Sun Princess is Glurge · 11:49am Jul 27th, 2013
The title says it all. If you've never heard of glurge, here is the TvTropes page. The story of which I speak uses cheap emotional tricks. It has a legitimately interesting viewpoint, but that's not where it gets its emotional impact from. Is this really the story we want everyone to see at the top of the Top Rated list?
I hold top rated stories to a higher standard than I hold other stories. If Sun Princess was unpopular or poorly rated, I would have upvoted it. Instead, I downvoted it. It's short and emotionally manipulative. Having it as the most well-rated story on the site makes us all look simple-minded.
While I'm at it, How to Preen your Chicken is part of the same genre. I similarly rate it at 'would've upvoted if it was low-rated, but will downvote when it's highly-rated'. With thirteen downvotes, it's not as egregiously high on the list, but it's still a little embarrassing. I will credit the author for writing a good preening scene, but again, the story is short and emotionally cheap. It also loses points for calling Scootaloo 'chicken' right in the title. That says too much about the depth of characterization in the story. Scootaloo's only purpose in the story is as glurgebait.
EDIT: As promptly pointed out by Blue Paladin in the very first comment, TvTropes definitions don't match what I'd been thinking of. What I really should be accusing those stories of is Tasting Like Diabetes. That doesn't feel very satisfying to my complaint, though. What makes them bad isn't that they're sweet. It's that they get their sweetness manipulatively. Note that Tastes Like Diabetes links to Glurge Addict... Methinks this may represent a confusion in their definitions.
I can make no comment about Sun Princess, as I haven't read it, but while Preen may have been a bit heavy on emotional cheapshots, I am not sure Glurge, as TvTropes defines it, is accurate for it. I would say a bit narm heavy. (Though personally I think it had a certain charm. Upvoted, though not favorited, as I know I will not read it again.)
Glurge seems to require a certain darker, unintentional, subtext to it, which I can't really think of one regarding Preen. It uses Missing Mom (and dad) but not in a way that makes it glurge-y.
Now that I think of it though, Feeling Pinkie Keen might count as glurge.
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Glurge is about the emotions. It doesn't require the darker intent. It gets that from people using it dishonestly (or from people who are doing it deliberately for a laugh), because they know that if they heap enough 'feels' over something they can keep people from thinking about it rationally. A story becomes glurge when it uses too many cheap emotional tricks to be believable, when it's nothing but a nonstop cavalcade of aww. This can be sappy-sweet or sad.
One of the big warning signs is if there's one or more characters who exist for no purpose other than garnering audience sympathy. Another one is when supporters say 'anyone who doesn't like this is heartless'. Glurge can be created accidentally, as I'm assuming is the case for both of the stories I mentioned, although Skywriter is a good enough author in general that Sun Princess may have been built that way on purpose.
Long stories are rarely glurge. It's possible, but it's hard to keep up the nonstop emotional appeals over a longer form.
EDIT: Sorry for the cavalcade of edits. I posted this reply hastily and then had to pound it into shape. I hope I didn't cause confusion.
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S'okay, it took me a second to get back to the page, because this blog sent me on a TvTropes crawl.
With TvTropes in mind however....
Very first line on the page. The reason I mention this, is because you directly linkied to TvTropes for the definition. Maybe glurge doesn't need a darker subtext, but the source you cited says that in it's opener.
Okay, I have finished being a pedantic twit. As you defined it in your reply there, yes, Preen was glurge. Though I stand by saying I thought it had a certain charm to it nonetheless. Kind of medium glurge, and I enjoyed it, because sometimes it's nice to just read some mindless cute. And that preening scene was really sweet, rest of the story notwithstanding. Maybe I shouldn't have upvoted, because it does seem kinda silly for it to be so highly ranked, soft and squishy story that it was, but, well, I give likes to stories I liked reading. I really wish the site had a more detailed rating system.
EDIT: MULTIEDIT.
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Deliberate glurge is dark because the author is hiding or twisting something and hiding that under a big heap o' feels. Accidental glurge is dark because the author has buried their rationality under a big heap o' feels, and all kinds of stuff can slip in under the cover of that.
Preen is pretty harmless, really. If it hadn't set me up with a bad expectation by calling Scootaloo a chicken in the title (what message does that send?), I probably would've frowned at its rank and walked away instead of downvoting.
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Glurge is usually accidental though, isn't it? Generally the author, or whatever, depending on the medium, was going for feels, only for the portrayal to have wound up with a broken aesop because the tropes and devices within may end up subverting the story's meaning. Such as, to use an example from TvTropes, The Littlest Cancer Patient, which almost always ends up glurge-y due to the tendency to imply the cancer is only tragic, or it at least it is significantly more tragic, because the victim is a child (not too mention the littlest cancer patient often overlaps with a purity sue),in order to get those feels, but it winds up marginalizing adult cancer patients in the process.
Also, the TvTropes list has an AWFUL lot of propaganda on it.
And yes, having "chicken" in the title was a bad move. I consider it a bad move if the story is trying to be a farce, or a parody. THE JOKE IS DEEEEAAAAD!
Exception: Scoots doing the chicken dance. Whatever, I laughed.
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I don't know why glurge gets made in the first place. How can I know if it's usually deliberate or accidental? The Littlest Cancer Patient trope seems particularly twisted. It's an inherently exploitative cliche. That's the pattern with glurge. Something serious gets reduced to a plot device and used in a predictable, undifferentiated manner. You're not left feeling you've met a character at all. All you learn is that the author was desperate to have you react in a specific way.
