• Member Since 11th Oct, 2013
  • offline last seen 2 hours ago

alarajrogers


Okay, I admit it, I'm probably not your mom. But odds are I'm old enough to be. Now with Patreon account (under alarajrogers) and short stories on Amazon (under Alara Rogers).

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After dying in a predictably stupid car accident, a human wakes up paralyzed and unable to see or feel anything... which seems reasonable for the aftermath of an argument with a truck, until Celestia starts talking and he figures out that he's dreaming that he's Discord. And then the Elements set him free and he figures out no, actually, this isn't a dream. Begins right before "Keep Calm and Flutter On", and the first few chapters crib a lot of dialogue from that.

Not Displaced, but it is one of those "human wakes up in the body of an Equestrian supervillain" stories. However. Fellow Discord fans. Trust me, I'm not gonna write a story about our boy where the real thing never makes an appearance. The actual Discord will show up sooner or later. Also not a self insert, as should be obvious if you listen to the main character talk about himself for about 30 seconds.

This is a commission for The Bird, but the original story idea was mine and I take credit for everything except the impetus to actually write the damn thing.

Tags are a complete guess, I actually have no idea how to tag this thing.

Chapters (4)
Comments ( 202 )

This is a really good start for a story, and I am interested in the choices of our protagonist.

Ah, a bitter and cynical human finds himself in the land of rainbows and unicorns to ostensibly learn about the magic of friendship. I suspect (and hope) that it isn't handled as easily as it was in the show. I'm a big fan of clashing these naive ponies with a more realistic ideology.

Awesome start you say discord is going to show up later I wonder in what form maybe as a voice in the humans head that’ll in time merge with him or maybe there’ll wind up being two draconequus

I love this genre. I can't wait for more!

I can't wait for more...Discord.

The image you used... is that Discord eating Rainbow Dash? Or is he messin' and slurping a Dashie lookin' noodle?

I wasn't a fan at first: right now, after just meeting main character, I really don't care about him enough to be be curious about his race, sexuality or what he thinks about Spock and Q. I found those parts boring and I skimmed over them.
But I'm in love with the rest of the chapter - it was interesting and simply hilarious! Those puns were really enjoyable and I can't wait to see more.

Any ideas when there will be a new chapter?

Ehh... Is he doing the same things Real Discord did? I am not sure and I am too lazy to check the episode... XD

9754748
He did. From transforming the animals, the pun with rolling his eyes, and to jumping in flutters hooves. All mimics the episode.

Well this seems interesting. I look forward to seeing what some Terran goon can pull out of this situation, the ripples of the butterfly effect are always fun to watch.

9754757
That's why I'm supremely disappointed in this chapter. Despute everything, it all proceeds exactly like canon. It defeats the entire premise of the story! If its just canon there isn't any point in reading any of it, making it a huge waste of time. Hopefully it doesn't end up so.

Though Celestia may have some good points, both her and the Mane 6 are being extremely presumptuous. Even if Discord being locked away was for reason, the method it happened isn't something that can be forgiven. 1000 years of qgony from being frozen alive but unable to act being just forgotten qnd put aside is absurd. Plus the Mane 6 "reforming" him assumedly means they order him to act, think, and do what they say he should or else he is locked away forever. Nonecof that says reforming or befriending, and they did a terrible job of it in canon.

Speaking of which, you're pretty much going to need to convince your readers that you AREN'T going to just follow canon, invalidating the SI's existence by just skipping through the flowery fields with them.

9754929 It's much easier just to kill villains. Then you don't have to deal with them again!

Unless it's comics... then they always find a way to come back. Usually a dozen or so times before each reboot.

Soooooo.... where did actual Discord end up?

Also, if he wasn't that interested in the show, how's he remembering lines word-for-word?

9754729 Yes, he's eating Rainbow Dash. Because everyone does.

Taste the Rainbow is LAW!!

