The Sins of FiMFiction... Or "OOC is Serious Business" · 11:26pm Sep 19th, 2013
I haven’t been on FiMFiction for very long, but in that time, I’ve noticed several things that rub me the wrong way when it comes to character portrayal. Allow me to list some of the basic stuff (because if I put everything that bothers me in here, we’d be here all week). This could get a little ranty, so be warned.
1. Trollestia: Let’s start off with the most overused meme in what I like to call the “Abuse Celestia’s Character” category. Yes, Celestia does some things that make you wonder if her sanity’s all there. But these instances are few and far between. In fact, I can only think of two instances that even come close to being true “Trollestia” moments: A Bird in the Hoof and The Best Night Ever. In the former, she tricked the Cakes into overfilling the coffee cup, and in the latter, she revealed that inviting the Mane 6 was an attempt to liven up the Gala. However, this only reveals that she doesn’t like the stereotypical upper-crust life. Celestia’s a kind ruler who just wants to be like anypony else.
2. Tyrant!Celestia: This is a case of what’s called “Ron the Death Eater.” The idea is to take an obviously good character (e.g. Ron Weasley from Harry Potter) and exaggerating any and all flaws to the point that they become an evil character (the main baddies in HP are called Death Eaters). In the case of Celestia, she banished Luna/Nightmare Moon for trying to claim all of Equestria under her rule of eternal night. Apply RtDE, and you get a 1,000-year timeout for asking for a little more responsibility. I can’t be the only one who sees the problem here. I won’t say Celestia is perfect, but she’s definitely not a monster.
3. Molestia: Out of all the “Abuse Celestia’s Character” memes out there, this one makes the least sense. I can only assume it’s because of Rule 34. I have a reasonable dislike for such ideas. Admittedly, this one’s just on a matter of principle, but when you apply such a trait as a defining one, I lose all respect for you.
4. Random Pinkie Pie: Stepping away from the princess of the sun, Pinkie Pie is quite obviously the comic relief character, and her antics are living proof. But there is a difference between random and comedy: random is when things happen for no obvious reason; comedy is when the random is given context, like pulling an eye-patch out of the chimney in case of an emergency. Pinkie pulling a Nintendo64 and controller out of nowhere and forgetting it ever happened all in the same minute, for example, is not comedy. It’s just random for random’s sake. Pinkie is not funny because she’s random; she is funny because her randomness, in the end, has a point.
5. Fourth Wall Pinkie: Admittedly, this kinda goes into what I said above, but it deserves special mention. As far as I can tell, Pinkie has only broken the fourth wall three times: Friendship is Magic, Over a Barrel, and Magic Duel. And each time, it involves the iris out and never does anything that otherwise says “I know we’re cartoon characters.” She doesn’t reference the viewers or writers, so she shouldn’t reference the readers or authors. And she certainly doesn’t do this anywhere else in the show. So why?
6. Pinkamena Diane Pie: As seen in Party of One, Pinkie can in fact have a rather negative attitude, and it can be rather frightening. But to the point of murderous psychopathy? I swear, how do people come up with this?! Again, this is more principle-based than anything, but like Molestia, you can’t tack on one character trait that is extremely out-of-character and call it good. It’s worse than flanderization (taking one key aspect of a character and making it the only aspect [please note that mental breakdowns are not a regular part of Pinkie’s character]). Okay, let’s step away from Pinkie and move on to other characters.
7. Doctor Whooves: Okay, if you’ve read or even looked at my stories, you would know that I don’t hate the idea of Doctor Whooves. I may not agree that it’s canon, but it was things like Doctor Whooves and Assistant and Doctor Whooves Adventures on YouTube that got into the actual show to begin with. That said, when you mention him just for the sake of mentioning him, and don’t bother to put up a crossover tag, then why are you doing it in the first place? Just call him “Clockwork” or “Time Turner” or “a brown earth pony with an hourglass cutie mark” and don’t bother bringing up anything involving a TARDIS, space/time, sonic screwdrivers, or anything like that. I don’t mind it as much when he’s a main character, but if he’s there just to be there, leave him alone.
8. Red-Eyed Vinyl Scratch: My problem here is actually two-fold. First of all, Vinyl’s eyes are already shown in canon to be magenta. It may have been fine to say this before A Canterlot Wedding, but now it’s just holding on to an outdated meme. Second, why mention it period? To better understand what I mean, take a look at the Moses story. One of the things I don’t like is that in almost every interpretation, they have to bring up the meaning behind Moses’ name. It’s just one more detail that doesn’t really matter in the end. The same principle applies to Vinyl’s (not-) red eyes. It actually has less impact than “being drawn from water.”
9. Drunk Berry Punch: We only see Berry sipping out of a punch bowl once in Call of the Cutie. And suddenly she’s a drunk? This was a party for foals! Why would they serve alcohol?!