Maybe TvTropes is confused about glurge because mentally sound people aren't usually the ones producing it. Look at the Easy Evangelism trope. In order to take that seriously, you have to believe there is no such thing as a legitimate objection to your belief. It takes a seriously failure of one's theory of mind. The dark implications are inherent to the trope.
There are other shallow stories on FiMFiction. Being that we're all fans of a cartoon, we have an excuse. I don't think people are twisted for posting fluffy shorts here. They're adorable. There isn't the creepy subtext of guilt and conformism that glurge takes on when it purports to describe the real world. It's still a little soul-killing when the top rated story on the site is built like that. What really set me off was a comment (with four upvotes on it) that claimed, "And seven people on this site have no heart..." Guess how many downvotes are on Sun Princess as of the time of this writing? That is conformist.
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Now THAT, right there, is glurge-y. A deliberate attempt to garner feels from people, by making it seem wrong to dislike the story. I hate comments like that.
The point I wanted to make was it was a story that wanted to show discipline and spanking in a positive light, but instead made AJ look like a redneck, and an abusive one at that, and Rainbow out to be an idiot, while being rather uncaring towards the children, and made use of some cheap shots to boot. Now, it is possible, that things actually played out different, if I had continued, but it sure looked pretty locked in. Though, this might count more as a unintentional subversion than true glurge, since it wasn't all that emotionally exploitative. Except for Scootaorphan.
As for why glurge is made, it all comes down to that exploitative factor. Most of the time, a creator doesn't set out to make glurge, but because of how they decided to make their message, that's how it comes out. Most deliberate cases of glurge tend to be parody I think, or trying to make a point about glurge itself.
There was a story in the feature box a little while ago, called I'm sorry sis. Now, I only read the first chapter, before leaving in disgust, but from what I gathered, it was mostly an attempt to justify corporal punishment against children. It was glurge. We have Scootaorphan, which I think was meant to make Rainbow have the moral high ground since she adopted Scoots (as opposed to in Preen, where it was just for d'aaws.) when she decided she needed to spank her for nearly getting herself and the other crusaders killed in an accidental fire. Right after Rainbow admonishes herself for not talking with Scootaloo. (I also object to the implication that Rainbow did not resent her own father for spanking her. Given RD's personality, yes she would have. But that's just me.) Further, it has a scene were AJ, says she will give Applebloom a switchin', after telling AB about it before dinner, so she has time to stew, and will make her get the switch off her favorite tree, which their dad planted, and which AJ tells AB stories about their father, all the while bemoaning how much it hurts her to have to do that to Applebloom. Again, this is right after the crusaders very VERY nearly died. I can't think of a worse idea. And this is treated as excellent parenting. Just need to discipline these kids! The worst part was in the comments though. Someone posted a reasonable, non-confrontational, and well thought out rebuttle of the theme, and it got downvoted into spam. Er, got carried away.
Also, From the Mouths of Fillies. I did like it, but it's total glurge. Something the Winningverse is guilty of more often than not really, but I find the story good enough on the whole to not really care.
Oh wow, tl;dr much, me?
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Separate your paragraphs better. The biggest problem with that comment wasn't the length, but the rambling-wall-of-text in which it is formatted.
The long setup and elaboration you describe on Applejack giving Applebloom "a switchin" is ridiculous and terrible. It's terrible emotional abuse. Any child obedient enough to go through all that is 1) already disciplined, and 2) already traumatized. Forcing someone to acquire the means of their own punishment, and to damage a valued object in the process, is not acceptable. Promoting this kind of behavior on the part of parents is irresponsible.
It doesn't sound like glurge, though. It doesn't sound like it would pull on the d'awws at all. Look at the Glurge Addict trope. If a story wouldn't appeal to that individual, it's not glurge. It's something else. Glurge isn't the only way to have horrible implications while attempting a positive presentation.
To address From the Mouths of Fillies, the WinningVerse is usually separated from the DeadDerpyVerse alternative continuity. The main WinningVerse continuity isn't as glurgey. I've avoided the DeadDerpyVerse. (For more information on the WinningVerse and relatives thereof, see the Cloud Kicker Fan Club and Winningverse Group.)
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Member of the group. And I know the DeadDerpyVerse is an AU of the AU, but even the main Winningverse stories can get glurge-y at times. Like you said though, not all that bad really. And Comma tends to be the worst in that regard too, though it's gotten better, and I do tend to like his stories.
As for the wall of text...yeah. Mostly because I didn't really mean to go off like that, but I have a REALLY bad tendency to ramble once I get started. I was mostly typing as if I was talking, and I didn't think to go back and actually edit the damned thing.
As Bad Horse pointed out a while back, the top list is mainly full of unobjectionable stories. I think the only real way to change the character of the list is to change the selection algorithm.
As for Sun Princess... I doubt Skywriter was being deliberately emotionally manipulative. He probably just had an idea, as he is often wont to, and it probably stemmed from drawing a parallel with Twilight and Celestia. I must admit that I didn't feel very strongly while reading it, and it isn't Skywriter's best work by a long way.
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Logical paragraphs are preferred of course, but if you're in a hurry, you can always just paragraph randomly at the end of sentences. The result is more readable than a wall of text because the eye has something to navigate around the page with.
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Well, if I do tidy up a wall of text, then I would probably try to paragraph it properly. But it would have to be edited. I almost never post comments that long, so I am unused to watching my formatting, and I type the way I speak. Which is in a long rambling text. IRL most people have learned how to tune me out once I get up to steam, or they head me off. Not unlike Pinkie really.
That doesn't work as well in text though.