9755124
He's remembering lines pertaining to Discord word for word. He didn't care as much about the non Discord episodes.

9755125
Am I to assume then that in a future chapter the whole "keeping with the story" is going to just kinda disappear and Dashie's takin' a trip into Discord's noodle gut?

9755189
It's a tongue. It's a screenshot from the episode. He's blowing a raspberry at the bunny he transformed.

The descriptions you wrote for how the world looks and how it feels to be Discord were really cool.

But I thought you mentioned you'd never have a self-insert as Discord—

I'm not gonna write a story about our boy where the real thing never makes an appearance. Also not a self-insert.

Ah, thank the gods. It appears you haven't gone crazy. Cheers to another of your stories. Without you, I never would've been a part of this horse thing.

9755189
That's hilarious. His tooth and tongue do kinda look like the red and yellow stripes in Dash's tail, but that disinterested, grumpy look is not the face that Discord would make while eating somepony.

Friendship is Magic would have been a much different show if Discord just casually ate Rainbow Dash immediately after being released from stone.

9754437
I hope it won't just be him abusing his powers. The OC strikes me as a total dick. And I bet he's a hypocrite too because by his own logic, it's fine to use a reformation spell on him as long as they also take away his ability to mind—how much does anyone want to bet he wouldn't like the idea of being on the receiving end of mind-control?

9755189 He'll probably be like, "Eh, to heck with chaotic neutral. I'm going full-on Hannibal!"

:pinkiecrazy:

Well, this should certainly be entertaining. And hewing close to canon makes sense; this fellow has a mentality very much like Discord's. Though there will likely be divergences along the way. Looking forward to seeing how you spin this in unexpected directions. Especially when the original shows up.

Looks interesting.

That being said, the main character's hard-on for de Lancie and decision to be a deliberate arsehole are kind of grating.

But all 6 of them are needed. And if, say, Twilight was spontaneously sent to go visit her brother in the Crystal Empire and Rainbow Dash was sent into a dimension where Daring Do is real, they'd have no hope of stopping me.

Discord: "I will chaos in such a way where you will be mildly happy. Muahahahahahahahahahaha."

:rainbowdetermined2: "Try me."

Discord: "Say hello to a dimension where Daring Do is real." *snap*

*portal opens sending Dashie away*


.........


:rainbowhuh: *falls through a portal in the air* "Owwww."


Discord: "Wait, does this mean she is real here? Huh."

What point does this serve if most of the chapter is quoting the show line by line? Extremely disappointing waste of time.

Ok now the job is simple, don't reform,don't be a doormat

*looks at the author in the eyes*
And you don't make him reform and make him an idiot just to move the plot

Yeah so err to start this off...

How the hell is this different from "A Screwed Up Life?"

I've got a few problems with this story right off the bat honestly.

1. You literally just... quoted the episode verbatim. This is literally just "Keep Calm and Flutter on" but oh wait, Discord is actually h00man so is unique!

2. Your MC is, to be entirely frank, kind of a dick and not at all fun to read, and I can see that my thoughts are echoed by quite a few people here.

3. You say this isn't a self insert. This is 100% a self-insert. Except you insert yourself as Discord.

4. While I am certainly not one to judge others for using tropes and taking clear and obvious inspiration from other works (My content is largely based off such.), you simply must bring something unique to the table when you do so. And I'm not really getting that from this story. Your OC seems to display the exact same personality and mindset as Discord. Plenty of other similarly styled Discord self-inserts still manage to bring something new and refreshing to the table, despite their basic premise being the same. There was one a year or two back, I believe the title was "Chaotic Neutral" or something along those lines, and the human who assumed the mantle of Discord was truly chaotic neutral, and not chaotic good like the reformed Discord was. "Monster" brings a fresh, new perspective on why Discord became the way he was, and by the end of it most people were actually rooting for pre-reformation, full-force God of Chaos, insane Discord. This just... lacks any character to it.