I could go on about other things that bug me, like Lyra the human enthusiast (she’s not the only pony who sits like that, guys) and Scootaloo the orphan (so we haven’t seen her parents yet, big deal). But like Doctor Whooves, I can accept those as good material for stories if handled correctly. With the things listed above, however, only two of them can be done right, and yet people just use them because they’re memes and don’t put any thought into them.
That’s my biggest problem with fimfiction, fanfiction, or any kind of story: quality. Anything can be a good story, but if you’re putting things in the forefront because people will recognize them, that’s not good storytelling. This is why so many people didn’t like Flash Sentry in Equestria Girls; he was hardly needed except for maybe one scene.
And ultimately what these memes do is detract from the real reasons we love these characters. MLP gave us some wonderful characters, as well as background characters that are essentially blank slates. And this is how we treat them? Defining them through limited, if not misrepresentational, traits when they are capable of much more than what some people write them out to be?
This is my plea: Do not write things in because people know what they are. It just proves you have no business writing quality stories. I’m sorry if I come off as harsh, but that’s how I see it. Put some thought into your work. Represent your characters well. A true writer will look at a character as say, “What are all the things that make this character great?” not, “What trait can I stick on this character to make my story popular?”
Write stories, not memes.
This is CF signing out.
THANK YOU! I agree about molestia, tyrant lestia and trollestia, as well as the others. but mostly the celestia ones, because she isn't any of those things and she doesn't show any molester in her at all, as well as tyrant
After your comment on my Transformers crossover, I was interested in the 'blog post' you mentioned. I presume this is it?
I suppose I agree with most of these, yes. I particularly agree with your notes about Pinkie Pie. I think the thing with Pinkie Pie, though, is that comedy is particularly hard to write. I find it hard myself to intentionally write comedy, even when several friends say that I have a natural knack for it (really the only thing I consciously do in that regard is turn every character's snark level up to 11). So when writing a character who centers around comedy, a lot of people aren't sure how to handle her, and I'll admit to her being a touch character to write for. So, as a result, a lot of people fall back on randomness or the fourth wall to try and make her character funny, even though it usually doesn't work.
Of course, it works when there's context for it happening, which I usually try to put in there. Hence my explanation about an actual creature called a Babelfish. It was a quick way to explain the concept of the spell for the audience, get a quick joke from Pinkie, and give it context through a little worldbuilding.
As for the rest of your statements, I both agree and disagree. Trollestia I'm usually not okay with unless she's either massively toned down or the one she's pulling pranks on is Luna (sisters will be sisters and all). But when she just starts pulling mean stunts out of nowhere, it's just unsavory.
Molestia... I actually have mixed feelings about. The thing is, I actually find there might be some decent justification for such a thing. While I take umbrage at the idea that she might be a rapist or engage in kinky things without consent, I could easily be swayed by the idea that she has some strange bedroom habits. And I say this because she's well over 1000 years old. It's more than possible that a character who is that old would at some point get bored with normal, 'vanilla' things and be into some more unusual fare in an attempt to liven things up. So if it's all consensual and relegated to her bedroom, I'm fine with it, but otherwise I'm not.
Tyrantlestia... I'm on the fence about. For the first two seasons it was the interpretation of Celestia that bothered me the most, but after a number of things revealed and given a lot of the way she acted in the third Season I've seen hints (if not downright confirmations) at something a hell of a lot darker going on in Equestria. Things that Celestia would surely put a stop to if she were not behind. Like how easily she used Dark Magic? Evil artifacts out there for just anyone to buy at your local shop? Freaking "Reform Spells?" Why don't you just come out and say that everybody in Equestria is brainwashed? And then there was her massively poor characterization in Crystal Empire, Keep Calm and Flutter On, and Magical Mystery Cure. Honestly, I'm sure it was mostly lack of thinking on the show writers part rather than an intention to make her evil, but Season 3 does Celestia NO favors.
Pimkamena I mostly agree with, again, unless there's some sort of reasoning behind it that gives a good character reason for it. Like, say, she was abused and stifled by her family (who look like they may be the type to potentially do such a thing, not that that's the only interpretation of course) and it's messed her up in the head enough that some things might trigger a massive dark side. I'm not really into that, but if there's a character reason she might have a 'Carrie' style outburst, then I'm not going to raise too much of a fuss.
Most of your others I agree with but aren't deal breakers for me. Red Eyed Vinyl Scratch in particular I don't mind, but that's just because it's a split-second detail that likely has little bearing on the actual quality of a story whereas most of the others can be deal breakers. Again, most of them can be decently characterized (like Drunk Berry Punch) but otherwise yeah. I especially agree with Human-obsessed Lyra. That's been in WAY too many stories for my liking and has seem to become the sole pervading interpretation for Lyra at this point.
I disagree with your point about Moses. Names were very important back them.