In the wake of her parents murder at the hooves of an unknown assailant, Twilight Sparkle must once more don the guise of The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well and patrol the dark streets of Manehattan in an attempt to bring the killer to justice. Further complicating the matter, she and her friends must also contend with a corrupt police force, a city government run by criminals, and a rising tide of crime. As if this weren't enough, there are also rumors of a strange figure of the night, a being who stalks the criminal underworld in the guise of a giant bat...
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic belongs to Lauren Faust, DHX and Hasbro. Batman and all associated characters property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I make no claim to any of the characters within this story, and simply desire to show my love for these great characters.
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Also since you mentioned Batman: TAS, I took the liberty of trying to read Batman and Alfred's dialogue in the voices of Kevin Conroy and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. It was glorious.
You sir have been faved and liked.
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Do not disappoint me.
I have to say I did not enjoy this. You seem to be switching between crossover styles and how dark you want the world to be willynilly. In the beginning, it seemed like Equestria, or at least some parts of it, are just as corrupt as Gotham. And apparently Twilight is an excellent actor who can switch between personalities in the midst of grief as well.
Then apparently all the crime and corruption were just being caused by the Joker over the last six months or so, and the 'Emperor Penguin' was just an odd one in a million chance. And he resembles the Penguin. Joker is then able to, in six months, make a city previously almost untouched by crime completely controlled by two crime families and gets a pony who should never been in politics at all elected mayor. Also, how is Emperor Penguin able to disrespect Celestia and Luna not putting a billion bits of funds into finding how he's evil, or at least legally if unprofessionally ruin his politically career by talking to some magazines about how he's unfit to be a leader?
Also, Discord was way off. Batman is not the guy who turn to for mentally stable crime fighting tips. Remember how Jason Todd went? Or even Bababra Gordon, if physical injuries are a sign of bad tutelage?
Then Discord, someone who is one third evil(the others being confusion and chaos) really finds Joker that unsettling? Sure, I can see Joker being more extreme than Discord, but not to the degree where Discord shudders at the horrors. If Discord, the closest thing to the Joker Equestria has ever seen finds the laugh creepy, how do regular ponies not immeadiately suffer heart attacks after hearing it?
5558831 Thank you for your criticism and comment. Seriously, thank you. You were able to pick apart the problems with my writing, and present them in a clear and concise manner without devolving into "Dur, I hate this because reasons". I'll try to address each of your concerns, and so you know, they are my concerns as well. I was afraid the very things you pointed out wouldn't work very well.
1. level of darkness- What I tried to set up is a situation where these magical anomalies occur all over Equestria, leaking negative energy and disrupting the harmony of the world. While crime had always existed, it began to become worse after the veil between worlds began to fluctuate. I realize that I was not very clear with my timeline, thus...
2. Its all Joker's fault- I wanted to convey that crime and corruption had been growing worse over a longer period of time, and the Joker's appearance occurred not long after the two crime families installed Cobblestone/Emperor Penguin as their puppet mayor. The two mafia groups had always been there, but the severity of their crimes had begun growing worse.
3. Twilight is suddenly an excellent actress in the midst of her grief- Eyeah, I agree, that was clunky. Once again, I screwed up my timeline of events, and failed to show that the events of this story occurred some six or seven years after Tirek's attack. That's six+ years that Twilight has had to grow as a princess and a politician.