I honestly hope you prove me wrong in future chapters, I really do. This has potential, but the beginning you have here just isn't it.

Ehh...awkward critique time:

This is very mediocre. Yes, the premise has been done hundreds of times, that's fine. Good writing and entertaining characters will always make up for that. But the writing here is mediocre at best, the character you've given us is simply not very interesting, and you've made some choices that don't bode well for the future. Your character spends a lot of time simply telling us about himself, and honestly it's just not interesting to read. We come here to read pony stories. I don't care about how some random human OC feels about Star Trek and Spock and his mixed race heritage and sexuality or that 4 paragraph personal little author's tract about how he feels about Discord, and on and on...I don't care about any of that, and it's just not a very compelling way to introduce a character or a story. Yeah ok, initial setup of premise is useful, but you've presented your stand-in for the spirit of chaos by throwing a several page infodump of information that's not interesting and will probably be largely irrelevant by chapter two.

You then proceed to go on for about three pagedown screenfulls of text about his subjective sensory experience. Ok, yeah sure...maybe there's some useful information in there. Maybe it's important to point out that he's in a new body with new capabilities he's adapting, ok fine. But it's not fun to read a page and a half about that immediately after coming through several pages of listening to this guy talk about himself. Especially when we know perfectly well that who he used to be is going to be completely irrelevant almost immediately because he's now in Discord's body.

I would say "show don't tell," but at this point I'm not sure you should be showing us either, because what you're telling us is neither very interesting nor particularly relevant to the story.

Then after all of this, you conclude with more or less a copy and paste of the episode. Your character is being Discord. Why is having random Joe Blow OC acting exactly like Discord an interesting thing to read?? This chapter adds nothing to the original premise except some random OC that none of us care about. Imagine watching the original episode, except with "oh, except this is really a human pretending" stapled to the bottom of your screen. That wouldn't make it a better or new or fun or interesting story.

1) This character needs to very rapidly become interesting and do something other than act exactly like Discord and babble about his own personal life that's gone and that we don't care about.

2) This story absolutely needs to diverge from the show, or else it's just yet another "copy and paste plus OC nobody cares about" fic.

9757091
I'm going to endorse this 100% as this is exactly why the story so far is an utter failure.

Really nice start to a new story, it'd be really cool if you swapped perspectives with Eric and Discord from time to time, I feel like it's gonna start getting monotonous if we have *just* the perspective of Eric and not Discord for more than the first one or two chapters. I'd love to see where his perspective starts and the narration read from his point of view too. One thing though; don't you think you're over-extending yourself with these new stories? It seems like you're rather busy and that it'd be hard to keep up with all of ongoing fics you have lined up.

i've thought of this myself. i know i'm not the only one. of course, usually i disguise myself as a unicorn and hide in plain sight in Ponyville and ham up my woe whenever anyone says i am a villain. i still prank ponies but from afar and intentionally catch myself in some to divert suspicion. muahahahahahahahaha. looking forward to what you have him do. -_______________________________________-

9756796

3. You say this isn't a self insert. This is 100% a self-insert. Except you insert yourself as Discord.

Um, question? How do you know this? Do you know Alarajrogers personally? I don't, I couldn't tell if this is her in Discord's body. Plus, that would imply she's A) a dick, as you said, and B) thinks exactly like Discord, as you also said. Are you sure you're not confusing the term "Self-insert" for something else? Because that means exactly what it says on the tin—inserting yourself, the author as a person, into the story.

9757538
Agreed, if we are being literal about it, Discord comes off as an author surrogate rather than a self-insert.

To the author, on the chapter itself, chapter one really turned me off on the main character. There was nothing in the way I perceived "Discord" as an enjoyable read. Granted this may change in chapter 2 but for now this gets a soft pass for me.

Who are you trying to convince this is not a self insert? You seem very insecure of your writing with this explanation, and it’s misplaced insecurity. As a writer you have potential. It seems more like you’re trying to prove it to yourself. Let the readers draw their own conclusions.

