To Dwell in Joy
*Note: most of this was written before Keep Calm and Flutter On came out and ruined Discord as a villain. Therefore, this is AU because he's still a statue and hasn't been loved and tolerated to death.
THUS DWELL IN JOY
A tragichaocomedy in infinite acts by the parasprite Discord
A Preface, Interlude, and Epilogue—also by His Chaoticness, Discord
Let me say a few words about the setting and some of the background props that aren't trees and domesticated flightless birds before we finish this this tale. As a major character in it—the tale I'm going to tell you, that is—I believe I can offer the closest thing to a perspective on the world you're about to enter that your obnoxiously orderly brain can process.
Verily, you have been warned of the chaos to come.
Before the beginning, there was less than nothing. It's a difficult and slippery concept for mortal ponies to grasp, that one; the idea that there could actually be something which is less than the absence of being. And they're right, in a sense: there actually never was anything but nothing. Equivocally, it's also impossible for a pony to comprehend everything, as it's simply too big to fit into your brain.
Time is utterly absent in this story, which is one of the many things that makes it so different from your many boring fairy-tales of heroic red and black alicorns fighting hordes of gryphon-minotaur-changeling hybrids, and such things. Speaking of things without time isn't a particularly simple matter when you're using language to communicate, but I'm sure we'll manage, won't we? Either that, or we won't.
Another thing mortal ponies have some trouble understanding is the idea of forever. This is a particularly hard thing for them to comprehend, you see, because without nothing, everything, and the absence of time, you cannot have infinity or eternity. We will simplify it to an almost pointless degree and say that it happened before the beginning.
To describe the 'setting', if it could be called that, one would have to have a mind vast enough to encompass it. There was no distance fog there, and the view was panoramic; all that wasn't was thrust upon your mind in one overwhelming landslide in which you were forced to comprehend how insignificant you were in the scheme of an infinite, eternal carnival of nothing.
This sort of state is far, far beyond your capacity to understand, so don't bother trying. I'll warn you, many things here are beyond you, because we are speaking of Lovecloptian ideas and not your boring, orderly world where everything always makes sense. Simply put: to comprehend would be to go mad.
If you're really, truly in need of a visual, picture a vast, expanse of completely blank space that went on forever in all directions. There was no name for the color it was painted; black is the closest cousin it had, but even that's not dark enough to describe it. Light and dark were one and the same before the beginning began, anyway, so it doesn't truly matter. Not a single ray of light could be found anywhere, and yet you could see everything at once in a massive, overwhelmingly desolate panoramic vacuum like a night sky without stars.
The cold in that place was bottomless. Again, beyond your complete comprehension! In the mortal world of Equestria, absolute zero is reached at zero degrees Kelvin, or -273.15 degrees Celestius. This, however, was an eerie cold that just kept getting colder with each moment that didn't pass. If you'd been there with a thermometer (not that you would), it would have gone down and down and down until you had a red line past negative infinity.
But you would never freeze, as there were no particles to freeze, you silly scientific pony. There can be no particles in dead, empty space, after all—those came much, much later. It was just damn hellishly cold before the beginning.
In fact, I suppose Hell, or Tartarus, would be the most fitting name you could have given this state of nonbeing. There was no death, of course, as there was no time—and where would your soul go, anyway? Detrot? No, in the Void, everything was immortal and untouched by time. The first immortals were creatures that, again, were far beyond your comprehension. They were far more than mere omnipotent gods. They were greater than the gods; greater than the creators of the universe; greater than themselves.
Does that make any sense? No? Good. It shouldn't.
They drifted about in this less-than-nothing, lonely and alone, and they did not want it any other way because they did not want. They did not have these equine desires... They simply were, and are, and will always be. And they did things that you, in your wildest dreams, could not possibly begin to consider, because of your narrow pony mind and your fearful pony heart.
To these old things, the unnothing was... Well, I suppose you could call it a home, but that would imply that they thought in any way like you do. A cold, horrid, painful, miserable... dwelling, perhaps? It doesn't matter. Semantics. To them, it was perfect, and all was well, and the universe went on and on and on. And on. And on, and on, and on... and on... I think I've made my point clear.
Do you truly understand what it means to be immortal? I doubt it.
It's more than just sitting on your rump, drinking tea and shooting ponies onto to the moon. Outliving friend after friend until you find your one millionth replacement Best Friend Forever, or living in a plastic dollhouse full of ponies who are supposed to be dead but aren't. It's so much more.
No, being immortal means that you will never end. You will exist past forever and into the phantasmic nothing that precedes and follows and intercedes it. You cannot cease to be. There is no beginning, and there is no end.
And that is precisely what is so terribly hilarious about this tale.
For you see, there were two who sort of drifted through the coldness like all the others—who were immortal, like all the others, and yet weren't quite right. So much like the others, and yet so unlike them in that they somehow lacked the ability to comprehend the universe and its complexities, and the hilarity of their combined meaninglessness. To say... immortals cursed with the minds of mortals.
Oh, how it amuses me these days to see Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia, Regent of the Sun, Ruler of Equestria, decked out in her royal finery and looking every bit the all-powerful goddess. Now, Tia does look very nice in all that, you must understand; let nopony ever claim otherwise. But she was a very different creature before the beginning.
Imagine for a moment the most pathetic little foal you ever saw; the most pitiful orphaned beggar you ever encountered on the streets of Canterlot, and you haven't even come close to visualizing how hilariously powerless Celestia was before time began. She was a mere filly; a scruffy, dirty off-white alicorn filly with a pink mane and massive black-and-blue bags under bloodshot eyes.
