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A Chaotic Twilight
“Do you think I can?” asked Twilight.
“Twilight, you are the most meticulous, orderly, OCD mare I have ever met,” responded Discord. “Of course you could learn chaos magic! You’d be a natural!”
“Will you teach me? Please?”
“Didn’t you say not to do things that would threaten the well-being of Equestria?”
“Um… yes?”
“See, I told you you’d be a natural. You can check not making sense off your list.”
“We haven’t made a list yet.”
“And you were making such a good start. I guess we’ll have to skip straight to the montage.”
“Montage?”
Discord snaps his talons and a cotton candy cloud appears. Twilight lights her horn, only to cut off by Discord appearing in front of her, holding up a stop sign and blowing a whistle. He raises his arm, and snaps his talons again, only in slow motion. Twilight raises her foreleg, looks at her hoof, then faces Discord and raises an eyebrow while showing him her hoof and its distinct lack of snappable appendages.
Discord presents Twilight with a blackboard upon which has been sprawled and complicated and unfinished mathematical problem. Twilight immediately picks up the chalk and begins working on the equation. After half an hour she sets down the chalk and proudly walks up to Discord, with her solution of ‘E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2’ written as the final answer on the board. After Twilight wakes him up, Discord removes his glasses with an image of his opens eyes upon them and walks up to the board. He puts his claw to his chin, examining Twilight’s work. Finally, he crosses out Twilight’s answer, and in its place writes ‘2 + 2 = 5’. A lock of hair springs out of Twilight’s mane.
Discord stands in front of a pair of blackboards giving a lecture while scribbling on both boards on completely different topics. Twilight to pay attention to all three sources at once, quills dancing in the air around her. Only when she starts to hear the sound of erasing does she notice a third blackboard to the side, covered with notes which must have been written by, and were now being erased by, Discord’s tail. She hurries to copy down these notes before they’re erased, not noticing in her fervor that the quills have begun writing on each other's papers, rending the notes an illegible mess, along with the rest of her mane. Discord glances back and smiles.
“Gah! What happened to my notes?!” exclaimed Twilight, realizing what a mess her notes were now that she tried to review the lesson.
“That wasn’t on purpose?” Discord sighed. “I thought I was finally getting through to you.”
“Now all I have is the first couple of pages.” Twilight moaned, ignoring Discord’s comment. After going over what she had, she inquired, “Why is the picture of a duck both less than and greater than the square root of pi?”
Discord floated behind her and looked over her shoulder. “That first one is an excruciatingly detailed picture of a duck, which as the above equation shows is greater than the square root of pi. And of course a crudely drawn picture of a duck is less than the square root of pi.”
“Um, which one of those two is this?” Twilight motioned to the duck that was neither detailed nor crude, just a picture of a duck.
“Oh, that’s neither. It’s just a picture of a duck.”
“Of course it’s just a picture of a duck. Yes, excruciatingly detailed picture of a duck, a crudely drawn picture of a duck, and just a picture of a duck are all different important values, and all somehow related to pi.”
“Actually just a picture of a duck isn’t-”
“Wait, we’re overcomplicating this aren’t we. We don’t need to show work. We just need to write an equation, even if it makes zero sense. 42. There. That’s the answer. We’re done.”
“Oh I think you’re finally getting it Twi-”
“Oh am I now? Let’s give it a try then.” Twilight raised her right forehoof and snapped, creating a cotton candy cloud.
“You got it! Chaos!”
“Well, now that I think about it a cotton candy cloud isn’t really chaos.”
“Twilight, where are you-”
“It’s still a well defined, ordered structure.”
“No Twilight you really have to-”
“True chaos would have all matter and energy-”
“You have chaos magic now you can’t-”
“-mixed equally-”
“Twilight!”
“-everywhere-”
“STOP!”
“-with no structure at all.”
The End
“Twilight, you are the most meticulous, orderly, OCD mare I have ever met,” responded Discord. “Of course you could learn chaos magic! You’d be a natural!”
“Will you teach me? Please?”
“Didn’t you say not to do things that would threaten the well-being of Equestria?”
“Um… yes?”
“See, I told you you’d be a natural. You can check not making sense off your list.”
“We haven’t made a list yet.”
“And you were making such a good start. I guess we’ll have to skip straight to the montage.”
“Montage?”
