Out Of Character Equestria · 4:06am Oct 30th, 2014
Out of character. You might know it as Twilight saying books are hella lame, Dash stating that flying is boring, or Applejack thinking that apples taste terrible. Typically seen in new writers, it is a condition where the characters are written just so godawfully that they don't even resemble the characters in the show. This condition is, of course, terminal, often resulting in the story's death or a sad, pitiful continuation of it that eventually leads one to suffocating it with a pillow just to give it much needed peace. Oh, but can other things be out of character other than the characters themselves? Well, that's a biiiiiiiiit more tricky.
Good thing I have the time to explain it!
The characters we are most familiar with are fully established in the show (most of the time). We know how they tick. We know how they'll act. Now, this isn't to say we know everything about a certain character just by what we see in the show. Characters themselves can develop or change as the show progresses. What might had once been considered out of character for Dash to read and even like books once upon a time could suddenly be fully established as canon in a new episode. Plus, there's the fact that there are certain situations that the show has never dwelled on, so how the characters react to this situation is mostly up to what the writer knows about these characters and how they'd react to the given circumstances. But, going back to the first question, things that are typically considered out of character that aren't characters are the settings. More specifically, Equestria.
Not pictured is the painstakingly drawn headcanon map someone came up with that was called shit by someone on DA.
Now, we all know about Equestria. We see enough of the settings as it is in the show. But do we really know the entire country? Do we really know everything about how ponies act? And most importantly, do we actually know the name of the goddamn planet everyone is living on? These questions and many more will probably never be answered because the show is focused on making episodes for children teaching friendship lessons. There's world building development, that I won't lie, but anything substantial or specific won't be provided from the show itself. That is why we use the most dangerous and controversial tool everyone fanfiction writer has. The headcanon.
Getting someone to accept with your headcanon is much like fake karma points on an internet website, except even more worthless.
Everyone has a different interpretation. Unless you blindly follow the one headcanon from your favorite author/artist, in which you are a sheep and shall soon be slaughtered. Set your own path in life, and most importantly, bullshit your way into your own headcanon, no matter how awful and cliched it might be. Next, you gotta realize something fundamentally important about headcanons.
Most of them are complete and utter shit.
I've heard them all, seen them all, and for the most part a great deal I just don't understand. For good reason, too. They're wide in variety and shape on a website with a large and dedicated fanbase. This, of course, causes a large influx of godawful headcanons pouring through. But note this one important thing. Chances are someone else's headcanon is just as bad as yours. Better chances are that all headcanons are godawful at heart and should be no characteristic to whether a story is good or not. So, when someone tells you are headcanon in shit, be smug about knowing their headcanons is just as bad, if not worse!
Yes. Yes I am.
Anyway, this circles back to a strange phenomenon I've been noticing for certain complaints about stories. Some say that this Equestria doesn't fit their headcanon Equestria. That the Equestria on the show is never as dark as the one featured in the story. In which I reply horseshit. Hell, I'll give you some examples right here.
This guy wanted to burn the entire world.
The fucking mythological guardian of Tartarus, which is also, FYI, in the show.
Love sucking parasites and weird hole affiliates.
Another fucking mythological creature that eats ponies.
Motherfucking mythological creature that turns ponies to stone! And if that wasn't bad enough—
A GIANT FUCKING MUTANT VARIETY!
It's a fucking crocodile made out of rocks that's huge. Enough said.
These motherfuckers are everywhere.
Even more mythological creatures famous for eating people!
OH HEY ANOTHER ONE!
The last face you see before you die.
EAT EVERYONE!
If you watched the movie you already know these motherfuckers are gonna wreck your shit up.
Dune, basically.
Actually easy to keep back if you have a lighter.
Star bear!
Super star bear!
You gone die now.