And oh, the tears. She cried enough tears to drown herself a thousand times over. She was practically born crying. Why, I do believe she did begin crying before she even opened her eyes. Poor Tia was just so alone and so terrified, and all she wanted was to be held by her mother (though she never had one) and told it would be alright. Celestia was doubly cursed in that she could not even understand any of her situation with her profoundly limited mind. She spent her infinity wondering why. Why they were, why they suffered, and why they couldn't just die.
Her only companion was her little sister, Luna. If you thought Celestia was pathetic, Luna made her look almost as perfect as... well, me.
Luna wasn't even out of her foalhood yet and dreamed nightmares that would scare you into catatonia every time she closed her eyes. I think she cried even more than Celestia did. She was afraid of the dark, you see. That's why she made the night. It's brighter than the color of un-nothing.
They spent the endless, beginningless time before time holding onto each other as they drifted through the vast expanse of ichorous darkness. Spinning together in a spiral of loneliness and despair, doomed to live forever in that icy place before hell. Poor Celestia, having to hang onto her sister when they had nightmares, lest she lose her grip and they be separated forever and ever.
That was a valid fear, mind you. Things tended to get lost easily, or simply cease to existnotexistexist. Do you catch my drift? Could you imagine spending eternity by yourself?
No? Lucky you.
Oh, you think you can imagine the horror? You think you can empathize with that loneliness?
Just you wait and see, dear friend. Listen and learn.
While they drifted aimlessly through this ultravacuum of silence, it was usually Celestia who thought about why. But it was Luna who asked why.
"Why are we here, Tia?" she would often ask when she was supposed to be sleeping. Which was always and never—you know, because it was better to be asleep than awake, and without time, everything was just sort of mashed into one ball of instant action.
"I don't know, Lulu," Celestia would reply sadly, stroking her sister's starry mane with one hoof. The other foreleg was always locked tightly and protectively around Luna's body, ensuring they were never apart.
"It's so cold. I wish it wasn't so cold."
"So do I."
"Why is it so cold?"
"I don't know, Lulu."
Luna, of course, would begin to cry, and let me tell you it would have been a heartbreaking sight if there had been anypony around but Celestia to witness it. Immortal things, you see, don't have hearts, except for Celestia and Luna—and theirs, of course, were broken a long time ago. Gag, gag, gag. Excuse me while I see my doctor about my sudden onset of spontaneous bulimia.
"I'm so cold..."
"I know. I am too."
"I don't want to be here, Tia. I wish we could leave and go somewhere warm with a lot of other ponies like us to keep us company."
"Am... am I not enough for you, Luna?"
"Oh, I didn't mean it that way! I love you so much! But I can't stand this any longer... why do we have to suffer like this, Tia? Why? Were we bad? It does't make sense... was I bad? Did we do wrong? Are we being punished?"
Hmph.
If I were capable of being shocked and appalled, I would be stunned by the inability of mortals (and those with the minds of mortals) to comprehend the nature of the universe. Always thinking there has to be a reason for everything that happens...
What's that? You want to know the nature of the universe?
Ha ha, fine. I'll tell it to you.
It's quite simple. I don't think you'll fully grasp what I'm saying, though. Not when you've been biologically hardwired to make order out of everything.
The nature of the universe is... less than nothing at all.
It is a thing beyond order; beyond chaos, even. Your limited language couldn't truly express how utterly meaningless the universe in which we have and have not resided is. I know that there are ponies who believe there is no higher power than the goddesses, and others that there are no goddesses and dear Tia and Lulu are mere horses with wings and horns and a lot of fiddly-widdly magical power. Pretenders to the throne, if you will.
They spend so much time and effort arguing over it and generating such lovely chaos.
'I have received a vision from the Goddess Celestia in my dreams that thou art a deceiver leading the innocent astray into amorality!'
'Oh, the thirty-six degree curvature of the inner space-time continuum on my quill pen proves that the Princesses are not goddesses, only lying frauds!'
But has the former group ever detuned their righteous fervor for a moment to wonder from whence their all-powerful goddesses sprang, or the latter ever come down from their proverbial cloud of arrogance to wonder from whence they themselves sprang?
Probably. I doubt they've ever come close to finding the correct answer, though. Neither side has ever spoken the word 'Discordism', so I don't think they've done very well in working out the truth.
In the end, they're both somewhat right, to a degree. The Princesses are indeed your goddesses, but in the big scheme of things—which, mind you, is so big even I have a bit of trouble comprehending it, though I'm still able to do so—they are less than less than nothing. This religion versus anti-religion conflict is so utterly pointless because both sides are wrong and right at the same time.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves here, with all this springing and fervor and proverbiality and defensivaberbialation. Right now, our story is about two lonely little alicorn foals floating through the eerie cold of the unnothing. Oh, my friend... if only you could see it. Your all-powerful princess of the sun trying to comfort her lonely, frightened sister in the very depths of what you, with your limited vocabulary, might call hell.
"I can't sleep," Luna would whisper, clinging to Celestia. "There are things watching us, Tia. They want to eat us... they'll eat us if I go to sleep."
"I'll keep us safe," the little white alicorn would assure her. "Go to sleep. I'll protect you while you're dreaming."
Luna, of course, would have none of it. She would begin to cry softly in the maddening emptiness.
"B-but what if you can't? The things I see, they're so terrible! They're slimy and disgusting and evil and they want to eat us because they hate us because we're being punished because we're bad ponies because we did something horrible!"
Let's switch tenses for a bit so I can tell this part of the story with more emotional depth.
You ponies and your emotions... gag.
"Nothing will hurt you while I'm here," promised Celestia. She stroked the smaller alicorn's mane with her hoof. "Shh... please don't cry, Luna. Please... You're not a bad pony. You're the best sister I could ever ask for."
