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Okay, Listen hear me out. Basically I always had a head canon that Discord is Star Swirl the bearded father. I don’t think it’s anything new, but I still think it would’ve been crazy if it was true.

So in my head canon the story goes like this; Discord, then named Clockwork Theory, was a highly talented unicorn a few decades after the new regime of the United Races (Pegasus, Unicorns, and Earth ponies). Clockwork Theory was in another word considered a renaissance stallion, and his son named Star Swirl was also considered a one of a kind magical prodigy of his generation. Thus both were held at high esteem and sought after for their brilliant minds by noble unicorns and royalty. However, Clockwork was considered a very spontaneous stallion, and hard to predict or sway to do their bidding.

The nobles accused Clockwork of being against the kingdom for not actively contributing to their success, Clockwork did not care about how others view him or their opinion on things that didn’t interest him, so negative rumors were actively spread throughout the land going against him painting him in a bad light. Not that Clockwork cared.

But Star Swirl did.

He cared very much about their image, how else would anyone see how incredible his father’s mind was, the notes he made! The brilliance that even Star Swirl understood that he would never achieve. Other ponies just didn’t understand that his father wasn’t good at politics and forcing Clockwork was like trying to push water. So Starswirl slowly started stealing his father’s notes and giving them to educated nobles to appreciate his work. And it did work! Clockwork Theory became the talk for scientists and philosophers in magical theory and those notes were used to further their own ideas.

Clockwork Theory never actively searched for attention but when he got it he soaked up as much as he could. Star Swirled begged his Father to help them and Clockwork never denied his son.

The more Clockwork helped the nobles create more and more ideas the more he lost his sanity. Non-stop work not knowing that his notes were being spread by his son to help the kingdom progress. One of the ideas of the nobles was to be able to become a higher being, the Alicorn; a mix of all races. Clockwork heavy with exhaustion, magical drain and lack of sanity was made the subject of this experiment. Losing his sanity more and more until the experiment resulted in an explosion of magic creating an unbalanced mix of creatures. Discord. Discord unknowingly killed those who participated in his experiment.

Now equal parts crazy and equal parts brilliant Clockwork Theory, now named Discord, lost his own history not knowing who he was before being Discord. Star Swirl was told by the nobles of his father’s disappearance and how he indiscriminately killed many and should never become like him. Starswirl was left with the hat made by his father, his cloak, and his broken horn.

An older StarSwirl was raised by those same nobles who fed him lies about how his father killed many without reason. Leaving Star Swir to grow up hating any mention of his father ever again.

———

Whew! Can you believe I just made that up on the spot! XD wrote a small story and drew a small comic up there, but I can’t draw a single pony without feeling like I need to add more and post it, smh.

Anyways thank you for coming to my 3 am TED talk. ;)