Discord snaps his talons and a cotton candy cloud appears. Twilight lights her horn, only to cut off by Discord appearing in front of her, holding up a stop sign and blowing a whistle. He raises his arm, and snaps his talons again, only in slow motion. Twilight raises her foreleg, looks at her hoof, then faces Discord and raises an eyebrow while showing him her hoof and its distinct lack of snappable appendages.
Discord presents Twilight with a blackboard upon which has been sprawled and complicated and unfinished mathematical problem. Twilight immediately picks up the chalk and begins working on the equation. After half an hour she sets down the chalk and proudly walks up to Discord, with her solution of ‘E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2’ written as the final answer on the board. After Twilight wakes him up, Discord removes his glasses with an image of his opens eyes upon them and walks up to the board. He puts his claw to his chin, examining Twilight’s work. Finally, he crosses out Twilight’s answer, and in its place writes ‘2 + 2 = 5’. A lock of hair springs out of Twilight’s mane.
Discord stands in front of a pair of blackboards giving a lecture while scribbling on both boards on completely different topics. Twilight to pay attention to all three sources at once, quills dancing in the air around her. Only when she starts to hear the sound of erasing does she notice a third blackboard to the side, covered with notes which must have been written by, and were now being erased by, Discord’s tail. She hurries to copy down these notes before they’re erased, not noticing in her fervor that the quills have begun writing on each other's papers, rending the notes an illegible mess, along with the rest of her mane. Discord glances back and smiles.
“Gah! What happened to my notes?!” exclaimed Twilight, realizing what a mess her notes were now that she tried to review the lesson.
“That wasn’t on purpose?” Discord sighed. “I thought I was finally getting through to you.”
“Now all I have is the first couple of pages.” Twilight moaned, ignoring Discord’s comment. After going over what she had, she inquired, “Why is the picture of a duck both less than and greater than the square root of pi?”
Discord floated behind her and looked over her shoulder. “That first one is an excruciatingly detailed picture of a duck, which as the above equation shows is greater than the square root of pi. And of course a crudely drawn picture of a duck is less than the square root of pi.”
“Um, which one of those two is this?” Twilight motioned to the duck that was neither detailed nor crude, just a picture of a duck.
“Oh, that’s neither. It’s just a picture of a duck.”
“Of course it’s just a picture of a duck. Yes, excruciatingly detailed picture of a duck, a crudely drawn picture of a duck, and just a picture of a duck are all different important values, and all somehow related to pi.”
“Actually just a picture of a duck isn’t-”
“Wait, we’re overcomplicating this aren’t we. We don’t need to show work. We just need to write an equation, even if it makes zero sense. 42. There. That’s the answer. We’re done.”
“Oh I think you’re finally getting it Twi-”
“Oh am I now? Let’s give it a try then.” Twilight raised her right forehoof and snapped, creating a cotton candy cloud.
“You got it! Chaos!”
“Well, now that I think about it a cotton candy cloud isn’t really chaos.”
“Twilight, where are you-”
“It’s still a well defined, ordered structure.”
“No Twilight you really have to-”
“True chaos would have all matter and energy-”
“You have chaos magic now you can’t-”
“-mixed equally-”
“Twilight!”
“-everywhere-”
“STOP!”
“-with no structure at all.”
The End
You need to proof a little. I think the last line should be done in a different color to set it apart from the story.
The question that I'm going to attempt to answer as I do these reviews is: what was done with the idea at hand. In this particular case, the idea at hand is Twilight going into apprenticeship to learn chaos magic from Discord, and his teaching her what he knows.
The beginning doesn't provide a motivation for Twilight to want to learn chaos magic, and I think with the dialogue exchange between Twilight and Discord, it makes the story suffer. The fourth-wall joke about the montage is funny and Discord-esque, but the rest of the dialogue doesn't put the story onto any sort of track. Twilight doesn't justify her desire to learn something that would endanger all of Equestria, and Discord doesn't feign surprise that she wants to learn. I think my problem with it is that a decision like the two of them are making would have an established significance in the show, and without that establishment here, I just didn't root for them.
The montage is a pretty funny one, and I liked how varied the incidences were. Trying to teach Twilight the science and physical motions of chaos is an interesting and encompassing concept. The third one, admittedly, confused me, but it is overall a collection of fun tidbits.