You may be wondering how Celestia and Luna could talk about having other sisters when they were the only two ponies in the unexistence. It doesn't make sense, does it? There, you have your answer: what fun is there in making sense?
Sniffling and shivering simultaneously, Luna nuzzled Celestia. Her crying, however, did not cease.
"Let's play the imagination game," Celestia suggested, smiling a strained smile despite her own chattering teeth. That game usually helped calm Luna down. "What are you imagining?"
Luna went silent for a little while. Her tears stopped and dried away.
"Painting everything," she eventually replied in a soft voice. "I made up a color. It's called black."
"What's black like?"
"It's a lot lighter than everything else except blue," said Luna. "I want to paint myself black and blue so I'll be the brightest thing ever. Then I'll take a brush and paint everything above my head the same color so I can hide up there when the monsters come and they won't see me."
"What about me?" Celestia asked. "Will I be black and blue as well?"
The younger alicorn bit her lip a little as she thought. "No, we'll make up another color for you so you can be part of The Night, too."
Celestia smiled a real smile. "The Night, Luna?"
Nodding enthusiastically, Luna said, "Yes, I'm going to call it The Night. It's a pretty word, isn't it?"
"It is," agreed Celestia.
"What about you, Tia?"
"Light," said Celestia without hesitation.
"What's Light? Is it like The Night?"
"Yes, it's very much like night. But instead of making the sky black to hide in it, I'm going to make up a color so bright it'll scare all the monsters away. Then we'll never have to worry about them ever again."
"How will you do that?" asked Luna curiously. "What will it be like?"
"I'll make a huge ball of this Light and hide it behind your Night. Then when the monsters come I'll take it out from behind The Night and it'll shine on them and hurt their eyes."
Luna clapped her front hooves together delightedly, holding onto Celestia with her back legs. "That's a brilliant idea, Tia! What are you going to call it?"
"Pardon?" said Celestia.
"Well, you have to have a name for it." Luna nodded her head as though this was a matter of the utmost importance. Which, to her, it was.
"I shall call it The Sun,” Celestia decided. Luna clapped again in approval.
Of course, I’m only compressing a few moments of their time into a block you might find relevant. In truth, that conversation took place over a great many endless infinites, seeing as untime is infinite in its length, and was punctuated by a lot of crying and telling each other that everything would be better eventually and affectionate nuzzling and sleeping and Luna’s nightmares and talking about inane things nopony but them could possibly care about and all the other things ponies do that nothing else outside the universe does.
But I doubt you would be interested in that. Let me tell you, it gets dull after a while.
Dull, dull, dull.
I’m sure by now you’re wondering how the Princesses, and indeed, you, are happily docking your plots on this oasis in an ocean of nihil, given how helpless they were before the beginning and how you didn’t exist or not exist at all. Well, hello, my friends! That’s where I come in!
I was not like your princesses in that I rather enjoyed hanging around in the dark and doing whatever the hell I pleased. I still do, but I've grown rather rebellious in my teenage years, and have begun attending rave parties as well. Being a creature of chaos, I often grew bored of the Void's predictable unpredictability, and so to find these two creatures who were somehow less than the darkness, and who were predictably the same thing over and over forever, was quite novel.
It was after observing the Princesses for quite some time that I first set eyes upon them. I decided to introduce myself, because, well, it was just the polite thing to do, after all. Thus motivated, I slithered from the dark depths and, extending a clawed appendage, said, "Good darkness, my dears... I am Discord, the spirit of Disharmony and Chaos. What brings you to this open range of the Void?"
"Don't eat us, Mr. Monster!" cried Luna. She burst into tears.
Celestia, always possessed by that need to be the protector of all things weak and helpless, pushed in front of little Luna, eyes wide with a look bordering on insanity. "You keep your jaws and claws away from my sister, creature, or you'll regret it!"
"Aaaahhh, I'm shaking in my boots," I told them, folding my arms indignantly. "Really, now. I was only trying to say hello. Is that any way to greet a fellow traveler?"
"Why would you want to talk to us? Just leave us alone!"
"Because," I huffed, "I'm bored. Eternity is very boring once you run out of tic tac toe partners, not that you actually can run out of them. I've been listening in on your conversations about... oh, what was it... Light? And what was the other one?"
"Time," said Celestia warily. "It's where things don't stay the same... they change."
I shivered delightedly at the very thought. "Oohoohooh... that is so very interesting."
"Maybe... maybe we'll even... go away."
"When you say 'go away' is that a euphemism for 'die'? 'Cease to be'? 'Expire'? 'Meet your maker'? 'Shuffle off this mortal coil'?"
Slowly, Celestia nodded. Naturally, I burst into laughter, as this was indeed quite funny. She wasn't amused, and turned away in humiliation to cover Luna with her little filly wings as best she could.
"Oh dear, that is priceless," said I, slapping my clawed hand upon my knee in mirth. "Don't you know that we can't die? There's no such thing as death—We are forever! We are immortal! Oh dear, you two will definitely entertain me for quite some time."
"Just go away!" shouted Celestia as Luna began to cry again. "If you're just going to mock us, go away!"
I looked around at the endless emptiness, then turned back and smiled at them. It was not a particularly kind or unkind smile, but one of mischief and delicious, lovely chaos—for, as you know, I am a creature of mischief and chaos.
"I could," I said, "but I could also give you Light."
"You could?" asked Luna from within the cocoon of Celestia's wings.
"Oh, yes, my dear child... Let me show you."
(1) And Discord placed his shades before his eyes and said, Let there be light: and there was light.