4. Discord was way off- Yes. Yes he was. This was my first time writing Discord, and let me tell you, he is a hard character to write for. Trying to portray him in my little fanfiction gave me a whole new level of respect for Mr. DeLancie and the DHX writing staff. I'm just not a good enough writer to do his character the justice he deserves, so it will likely be a long time before I'm able to even come close to what the show was able to. That being said, my personal headcanon is that Discord was never truly evil. He was a spirit of chaos in a world of harmony, plus he had never had anypony even try to be friends with him prior to Fluttershy. While he did play plenty of cruel pranks and ruined many lives, he never killed anyone. So I would think that his first encounter with the Harlequin of Hate would set him back on his heels, as this was a being of true and complete evil. Finally,
5. Batman is the last person you want to train you as a crime-fighter- Yes, Jason Todd was a bad seed. Yes, Barbara Gordon did end up paralyzed by the Joker. But that wasn't necessarily due to Batman's training. Remember, he also trained Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, two characters who overall turned out pretty well. Jason Todd was a ticking time bomb that Batman tried to save, but was unable to due to Jason's own choices. Barbara Gordon willingly chose to become a crimefighter, and her injuries came about due to the Joker trying to get at herfather. She was just a means to an end, and Joker didn't even know she was Batgirl. Vigilante crimefighting is a dangerous business, and Batman has time after time displayed reluctance to train anyone because he doesn't want to put them in harms way. The times he has trained someone, it was because they would have ended up fighting crime on their own with or without his approval. He took them on in hopes that his training would perhaps give them a better chance of survival.
I hope I addressed some of your concerns, but even if I didn't, I still want to thank you for your review. Review like this help me grow as a writer, and hopefully future endeavors will show improvement as a result.
Seeing as how the Mare-Do-Well is a spoof of Batman, this crossover makes a lot of sense.
5559010 Your welcome for the review. I got a bit caught up in saying every single bad thing in your fic that I forgot to say what was good about it. And that's mainly the flow, which is how sentences read and not bore you out of your mind just because they're essentially a list of 'Character A did this. Character B did that. Stuff happened.' It's a very tricky concept to define, because it's like 'Show don't Tell', except it includes every aspect of writing a narrative paragraph instead of just that one. I probably would have stopped halfway and left, thinking 'Dur, this story is terrible, I can't bear to read another word of it' if not for how good it was.
Oh this is going to be good.
5558831 Discord is only similar to the Joker on the surface. While both are chaotic pranksters reveling in mayhem, at his core Discord retains the capacity to relate to others. Discord is capable of friendship and that willingness to think of others makes him a very different character from the Joker. As hinted in the show Discord seems to have believed that no one was capable of being his friend and so he acted out of selfish motivations letting his love of chaos run wild. The fact that Fluttershy was willing to stand by him despite the trouble he caused, was enough for him to restrain himself out of regard for the feelings of another. The Joker has NEVER displayed that kind of emotional capacity. Harley Quin has never been anything but a tool, a plaything, or an outlet for his frustration. The Joker is a narcissist who delights in causing emotional and physical pain. Discord is nasty when pushed, the Elements of Harmony were going to turn him to stone again, but he's never indicated that he especially enjoys hurting others the way the Joker has. A much more appropriate comic counterpart is Superman foe, Mister Mxyzptlk. Both are nigh-omnipotent reality warpers who enjoy pranking their respective heroes and causing chaos and they both have displayed the capacity to do good and have teamed up with their respective enemies.
7002870 I'm going to have to disagree with you there. This is largely headcanon, since we don't have tons of information on what Discord is, but I believe he is a creature of evil pyscopathy much like Joker. The difference being, in Equestria, as opposed to Earth, friendship is all powerful, and can even redeem creatures like him and Joker.
7002938 It comes down to personal headcanon. I see Discord similar to how SentinalPrime sees him, as a trickster spirit who enjoys playing with ponies, but never went so far as to kill them (after all, if you break your toys, you can't play with them anymore). So how he's written in my stories will reflect that.
I am really sorry for not noticing this beforehand, but why does Batman have that hunch? Did he overhear Pinkie and Applejack talking?
7005089 He was watching from across the street, using binoculars and other 'Bat-gadgets'. I wanted it to be assumed that he either read their lips or listened in on them using a spy-ear of some kind.
