mane6 from their point of view. It would be interesting to hear their thoughts as they watch some of Lyracord's attempts at escape.
"Holy shit, did he just throw a butcher's knife at me!? My life flashed before my eyes!"

I don't think this was dark so much as...dim in places, especially when she begins contemplating killing the Bearers instead of just dodging or outrunning their attack. The penalty for losing the bet really killed any serious darkness, at least for me.

5343474

Like I said to RC, Discord didn't take more precautions or didn't realise until too late that the Elements were powered back up because his fatal flaw is his arrogance. Lyra doesn't question those aspects of Discord's failure because the reasons behind them were obvious: Discord assumed he was too clever or too powerful for the ponies to thwart his plan, and didn't realise that they'd reharmonised until his fate was already sealed. His mind would actively dismiss any notion that the ponies could've done anything until the proof was right in front of him.

It's his failure to avoid the Elements when they outwardly seem so slow-moving and awkward that causes her to think he's an idiot, so that's the part she calls him out on, and that's the part he challenges her on. Calling him out on the rest of his slip-ups is pointless, because they both know the reason, even if they don't say it. It's not that he was stupid. It was that he was arrogant and assumed they couldn't beat him when they could. And when you're actually as powerful and clever as Discord actually is, that's an entirely fair assumption to make.

And it's sixteen seconds from the moment Discord realised what was going on, not sixteen seconds from when the Elements started charging. Lyra's challenge was on the dodging, so she had the same amount of time to dodge that Discord had. The loops start around the time in Return of Harmony that Discord opened his eyes and said "What's this?"

5343509

I would've thought that was a given, considering it's a comedy. It's not like serious darkness was the intent.

5343632 You never know until you've read the story. In any case, good work.

5343703

Thank you.

Creative and silly! I love the conversations between Lyra and Discord. I would love to see a sequel to this. :scootangel:

Please write a sequel about the band, but with a time loop twist in it

5343249
*bringing in truckloads of rock*
Alright Alondro, let us proceed. :pinkiehappy:

That was a very interesting view of discord. Perfect capture of character traits. Very well done writing and grammar.
Yes, I loved it. It was awesome:yay:

As soon as I saw this on the feed yesterday, I thought of this. If you get this reference, internet cookie for you.
i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/shadowfalcon76/DodgeTitan.jpg

And yes, the music from that fight was playing in my head throughout the story, going through each of the phases as Lyra kept trying. It added much lol and awesome to things! XD

my thought was what if she turned to her own version of stone before it hit. one that she could come out of at will.

Everything about this is just so in character. Absolutely superbly written.

Wingnut #35 · Dec 4th, 2014 · · 25 ·

5343173
Yeah, stepping to the side might not work, but Discord could probably easily teleport to the other side of the planet. Pretty sure the Elements have a limit on their effective range. The bearers do try to get close to Discord before using them, after all.

(Haven't read this fic yet and don't know if he attempts it or not, just saying.)

Or teleport the Elements to an active volcano on the other side of the planet when he had them, instead of giving them back to their bearers.

No matter how you look at it, unfortunately there always seems to have been some very obvious way for someone of Discord's power to deal with the Elements, but he had to stick to the script and get stoned.

DVB

Because people repeatedly miss the point that he was arrogant. He was blind to his own faults. He might be able to warp reality on a moderate scale, but he is not omniscent, omnipotent nor omnipresent. The audience judged characters because they possess a somewhat omni-present view on things and is (mostly) not bias.

We have no idea how these Elements.

Very well done. Whenever someone says 'lol just dodge them' I think did you somehow miss that after petrifying him they fixed the rest of the world, or they went around the country after draining Tirek?.

The shield. Yep, the Elements charging up does have a rather large corona around it, doesn't it?

Ri2
Ri2 #39 · Dec 4th, 2014 · · ·

5343178 Oh, that's an easy one. The legendary Terry Pratchett has the perfect answer:

"If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you are going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word."

Still can't help but think it was still possible. After all, the Tree of Harmony is the power-source of The Elements, and given it was right after the black-vines incident, why not fast grow the vines to destroy the tree, thus stopping the true source of the Elements' power. ... I might not be a good person for having thought this right off the bat. (please don't hate me Discord :fluttercry:)

Hm, very interesting. Not quite as dark as I feared from the tag, which is a good thing. Fun little fic.

Are you implying that Discord, through time travel, already had the knowledge of what Lyra did or that he tried a lot of times himself? 'Cause that's an interesting idea, even if I'm wrong.