The Void shone with what Celestia and Luna had only imagined for so long: a glowing point where the absolute darkness was absent, and rays of light burst forth instead from its depths. Wherever this vast, expanding sphere of light touched, there was warmth, safety, and happiness like neither had ever known before. It shoved away the vacuous emptiness and replaced it with something, which I assure you was unheard of at that untime.
(2) And Discord saw the light, that it was good and could provide lots and lots of chaos and entertainment: and Discord divided the light from the light from the light.
First, there was light, and then there were many shades of light. If you got closer, there was more light, and if you got further away, there was less light. And if you got furthest away, you got to the least light, until you reached black, which was without light. Simple, yes?
(3) And Discord called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
(4) And Discord placed the greatest light in the Sun, and he gave this to Celestia, that she could watch over the Day, and he placed the least light in the Moon, and he gave this to Luna, that she could watch over the Night.
"How very biblical," I said when I was finished. This all took just a snap of my fingers, of course, because I am very amazing and powerful and godlike and all that. "Let's get worldbuilding then, shall we?"
Celestia and Luna, in their infinite fillyishness and such, looked upon the creation with wonder and were understandably awed by the sights before them. All they had ever dared to dream of had come true. But now, suddenly, they were filled with creative ideas and desires they would never have allowed themselves to consider out in that dark, evil Void, for such things would have been far too painful.
"I'd like it if we weren't so lonely," Celestia told me hopefully.
So I obliged and created a gigantic globe you could walk upside-down on (because what would be more chaotic than walking upside-down on a huge marble), and populated it with other ponies that were kind of like Celestia and Luna. It was soon filled with unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies to be friends with Celestia and Luna, and then I created other animals to share that world with them too.
"I want the world to be filled with bright and pretty colours," added Luna. "So that everything and everyone is always happy."
So, being the infinitely nice draconequus that I am, I made everything bright and colourful, and it rained chocolate milk from clouds made out of cotton candy, and all the ponies had blindingly bright schemes and silly names like Cuddles, Raincurl, and Surprise. Such fun!
"We wish everypony would always get along with each other, no matter what," the two original alicorn fillies said together.
Well now, that didn't seem like too bad an idea at the time. My little experiment was coming along swimmingly so far! So I took a lot of Disharmony and put it through an excruciatingly complex process that removed all the Dis and left only the Harmony. Then I turned the Harmony into the Elements of Harmony: Laughter, Loyalty, Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, and Magic.
And when I presented them to the recently crowned Princesses, I even added a little 'Ta-daa' to make the event all the more grand. It wa—Why yes, I did indeed create the Elements of Harmony. Yes, I—What?
No, of course I don't know how they work.
Why would I know something like that? All I did was make them.
Anywho, there were many, many, many other requests, and most of them were insipid, so I won't bother mentioning them to you. This newfangled invention called time passed, and Equestria ran quite smoothly for several thousand years. For the most part, it was good: we frolicked through the flowers, tiptoed through the tulips, and generally did a great many entertaining and chaotic things. It was such a delightfully chaotic experience to create life and manipulate it as I pleased, despite the increasingly needy Princesses and their reliance on me for all their power.
I let them have their wishes and kept them around, because they inspired me; in the same way a muse inspires a great artist. But though Celestia and Luna became very comfortable in their idealized little world, they could not pretend it was anything more than a dream swirling inside an opium pipe, waiting to be inhaled. They still dreamed their terrifying little nightmares of the Void's vast and ageless emptiness, and the tantalizing madness they could never fall into to escape their terrible fate. They suffered through these nightmares even after I made Luna the Princess of Dreams, and they still crawled into one another's beds to hold each other and cry every night for thousands of years.
They were still afraid, you see, even though they put on their strong fronts to the ponies who now worshiped them as goddesses. If only those ponies knew how truly pathetic the Princesses once were... how powerless in the endless scheme... they would be very angry indeed. Of course, if they truly understood their relevance to the scheme, said ponies would be more likely to either go insane or commit suicide out of sheer hopelessness.
So one day the Royal Sisters came to me atop the highest mountain peak in Equestria, which was also the lowest, and the middle, and the one most surrounded by cotton candy clouds, which was a height relative to that mountain. They came with yet another wish; the first one I could not grant.
"We wish this would all last for ever and ever," they said to me.
"No can do," I told her—most apologetically, because I am a very polite draconequus.
"What?" whimpered Luna. "But you must!"
"Ah, but I cannot. One day, my little alicorns, I will grow bored of this, and then I will move on to a different part of the nothingness. Perhaps we'll meet again, but I doubt it. I can't really give you a time frame, though; it all depends on how much this world continues to entertain m—"
"You can't destroy all this," Celestia said sharply. "Discord, that's not funny."
"Oh, you have no sense of humor," I chuckled heartily. "Your reaction to the time I blew up Manedinganoonga was proof enough of that. But I'm afraid this is not a joke. You see, that's the catch when living in a world created by a capricious and whimsical god such as myself: I can just as easily destroy all that I create."
Celestia fell upon her knees, openly groveling like a noble before my admittedly grovel-worthy self. "Discord, please... I beg you... without you, there's no light! We can't go back there! Please, we can't! It's so lonely—I can't go back there! Please, I'll do anything! I'll do anything!"
"Sorry, Tia, but I shall not be swayed by your pleading. You're just as much of a god as me—you'll survive. Time means an end to infinity, and that means this place has an end. Forever doesn't. We don't. "
"I don't want to survive if I lose Equestria!" shouted Celestia. She was crying... Gag. How melodramatic. "Here, we have a purpose! We have a reason to exist! We have Equestria, and our little ponies! Out there, all we do is float around in space and cry!"