Anyway, as you can see, there's a wide variety of beasties all prepared to ruin your day. Many of these guys live right outside Ponyville. That'd be like if a fucking dinosaur lived right outside your town. Plus, not even counting the monsters, we have Nightmare Moon, who wanted to bring about eternal night, Discord, who wanted eternal chaos, Chrysalis, who wanted to love-suck everyone in a city, Sombra, who enslaved his own people and wanted to do the same thing to everyone else, and Tirek, who sucked out all the magic of everyone and was a neigh god-like figure. With each of these events come the possibility of a future that downright sucks and would be awfully bad and dark for all of eternity. So, like, yeah... at times, Equestria can most certainly be dark.
So, if someone tells you your Equestria is too dark, remind them that while it may be a kid's show, it still has some room to wiggle around and introduce darker elements. Also remember that a lot of the ponies can be dicks at times. Trixie, Flim and Flam, whoever that mare was in that one Rarity episode in season 4, all the villains, Sunset Shimmer (for a time), all of them were jerks. That's not even considering all those assholes in Manehatten. Ponies aren't gonna be 100% good and nice and kind and cute all the time. There's certainly individuals who will tear you apart because they are a jerk and would love nothing more than to continue being a jerk.
tl;dr headcanons suck, Equestria can be dark, not everypony is good, and most of all, don't let headcanons muddle your opinion of a story
Living the dreeeeeeeeeeeam.
My headcanon: poni eyes are actually plates, not balls
disgusting, I know
Cool beans
But muh headcanon is totes the best.
Muh alicorn OCs are so good they deserve to be
canoncannon.I like this.
wut
I don't actually have a head cannon other than equines are sluts and that is well about it. I just make up shit as I go along to fill in parts that are never explained.
...Mine is bigger than yours?
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Suri Polomare.
That bitch.
*huggles Rarara*
...The Crystal Empire is not in the version of the map I have...
Headcanon destroyed.
I let a headcanon influence my opinion of a story only in the upward direction. Good headcanons can make a story more interesting for me. I just use my headcanon for ta tabletop rpg campaign setting.
Dang, most of those images aren't showing up for me. Also, you didn't even mention the darkest part of the show. Twilight Sparkle's erase spell from the mirror pool episode.
2563578
Fixed the images, and yes, apparently killing clones is 100% okay in the moral department. Yaaaaaaay!
2563589
Not just clones. They had to make sure Twilight didn't cast the spell on the original Pinkie Pie, implying that it would have done the exact same thing to her.
Also, yays for images! Very shiny.
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Why they just didn't fill out a simple trivia form, I'll never know.
Wait... Ain't you the one who says Fallout: Equestria sucked because it was too dark and gritty? I mean yeah, it went a bit far at times—like in the hospital outside Marepony when the boon thingies were, unless I missed some subtext, we're gonna tentacle rape Littlepip— and the ending sucked... And it got way too deep... And it went way too famn long... but it was still a damn good grimdark AU.
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Twilight doesn't like to get moral conflicts mixed with her nice pure paperwork.
I like my pony headcanon like I like my eggs: full of other things. Though I prefer to keep the card games and RPGs in the headcanon and the ham and cheese in the eggs. I've tried the alternative, and the headcanon didn't turn out too badly, but the eggs were terrible.
I forget my point, assuming I ever had one. But yeah, Equestria is kind of a deathworld, even if you aren't a Breezie. Fortunately, ponies are actually kind of badass, what with the rainbow friendship lasers, besotted schoolmarm juggernauts, and god-queen celestial mechanics. (And now I have a mental image of Celestia and Luna in overalls. Possibly with mustaches.)
It's late, and I'm rambling. In text. Never a good sign. tl;dr: Thank you for the blog.
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Even if Equestria is dark, it was NOWHERE near as dark as pre-war Fallout America. At least not in only twenty year's time. I do agree it does have good grimdark alternate universe elements, but as a crossover it hella sucks. Also, my main complaint that it was grimdark too much as in there was grimdark all over the place with no breaks. It got oversatuated, and thus, like I said before, started to hella suck.