7002938 The problem is with that idea is that he's explicitly stated to be the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. Neither of which is an inherently evil force. They're not something ponies generally like to experience, but they simply exist independent of moral concepts. Also Psychopaths such as the Joker, have an explicit lack of the empathy Discord has displayed. Here an article that gives an good analysis of Discord. http://www.roundstable.com/2013/07/11/chaos-theory-a-study-in-discord/
7005115
Agreed, you really can't describe a guy who makes it rain chocolate as a creature of "evil psychopathy". For one thing, it has been clearly established that Discord has empathy. Stunted empathy, but empathy nonetheless. He feels bad when Shining Armor calls him out on his betrayal; sure, he gets over it quickly, but the moment is there. He feels really bad about betraying Fluttershy, enough so that he can't watch her be stripped of her magic (but not enough to turn on Tirek right then.) Before deciding to throw in with Tirek, he actively helped the girls, giving them the hints they would later need to activate the Rainbow Power.
There's no evidence that Discord was ever as evil as the Joker. And lots of evidence that he wasn't, to wit: he could have killed the Element Bearers, and thus maintained his freedom, but he decided to mess with their heads instead. He didn't even have to have foregone playing a game; he could have played a deadly game, where failure meant death. The Joker would have. Instead he played a game where failure meant reversal of personality. People point a lot at the stained glass image of him dangling ponies over a lake of fire as evidence of his having been a totally evil killer in the past, but firstly, that image couldn't likely have been created by anyone who actually knew Discord... up until Nightmare Moon's debut, the princesses lived in the Castle of the Two Sisters, and the likelihood that they built said castle, stabilized the nation under their rule, had Luna go Nightmare Moon, and then built Canterlot Palace to replace the Castle of the Sisters within one normal pony's lifetime seems very slight. So the stained glass window was created by someone who never met Discord, going off what Celestia told them, and Celestia's interest at that point would have been in solidifying her own legend to make it easier for her to hold power on her own, not in telling the exact 100% honest truth. (Besides, it wouldn't be out of character for Discord to pretend to threaten ponies with death, just out of character for him to actually kill.)
I think really the reason Discord would be so horrified by the Joker is that they are similar in a way, but the Joker represents the dark side of everything that Discord loves. The Joker takes chaos and laughter and turns them into horror and wanton destruction, and that appalls Discord, in the same way that hardened criminals, murderers and rapists of adult women, can come together and agree that child molesters are disgusting and horrifying, and try to kill them in prison. If you see yourself in something awful, it's worse than if that thing is completely alien to you.
7005089 And then there's the fact that in the DC universe, there are three individuals who can be guaranteed to have Kryptonite on them.
Batman, Lex Luthor, and Joker.
7005115
Actually, Disharmony is kinda inherently evil. Especially in MLP.
At least I'd be hard pressed to find a case when it is desirable.
7017052 The Ponies really don't like disharmony but that doesn't make it evil. A storm may be destructive but it's not inherently malicious regardless of what we may think.
7017655 well, storm is not evil because it is not sentient. It has no agency, and thus cannot be evaluated morally.
But Discord, as a personalisation of lowercase discord, is sentient, and does, sorta-kinda have agency.
And if you meant that it could be beneficial - do come up with an example where you'd actually want Discord instead of Harmony as any sort of desirable outcome.
7017691 From what I've seen of him watching the show and reading the official comics, Discord possesses unimaginable levels of power, the ability to forcibly reshape the world around him; Even Tirek only beat him after absorbing the powers of the entire country, and only by a surprise attack. And what does Discord do with his phenomenal cosmic powers? Makes it rain chocolate.
Discord has the potential to be a terrifying eldritch horror, able to break a ponies mind with just a touch, and able to transform them into any number of painful abominations... but he doesn't. Even in an alternate timeline where he never reformed, we don't see him laying waste to the country, but instead he dresses Celestia and Luna up as clowns. He doesn't destroy them, he turns them into a source of amusement. And that's something we see all through the show, Discord is all about amusing himself. He loves the reactions he gets from ponies witnessing him creating the absurd and the chaotic, and he enjoys twisting a pony around mentally until they challenge their own beliefs. He wants attention, he wants to be right, he wants to be amused and entertained.