"I can't help that I have attention deficit disorder," I told her with a shrug. "I get bored easily. What am I to do? Nothing, that's what. I do know of something you could do, though—you could start appreciating what you have, instead of constantly wishing for more, and more, and more. Enjoy your little ponies; live in the moment, and don't fret about the future. Otherwise you won't even know what you've got until it's gone."
I turned away, toward the east, and started singing 'Don't Know What You Got, Till It's Gone' in a loud, booming voice that probably blew out eardrums for miles around.
Unfortunately, I had, in a moment of most embarrassingly ungodlike lapse of concentration, forgotten about the Elements of Harmony, which were at that moment in the saddlebags of the Princesses, as they always carried their fashionable magic jewelry around with them at that time. Being the spirit of chaos and disharmony, and all, I tend to react rather badly when hit with pure, concentrated harmony (which I invented—sort that out in your head; I dare you to even try), so it was a very foolish thing to forget that indeed.
I don't think your Princesses actually knew the Elements would have such an effect on me, of course. They were just panicked and fearful, and they chose to react by hitting yours truly in the behind with that rainbow of light.
Just like that!
Not even an 'Oh Discord, dearest and oldest friend of ours, we're going to turn you into a stone statue and put your (attractive, I'll give you) body on display in the gardens for thousands of years while we play in your creation like foals in a puddle of mud'. It's so uncouth, as my good friend Te'oma's dear darling sweetheart would say, to turn ponies to stone; but to do so without asking first is just flat-out impolite and rude.
And there I was, frozen for millenniums in the midst of my great ballad of loss, knowledge, and glass slippers. Trapped within a shell made of pure harmony, able to see and hear but not to move or speak. And so, time passed... and passed... A few thousand years of imprisonment here, a day of freedom there...
And time continues to pass. And pass...
Until one day, it simply won't anymore.
And that's how the universe began, and how I ended up trapped in stone the first time around. Now, if you want to hear all about the unending grief I gave Celestia from the gardens about it, I can tell you about that, too, but I don't think you'd be interested. It's quite boring. Celly’s mere presence does tend to have that effect on so very many things.
Don't you agree?
...Twilight, dear, I hope I haven't been the first creature to bore an immortal to death. Especially not so soon after your ascension.
Oh, the Elements? Well, having never been sealed in stone before, I thought it might make an interesting experience. It was in fact excruciatingly boring. Having never been sealed in stone twice before, I'm trying to determine whether that is a bit more interesting.
Aha, no. I’m just pulling your brand-new alicorn wings of immortality and foreverness. To be honest, my second imprisonment was simply due to hubris on my part. I was still trying to have fun that time, and I just felt like playing a bit of a game of chance with you girls—it seems I lost, unfortunately. I shan’t be making that mistake again, let me tell you!
How am I talk—Oh, Twilight, you and your silly logic! I'm talking because I'm talking.
Of course it doesn't make any sense. No sense makes sense!
You'll never be able to understand why that makes sense, because it doesn't! Nothing makes sense except that which exists within this tiny little bubble-—and this tiny little bubble, I assure you is quite small indeed. Outside, there’s a howling anticyclone of silent illogicality that would break your brain the moment you tried to sort through it. Sanity is just something silly Luna came up with one evening after too much ice cream with chocolate sauce on top. Science and reason didn't even exist before the beginning.
Do please understand, my dear... you will never make sense out of the universe. You can't make sense out of a place without rules, after all. Oh, don't get defensive on me! The fact that you mean less than less than less than nothing in a nonexistent universe you'll never begin to comprehend is no reason not to sit back and enjoy a nice glass of chocolate milk.
Yes, by all means, speak to Celly about what I've told you. Cadance did, you know.
I expect the cake-addict will bury me in the ground now; perhaps at the center of the earth, where she thinks no chaos can reach me. But there's always chaos, and I will always be. And one day, I'm going to leave this statue, and then what? You've imprisoned me in stone twice now.
I might have tried to leave a little piece of myself behind to keep Equestria alive, but I just don't feel like it anymore. That’s what you get for being so rude as to trap me in stone for thousands of years. I had planned, you know, to stick around for a few billion years more; maybe a couple trillion, if the weather was nice; maybe wait for the planet to get a little too close to a black hole and start getting eaten up anyway, because I’ve always wanted to see that happen.
But I've discovered I just don't like being sealed in stone very much. No, not at all.
And I don't want it to happen again.
This world; this grand adventure; it was all such great fun... but I’ve had my fill of it. I’m leaving here when I get my chance, you understand... going off to nonexistences unknown, where chaos reigns and the mere sound of silence is blacker than anything your eyes have ever witnessed. And I’m going to take Equestria with me.
All that you see, hear, and feel... all the red roses on that bush over there, that filly’s laughter in the distance, and the warmth of Celestia’s sun shining down upon you... I shall grind it up into dust and take it with me into the empty stillness of the Void. And in the end, none of it will ever have existed to begin with, because I’m going to erase time itself. All the magic, all the wonder, all the friendship... gone. Forever lost, and never to return. Carried off into the cold dark.
You go talk to Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, and then you enjoy the short time you have in this world, because it's not going to be around very much longer. You will, though. You’re going to be around forever. One day, you’ll taste the Void with Tia and Lulu and Cadance. Perhaps your friends will find a way to join you in immortality, and they'll float in the Void forever as well.
How fitting—Best Friends Forever, indeed.
So go speak with Tia. Talk to Luna. Have a going-away party with your friends. Plot, scheme, prepare, do magic, destroy, create, cry, ask why, cut your own throat, smash yourself into the ground—none of it will do you any good. I don’t know how long Equestria will remain, but it’s not going to be very long, and I sincerely advise you to enjoy what you have instead of fretting about the future.