Edit: Spotting your replies, it seems you're still going for the usual "arrogance was his downfall". I don't mind that, but makes me feel a little silly for the above interpretation.

5344347
No, I thought the same thing, and it still works. Danny's point is that arrogance led Discord to fail to notice that he was in danger until he had only sixteen seconds left to react. From that point, he may have used time travel to try multiple escape routes, all of which failed. I did get the distinct impression that his comment to Lyra about not having done everything she did implied that he did do many of the things she did, with equally poor results, but that he gave up sooner than she did because he could see he'd been checkmated.

5343474

Or, being a Complete Bastard, teleporting the Crusaders on my lap, and taking them as hostages.

5344339
Wrong time period. Return of Harmony was not directly after the black vines, it was a thousand years after the black vines. Discord had every reason to believe the vine trick had simply failed and they weren't going to grow no matter what. The first time, right after he planted the vines, he literally didn't see the attack coming, because he was laughing so hard that his eyes were closed. (My theory about this is that the Elements normally are known to work through a Rainbow Power kind of thing. Discord knew what the Elements were, but didn't know that the Tree had manifested them as physical objects. Had he seen the princesses begin a rainbow power power-up sequence, he'd have run for his life, but what he saw was that they were going to take him on with pretty magic gems that they thought were the Elements of Harmony. His downfall was in failing to realize that yes, those are the Elements of Harmony, and the Tree had manifested them physically, probably specifically to fight him.)

Or do you mean why didn't Lyra grow the black vines? Lyra doesn't know Discord planted the vines a thousand years ago; all she knows about them was that they were Discord's fault. She had no way of knowing the seeds were already there waiting to be activated.

This was the first fic I read after a 4-month hiatus. Glad you gave me a really good "welcome back" even if it wasn't intended.

This is one thing I really love about fics: creative explanations to cannon (perceived or real) plotholes. Not only that, but there was a lesson AND some sinister ambiguity that leaves us wondering if Discord is truly reformed.

At first, I scoffed at the dark tag. But I should have known better. The slow buildup of desperation lead to why you labeled it as such. It wasn't over the top, but actually quite subtle. That is what left an impact on me. Nothing graphic (except for the different "effect" the beam had) but the startling realization made by Lyra of just what is happening to her psych was powerful enough to make me cringe at the thought that I might have resorted to such actions if in the same situation.

Overall, this was a very good short story. Thanks for writing and sharing this.

5344144
Aren't you supposed to read a story before commenting? The fic addresses this. Turns out there's a homing function on them that can cross dimensional barriers. So no, teleportation turns out to not be an option.

As for destroying them... I have a sneaking suspicion Discord knows something about the Elements that we don't. Or, possibly, something about the Elements that we do. Given that the very first thing Nightmare Moon did when faced with the Elements was to destroy them, and yet they are still there, I think that as long as Element Bearers are attuned to their Elements you can't permanently destroy or remove the element; destroy it and the Bearers can reconstitute it, hide it and eventually they'll find it. The only solution is to disable the Bearers, which is what he did.

this is great it never occurred to me that the elements could be so unbeatable that theres no point in the villain resisting once there activated

5343268
Why would he need to scatter the Element Bearers across the globe with their memories erased, when he'd just broken their connections to their Elements? Presumably, ponies cannot usually break free of being discorded on their own. Why would scattering them and erasing their memories be more secure than snapping their connections to each other and to their Elements?

These aren't alicorns. They are six girls barely above college age who are civilians with no combat training, most of whom can't do magic, only one of whom was trained in Canterlot and the rest of them are provincial, and none of whom have been specifically prepared for him. They have had one real fight with the Elements against a foe who may have been under internal attack from the alicorn she was possessing, and who wasn't a match for Discord herself anyway. Discord doesn't understand friendship; why would he assume that the power of friendship could reverse his attack? Most likely no one managed to pull that off when he ruled the world, because who could ever have established such bedrock-strong friendships in a world where they knew their friends could be turned on them at Discord's whim?

Discord doesn't seem to like to kill. What he did was probably, in his experience, the most reliable thing he could do aside from killing the Bearers (possibly more reliable; if the Bearers are alive but their connection is broken, it might take a very long time for the Elements to find new Bearers. It took a thousand years the last time that happened.)

And when Nightmare Moon destroyed the Elements, the Bearers reconstituted them, so I'm pretty sure actually destroying them doesn't work.

5342814
XD yes, I was thinking the exact same thing

Couldn't he have just teleported a bearer somewhere else? I'm kind of curious as to whether that would interrupt the elements.

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