The ending has perfect characterization, and it's a fitting and astounding conclusion to this story. I do think that this:
Could've been done better. It seems like Twilight has a false epiphany about what she's doing. I would've imagined her agonizing over changing "2+2=4" to "2+2=5" to show some progress, or rather Twilight's mane going all frizzy, and then her racked mind dispelling chaos, and Discord cheering all the while. The part here seems too contrived, like Twilight just wanted to get it over with.
Overall, I liked most of it. The montage worked, and the ending is brilliant. I just think the establishment isn't there for me to actually root for them, and the epiphany seemed weak.
But take my word for whatever it is. I'm not particularly smart, so please judge this on your own terms. Whatever happens, I wish you success wherever you go.
The beginning doesn't provide a motivation for Twilight to want to learn chaos magic, and I think with the dialogue exchange between Twilight and Discord, it makes the story suffer. The fourth-wall joke about the montage is funny and Discord-esque, but the rest of the dialogue doesn't put the story onto any sort of track. Twilight doesn't justify her desire to learn something that would endanger all of Equestria, and Discord doesn't feign surprise that she wants to learn. I think my problem with it is that a decision like the two of them are making would have an established significance in the show, and without that establishment here, I just didn't root for them.
The montage is a pretty funny one, and I liked how varied the incidences were. Trying to teach Twilight the science and physical motions of chaos is an interesting and encompassing concept. The third one, admittedly, confused me, but it is overall a collection of fun tidbits.
The ending has perfect characterization, and it's a fitting and astounding conclusion to this story. I do think that this:
“Wait, we’re overcomplicating this aren’t we. We don’t need to show work. We just need to write an equation, even if it makes zero sense. 42. There. That’s the answer. We’re done.”
Could've been done better. It seems like Twilight has a false epiphany about what she's doing. I would've imagined her agonizing over changing "2+2=4" to "2+2=5" to show some progress, or rather Twilight's mane going all frizzy, and then her racked mind dispelling chaos, and Discord cheering all the while. The part here seems too contrived, like Twilight just wanted to get it over with.
Overall, I liked most of it. The montage worked, and the ending is brilliant. I just think the establishment isn't there for me to actually root for them, and the epiphany seemed weak.
But take my word for whatever it is. I'm not particularly smart, so please judge this on your own terms. Whatever happens, I wish you success wherever you go.
My biggest gripe with this is that the montage sequence is a different tense than the rest of the story. Pretty jarring, in my opinion, but aside from that I've got not much else to say. You've got excellent characterization, pretty good ending, and it was pretty entertaining overall. I loved your way of presenting Discord as well.
The shift to present tense during the montage isn’t doing you any favors.
In all, it’s a neat idea, but poorly suited to the format. This is visibly straining at the word limit. It’s fun, but it will be lot more fun when given a chance to breathe.
In all, it’s a neat idea, but poorly suited to the format. This is visibly straining at the word limit. It’s fun, but it will be lot more fun when given a chance to breathe.
Discord's cropping up a fair bit in this round! This is pretty entertaining, but would feel a whole lot more complete outside of the confines of its minific form. I liked the idea of the montage, but I think the sequences would shine even more as expanded vignettes.
Pretty good characterisation of Discord too. That's no mean feat! Thanks for sharing your work.
Pretty good characterisation of Discord too. That's no mean feat! Thanks for sharing your work.
Okay, I thought the first section was pretty damned brilliant and funny to start off with, and very much in character for Discord. The montage wasn't quite up to the same level, but was pretty good as well. The ending though.... I dunno... I think you were going for a "Well that escalated quickly." but to me it felt more like "Well, that got kinda dark."
Still, pretty good and an interesting take on Discord and Twilight. ;>
>>Not_Worthy2
As far as Twilight's motivation to learn chaos magic... She's "All Knowledge Must Be Mine" Sparkle. And chaos magic is a form of magic, her area of expertise. What better motivation could there be for her? ;>
Still, pretty good and an interesting take on Discord and Twilight. ;>
>>Not_Worthy2
As far as Twilight's motivation to learn chaos magic... She's "All Knowledge Must Be Mine" Sparkle. And chaos magic is a form of magic, her area of expertise. What better motivation could there be for her? ;>
This didn't really work for me. You've got a silly montage that's maybe worth something in video or comic form, but as a minific it's way too dry. Written fiction humor is a lot more based on comedic timing, and the 'throw a bunch of silly imagery out' style found here is going to find as much an audience.