What I am certain of, and what you should be certain of as well, is that whether now or a thousand years from now, I will get out of this statue, and you will still be around when it happens. And the moment I’m free, I’m going to take all this away again, and leave you in chaos forever. Simply turning me to stone won't stop the march of time.
Only I can do that.
Dwell in joy, Twilight.
dwell in joy.
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˙ɟlǝsʇı ƃuıɥʇou sı ƃuıɥʇou puɐ 'ƃuıɥʇou sı ǝɔɐds puɐ 'ǝɔɐds sı ǝɯı┴
cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/37047852.jpg
D̰͔̹̠̦͂̈͜ẘ̨̩͇͚͉̍ͯ̍͝ë͙͙̳͖̥̪̠̻͊̄l͓̩͗ͬ͌͆̿̏̃ͥl̵̟̘̩̝̙͆̓̓̄͑ͫ̂̚ͅͅ ̱̘̖̫̠̘̮̀ͥ̂ͨ̅ͤ͞͠ȉͤ̔̊ͬͮ̽͆́҉̺͖ñ͐̉͋̌̏̉̀҉̠̞̯͖̦̰̫͉ ̼̮͚͍̳̩̄͗͂ͩ̚̚̕J̷̯̤̱͙̪̰̋o̧͛ͩ̈́҉͚̘̼̬̮̱͙͜y̖̖͍̻̩̙͈̻͋̀̑̉͡
2436166
img23.imageshack.us/img23/9496/zalgotime.png
2436188 I wish I got that reference ;_;
2436443
i wish i had a million dollars
but we can't always have what we wish for T_T
2436486 Can you link me some context to 2436188? It looks interesting.
2436502
for the zalgo thing?
/confused
2436505 Yeh.
I'm 2lazy4google ;_;
Haven't read it yet, gonna read it later, but something in your short description on the front page sorta bothered me. I'm pretty sure it should read, "What if Discord were God?" Were, not was. Since it's a what-if question, you use the subjunctive.
Also, so I'm not just being a grammar nazi, I think this looks really interesting, and I definitely plan on reading it sometime in the near future.
2436517
thanks dude
fixed
2436502
trolledbot.net/pix/2927.jpg
he comes
2436527 2google den.
2436527 No problem. Thumbs up for being a cool guy.
2436536
oh i thought you were pulling my leg
sorry
zalgo is pretty well known
so i assumed you would recognize it or something
whatever
google > my explains
2436764
fuck you i like long posts
but thanks either way
2436891
The story's actually about existential terror. The incomprehensibility of infinity and the paradox of existence vs. nonexistence had the most description, but there was also insignificance, everything-is-a-lie, and helplessness against those more powerful.
There's also another level: This is Discord telling his story of everything to Twilight. Discord is telling Twilight that he created the entire world, the Princesses are basically powerless, and becoming a princess is the worst thing ever. Discord could be lying about some of what he says (or all of it) to freak Twilight out as much as he can. (And this story was written by mr.parasprite to freak readers out.) Heck, for void-spawned entities Celestia and Luna were apparently already in the shape of ponies, and that just don't add up. Also, there's nothing preventing ponies from making new worlds. Because fuck the void.
And BTW, infinity is a concept invented by humans.
2437103
you're assuming discord wasn't lying the entire time
(he wasn't)
(probably)
2437148
Parasprite used assumption! It wasn't very effective.
2437168
you're an assumption!!!!!
Oh hell yes.
~Skeeter The Lurker
>>>But you would never freeze, as there were no particles to freeze, you silly scientific pony. There can be no particles in dead, empty space, after all—those came much, much later. It was just damn hellishly cold before the beginning.>>>
Mmmm, not so. If you were there, you would be composed of matter or energy, thus YOU would freeze as you radiated your own intrinsic heat into the void, which i should mention would function as a heat vacuum, cooling you almost instantly to the state of absolute zero assuming your component particles or waves weren't stretched to oblivion in the realm of emptiness devoid of even the foundationary structures of quantum mechanics.
Indeed, I would tend to postulate that an object or entity being placed into such a realm would instantly become the seed of a Big Bang. With no properties to get in the way, it's own intrinsic structure would explode outward into this limitless void.
I have always pondered absolute voids. I find them quite fascinating.
Do not for one moment, dear little Discord, assume that anything is beyond the comprehension of Lord Alondro, the Almighty Deux Ex Insert.
How did they have form in that which had no form?
How could they dream of that which was not and never was?
How does one hope for death when the concept doesn't exist?
Oh Discord, you're no God, but you are assuredly the Devil. For your lies are one and the same. And i have seen through them just as easily. *cold smile* I know of the Flow. The Neverending. The Quintessence. All that is and was and will be and never can be and never should be and must not be and will always be is within me and without me and through me. I AM.
(This is how ya God Mode to the EXTREME!!)
2437695
this makes me wonder what would happen if i caught up with the expanding universe and stuck my hand through the wall
would i create another universe?