He's like a five year old who's been granted the powers of Alladin's genie, and never grew up. He's not evil, though he certainly has the potential to become evil. He just wants to have fun, whether or not anypony else is having fun with him, and even that's starting to change as he slowly begins to discover the joys of having real friends.
I really hope we get a comic or episode, or something that explains his backstory a little better. Watching him, it truly seems as though he gained his powers at an early age before he could develop a sense of right vs. wrong, and has stayed at that mental age for thousands of years. He's not truly evil. He just wants to have fun.
7017877 he doesn't like go out of hiw way to hurt ponies, true.
But then he does not much care if they get decimated when he decides to turn all air into chocolate or make bunnnies into giant carnivorous monsters. And he does derive some sadistic pleasure from making them jump hoops, do stupid and insane things and otherwise be "entertaining".
There is a reason why Discordian Era was a really, really bad thing.
7019130 You get no argument from me there. But I never said Discord wasn't cruel. I just said I don't think Discord was truly Evil. Remember how I said how Discord seems to have the mindset of a small child? Watch how a young child treats their toys and/or pets, or other small children. If left to their own devices, they can and will be horribly cruel. Now I understand Discord is not actually a child and he obviously knows better, but it's the attitude that I'm noticing.
7019301 I think we just have different definitions of evil.
If I go into a town center in the rush hour and start throwing live grenades around, even if I don't exactly have a malicious intent I'd say I'd be pretty evil, 'cause the consequences are easy to predict.
The fact that I don't search them out, but rather don't care is not really an excusė.
And you can't say that Discord doesn't know the results of his actions or that he is hurting ponies when he's entertaining himself. He just does not really care
7019777 Hmmm... well maybe its not that Discord is or isn't evil... cause you have a point, his actions were evil. However, the fact that he is slowly beginning to Recognize that his behavior was wrong points (I think) to the fact that he is not fundamentally evil himself, at least not anymore. What ultimately sets Discord apart from a villain like the Joker, is that Discord is able to recognize when something he does is wrong or causes hurt to his friends, and tries to make some sort of amends. Joker on the other hand, sees the damage he does, recognizes that what he does is evil (at the very least wrong in society's eyes) and just laughs harder. He has zero respect for life, and is willing to kill and maim any man, woman, or child just to make a point/cause a distraction/just to see the looks on their faces as they die.
That, I think, is the major difference between Discord and Joker. Both are capable of great evil, both have caused great destruction in the past, but only one is even attempting to better himself.
7019892 oh, there is no doubt that Joker is different from Discord.
WHere Discord just causes chaos no matter who he hurts, Joker actively searches ways to cause as much pain, death and destruction as he can. He is absolutely more evil.
Of Batman's Rogues' Gallery, Discord is more like Bat-Mite.
7020005 Not a bad parallel, or maybe Mr. Mxyzptlk from Superman. Chaotic, annoying, dangerous, but at the end of the day, not exactly an evil being.
New chapter ¡yay!
Are you going to continue it?
7036080 I plan to, I actually have two stories I'm trying to write. I'm a slow updater though, as I have a lot of other responsibilities that prevent me from sitting down and writing regularly. Until something changes, this will remain a hobby, and one I can only indulge in occasionally.
7037007 Hi, Skyace...Here is a Private Message I Just Sent to you Today Regarding Some Other Properties I Want you to Use in 9 Highly Recommended Story Suggestions That I Highly Recommend for you to make...http://www.fimfiction.net/manage_user/messages/9200509
...Nuff Said.
Say what type of universe is this?
Please please!! Continue this story!!! I’m absolutely loving it so far. And hopefully we’ll see a Superman aj story down the line?