The less summary of a character the better. Tell us about your character through the story itself, not through direct paragraphs. When you give us a paragraph or six to read regarding the character’s likes, dislikes, feelings, etc, we feel cheated. It’s lazy writing. It reminds me of an old story about the Spartans:

A few outsiders approached the spartan magistrates with need of assistance. They gave a long, impassioned speech to the Spartans, as was the norm in their culture for those wanting of aid. However, their norm was not the same as that of the Spartans, who valued short and concise sentences over long speeches. At the end of the speech, the Spartans averred they could no longer remember the first half of the speech, and could make nothing of the other half.

The next day the same people had an audience with the magistrates again, only this time they held up a burlap sack and said “The bag wants flour.” The Spartans told them they did not have to say “the bag”, but resolved to give them aid.

Why do I bring this up? Because a bunch of paragraphs directly telling the readers about this character is the writer’s equivalent of the flour story. Let your work tell the story of the character as the plot progresses. Over time, give us short snippets of this character to give it personality and it will mean a LOT more to us.

It’s always risky to quote dialogue word for word from anything, because it limits your ability to establish your own spin to a character and instead you wind up with a flat retelling. If you read retellings, you would notice that good ones tend to diverge in certain ways from the original story while managing to tell the same story. This grants a unique spin on the plot and the reader feels rewarded with a unique and refreshing take on a pre existing character. Does this mean you can’t use the original dialogue at all? Of course not. Throw in a few of the lines along with your own take. If you do it right you wind up with a character that is both unique and recognizable by its dialogue.

When do we get to the part he deviates completely from the script? I'm looking forward to that! :pinkiehappy:

9757538

9757700

Knowing nothing about the author themselves prior to reading this? It certainly does come off as a self-insert. However, if what you say is true, what Cmart said is certainly more applicable.

9758080
I'm a 50 year old mother of four, white, a college graduate, had a stable home life and very good grades, had very few friends growing up but the ones that I did have I was very, very close to, have a sense of humor that's more about wordplay and being very dry than playing practical jokes, generally respected authority as long as authority was consistent and compassionate, and while I love tricksters, reformed villains, and villains who have a good reason for what they do, I was the kind of kid who fantasized about rescuing all the kids who bullied me from something terrible so they would like and respect me instead. (I used that little bit in my Fluttershy headcanon in a different story.) I am a lot more like Twilight Sparkle than any of the other characters in MLP (for good and for bad; the entire business of having to study friendship as if it was an academic subject instead of something you just do really resonates with me because that is kind of how I learned how to behave like a normal human most of the time.)

I have had thoughts about doing a self-insert, but Twilight Sparkle is so close to me, there's almost no point. If I ever do one, it'll be a. female b. a writer or a professional in STEM like a scientist, data analyst or programmer, or if a teenager, someone who plans to be one of those things c. really nothing at all like Discord, much as I love the character.

To be honest, I didn't really expect this story to hit the Featured box and attract so much attention from people who aren't already reading my work, so my comments about "this is not a self insert" were actually intended as a joke -- usually these kinds of stories are self inserts or seem like they might be, but the degree to which this guy isn't anything like me, and the degree to which that would be obvious to most of the people who regularly follow me, is laughable. I wasn't really trying to create a controversial statement. :-)

I will admit that I do, in fact, have a serious crush on John de Lancie, but that is basically the only point of similarity between me and this character. :-)

Well, this could be interesting, but it isn't as-is. If it diverges pretty quick and has some Discord-style visual puns and the like that aren't just cribbed directly from the show, it could be decently entertaining; I've known more than a few stories that have gotten off to worse starts that went on to be, if nothing else, decent literary popcorn. If it doesn't... probably not going to last long.

Not a bad start with good descriptions but I hope you can make it interesting. You now are book marked

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