2437735
a̛̩̲͈̗cͩ̏͊ͮt̗̘͓͗̒͋̏͒ͣu̶̬̰͆̆a̵͉͊ḽ͙̙͇͍͉͙̈́̋l͔͓̥̇̎͌̄̔̚y̏͝
́͠i̯͍̓̏ͪn̰̮͖̰̞̥̗͂̿͛͐ͤ̂ ̗t̖̱̺͒ͬͯh͈ͫ̇̾͢îͪ̈́s̩̖͈̎ͥ̒͐̽̔ ̠̮̂̆ͧ̋̄ͮt̺̗͙͖̟͊́e͇̟͗̽m͍p̠̖͈̫͍̔̆̿͑ͨ̍͘ͅľ̲̯̽̈́e̪͢,̬̱̯̠̄ͫ͂͐͗ͨ̚ ̢͋ͭͯ͗́ͧͭi͋̏̏̾̑̃̄ ̰̅̌̈́͜aͮͯͧ̅͆͊̀m̔̿̅ͦͦ ͚̦͕̱̤͖̾̌̈́ŷ̷̬̘̍̂̌ȃ̷̲̾̿ͣ̾h̺̉̄ẉ̨͇̮̲͔̽ͤ͂̑̋e̯͐͂h̛͇̞̟̹̜͎̦
͎̠̲̺̣̄ͥ̌ͥͣͫ̐b̸̙͔̹̣̝͕͕ͦ̊́́̃͛e̊̑̇͏i͈̾͆͜n̲͎̘̭̚g͔̮̭̹̩ͅͅ ͈̱̙̅̓͐ͨ͛͗͆͜t̩͈̠̺͗͘ḫ͎̹̟̤̲̎ͭe̟͔̦̙̻̍ͥ̊̆ͅ ͬ҉̳͙̣̮̙̬̭w̰͟ṟ͕ͧͭ̈́̿ï͖̲̮̼͕̩̊ͧ̀ṯ̡͓̯̥͕͎̑̇͌ȇ͕̝̤̬ͦ̅͐ͫͥ͜ͅr͈̐̀̽̅͆ͅ ̙̩̐ͤ̑̅̋̂̕a̡̮͓ͤn̻̖̬͓̲̪̳̔̂̂̆̐̆̂͘d͇̅͑̆̽̀ ̟͎͚͉͐́ͤ́ͅa̧̩̪̐l̵̠͇̜̖̄ͬͩl̝̭͕̬̳̞ͣ̉͛
>>>"I can't help that I have attention deficit disorder," I told her with a shrug.>>>
And lo, Lord Alondro didst bring upon the Earth the divine drug Ritalin, and didst shove a fistful of the pills down Discord's gullet.
>>>I might have tried to leave a little piece of myself behind to keep Equestria alive, but I just don't feel like it anymore. That’s what you get for being so rude as to trap me in stone for thousands of years. I had planned, you know, to stick around for a few billion years more; maybe a couple trillion, if the weather was nice; maybe wait for the planet to get a little too close to a black hole and start getting eaten up anyway, because I’ve always wanted to see that happen.>>>
You could always visit our universe, you absurd jabberwocky. That happens a million times or more every second here. Our universe is bigger than yoouuuuurs is! Nyah!
Now stop teasing Twilight or you're going to get a Vorpal Sword up your nose.
(Advert) Nothing Stops Nonsense Like Vorpal!!
...but there's no such thing as time. I-wha-you-
cool story brah
2437777
ritalin is old news
adderall is better
2437807
not much in it though
2437811
well they did come up with the idea after all.
though i'd hate to think what would happen if the doctor went a little too far back
>>> Simply turning me to stone won't stop the march of time.
Only I can do that.>>>
And he thinks he's overcome hubris? With pride like that? Fool. What you can stop, I can begin. Turn out the lights, I just install a new bulb.
*smirks at Discord* To your Chaos, I am Order. Did you really forget about me? Your chaos emerged into the Nothing, where chaos had never existed before. As did I. We are equal and opposite, as with all things, arising simultaneously in diametric opposition. And we shall fight beyond forever, neither of us ever attaining absolute victory. For you, it's eternal frustration at your incapacity to eliminate me, for you have attained foolish MORTAL pride. As for myself, I am quite pleased that it shall be so. An endless battle with an archenemy is a delightful way to endure beyond enduring! And while we battle, an endless well-spring of worlds bursts into being where our weapons clash, the endless parade of creation and entropy of the omniverse.
(And thus, I have explained all realities, all creation, the Void and the emergence of chaos and order and the balance between, as well as placing myself as one of two Ultimate Entities... Supreme God Mode.)
Moral: Stop taking nihlism so seriously. It's the lazy answer for philosophers who don't know how anything works. As I have always said: philosophers ask questions, scientists find answers.
2437103
sadly, i think i failed to capture this the way i wanted to. the little outline i wrote for this (i may post that sometime) got it a lot more accurately, especially with discord's existentialistic wordplay, which is a much bigger element there.
i got this a bit closer to how i wanted it... i've tried writing stories about the mane 6 living forever before, but they all came out shitty, so i'm glad this worked
i think i missed this because i saw my name in the next sentence. oops
those damn mathematicians!
2437832 Aaaaaactually, our universe is FULL of stuff! Like quantum fluctuations and Higgs Fields and all sorts of other threads of the fabric through which the scenic tapestry of the universe was woven!
What we see is merely the picture. Without the base material to structure it all, it wouldn't be able to hold itself together.
The Higgs field, I postulate, is the in fact the explanation for the invariability of the universe and the source of dark energy.
Consider that the Higgs field interacts with all particles of the same type the same way, giving all the same mass for all of their type. And, no matter how close or far apart the particles are, the interaction must be the same without variation!
The instant the first quarks and gluons appeared, the Higgs began to act. And the infant universe at once was made indentical from end to end via the unvarying energy of the Higgs-particle interactions. As the universe expanded, and near-voids began to emerge, virtual particles which briefly pop into being (the universe does seem to abhore a vacuum!) and then vanish again may increase drastically in number in the thinning universe, and their transient interactions with the Higgs field would account for the increase in dark energy, accelerating the expansion, creating more virtual particles, releasing more dark energy, accelerating it even faster...
I strongly suspect if this Higgs-particle interaction could be confirmed if it is determined that virtual paricles have mass. The only way they can have mass is if they interact with the Higgs Field. And that requires Higgs particles, and that is energy! Energy which will increase in direct proportion both to the number of virtual particles appearing in the expanding universe and to the acceleration of the universe's expansion.
And so, as dark energy seems to be doing, it will exponentially increase as the matter of the universe drifts farther and farther apart until it becomes so great it rends space-time itself apart.
This also agrees with the idea that mass, while acted upon by the force of gravity, is independent of gravity! And it also segregates the Higgs field and dark energy from gravitational interactions, as must be the case if dark energy is able to increase independently of the force of gravity. The two forces seem to be utterly uncoupled, completely unrelated, and my postulate affirms this observation.
Hence, the Higgs-particle interface IS the long-sought cosmological constant!
Now, this still leaves dark matter... that one's a puzzle. It can't be the Higg's particle as it exists for only a tiny fraction of a second as it relays force between particles and the Higgs Field. There is the possibility it may be gravitons, as dark matter IS affected by gravity, and thus not an independent/novel form of matter. And that does make sense, as gravitons, to affect an attraction over such vast distances, must be quite long-lived, otherwise they would have to move as speeds trillions of times faster than light to convey the gravitational force between objects lightyears apart before they vanished (as with our galaxy being bound by the central mass).
Electrons, the elecromagnetic force-conveying particles have mass. As do nutrinos and photons (albeit a very tiny mass), so i believe we can conclude that all force-conveying particles possess mass, and thus interact with the Higgs field themselves! it's quite interesting to consider. All the forces therefore have an intrinsic link with the Higgs, while the Higgs field itself may be completely independent, as its particles only are affected by itself.... well, perhaps gravity in the brief moment they exist, buit certainly not by electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces.
I wonder if that indicates that the Higgs force and gravity are the two founding forces in the universe and that the others emerge only out of the structure these two forces create as they act upon the first fundamental particles.
(notices everypony twitching on the ground, bleeding from eyes, ears and noses...) Damn, not again!
Shiiiiiit.
At first I was like "I disagree that Keep Calm and Flutter On ruined Discord's potential as a villain"... but then I saw how far you were going with him, and...
Hot. Damn. I am impressed.
"Fuck you, Meghan McCarthy. I do what I want." Why do you say that, and who is Meghan McCarthy?
2448979
pinkie.ponychan.net/chan/files/src/136596835064.jpg
Beautiful story. Keeping in my favorites. Glad I followed ya.
Zadkiel, in his prison beyond the lands of Or and If, could only wonder why.
Then he sipped his bitter tea.
A very interesting interpretation of Discord, much more so than how he ended up being handled in the show. Though I have to wonder how reliable of a narrator he can be considered to be. It seems just as likely he would make this all up just to frighten Twilight, or change the story in any number of ways for any number of reasons.
Have you ever considered submitting this fanfic to Equestria Daily? You can find out how to do so here.
2437758
I'm being more pedantic than I have any right to be, but the universe (at least our universe, the universe can grow up to be whoever it wants in fictionland) doesn't have an edge. The exact mathematics are beyond me, but it has something to do with the overall spacetime curvature of the observable universe, and essentially space wraps around in three dimensions because there is no space and time outside of the universe. The proper term for this sort of space is 'finite but unbounded'.
Anyway.
Some really great existential horror here, and a great whopping helping of poetical descriptions of things that don't really make sense because sense? Ugh, snore! and so on. Especially liked your Discord, you have him down to a fine art, if fine art is all swirly and chaotic and I forgot where I was going with this.
Loved the story! Keep up the great work.
2474431
its ok i like to walk a lot too
Actually, the edge of the universe has been proven to be tripp pants. they are the edgiest shit ever
anyone who can comprehend them is either a robot or a meat calculator
this is a lie because it does not mention xenu or thetans
but what if you somehow made a hole in the universe anyway?
._.
it's going to happen someday
someone in some obscure lab will be like
"hey, we invented this thing and we think it can break holes in the universe!!! let's test it without telling anyone FOR SCIENCE and prove once and for all that atheism is the question to 42 lawl!!!!"
and then they will do that and oh god what the fuck
we will all get raped by tentacle monsters for the rest of eternity
jesus will get sucked out of heaven into and his robes will come off and he will be naked all the time
and god will be cthulhu's bitch forever
this is the inevitable path of science
naked jesus tentacle rape
i think my aunt has a book called finite but unbounded
or maybe that's 'sluts of hell unchained' or something
maybe i will post the original draft
it's better
but stupider
and makes even less sense
farm6.staticflickr.com/5031/5848666661_17dc74ea55_z.jpg
we have a lot in common
it was like writing stream of consciousness
i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh499/turbanbomb/downerdustparty_zps3bb81f55.jpg
This fic made me join Fimfiction.
Parasprite, you are brilliant.
This fic is brilliant.
2492778
i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh499/turbanbomb/downerdustparty_zps3bb81f55.jpg
I am fighting the urge to make a Chuck Norris joke right now. How about you?
2492852 How were you able to put that image on your comment?
2582396
there's a little button at the top of the comment thing, looks like a blue picture frame. paste the url of the image into it and it'll shwo the image when you post your comment
2518504
no i am not because chuck norris jokes are almost as old as the stains on your underpants
meep
Oh Discord!
2474538 With the substantial difference between the writing quality of your stories and your comments, I'm beginning to think that your editors and proofreaders are doing a whole lot more to your work than you give them credit for.