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here's my headcanon.
Miss Suri. Which sounds a lot like Misery to me, which she gave to Rarity when she stole her designs, and then Rarity gave to her friends by forcing them to work. Misery loves company, and misery begets misery, et al. Quite a subtle little thing if they'd meant for it like that at all, but something I'd liked in any event.
I kinda still wonder what Hinny of the Hills is about (and the meta joke Dash said about "ponies that sing at the drop of the hat" was hilarious. First pony joke I'd laughed at in a good while prior to that episode).
2563519
Makes sense
There wouldn't be any room for a brain in that skull otherwise.
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That's the thing I like about Equestria, it's surprisingly flexible, and fun to play with. It's not how light or dark Equestria is portrayed as long as there's an interesting story portraying it. What matters is how obnoxious the headcanon is. I'm here to read a story, not read your headcanon dump.
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The thing is, all those monsters make Equestria dangerous, but that's not the same thing as dark. [Dark] requires a certain pessimistic outlook that isn't really present in the show. If the ponies lived in constant fear of the monsters, knowing that any given moment might be their last, then that would be [Dark]. But, they don't.
2563519
Goddammit, not that again.
Headcannon-ponies are a colonizer species. That's why you have more female than male births, for faster reproduction. And they have magic.
Equestria is a partially-tamed Death World. Not quite as bad as Catachan or Pyrrus, but when you can walk less than 30 minutes away from a small town like Ponyville and run into things that will eat you in one gulp...yea.
Your opinions do not match what I think is the head canon a RainbowBob should have based on my own opinions. Ergo you are wrong.
RainbowBob was never this opinionated.
Kidding, Bob, just kidding. Great read, and I will be keeping this one as a counter-argument the next time someone bitches about a story being too dark, and Equestria being sunshine and rainbow farts.
2563708 You've cum'd across the idea already, then?
The only thing that ever really bugs me is when I read a story that assumes (and this is my typical comparison) that Equestria is the size of Rhode Island. I don't know how many stories I've read that make it possible for ponies to go from lush plains to desert to frozen northern wastes by walking for a day.
Other than that, I'm usually okay with headcanon worlds.
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That itself is dark. That's like living in an upper class neighborhood where right outside its boundaries are gangs, murderers, and eldritch abominations. Not fearing this is either stupid or the greatest show of ignorance I can possibly think of.
An absence of at least some dark elements in a universe is just as unsettling as too much in my opinion. Gives me an Orwellian vibe.
Also, this:
You clever, clever sponge!
That's a bad fanfic, and you should feel bad. =P
Like Luna’s characterization in my newest project: she's high-strung and excited when she finds a way to alleviate her boredom. The way I wrote her is substantiated by an issue of the MLP comic by IDW (the one where she's standing atop a "mountain" of empty coffee cups). It may not be "show canon", but it's goodenough for me.
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Fired out of one, that is...
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That would make for a funny scene. Not literally ponies farting rainbows, but just farting in general... I think I might have to use that at some point.
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Well, that aspect of the dark spectrum can actually be attributed to real-life horses, in which they're prey animals. Like you stated, the ponies in Equestria don't fear for their lives, but a good writer can use the "prey" situation to craft a good story, but more than likely using the AU tag to accomplish it. I've read a few HiE stories that use the theme, and they were fairly decent.
Now you've got me thinking, and I thank you for that.
Lies, this totally counts as productive.
The dark evil beasties in Equestria are usually either unwelcome invaders or the things that go bump in the night in the Everfree forest and beyond. These are things that the ponies regularly overcome using the power of love and friendship (and/or beams powered by such).
As for the ponies, yeah, they're dicks sometimes. They're people. But that's not their default setting. Default setting of Equestrians outside of antagonists is happy nice-nice.
I think I get what you're trying to say here -- one extreme is bad as the other and if MLP were nothing but sugar rainbows, it'd be boring as heck; also, yes, people are allowed to write whatever they want 'cause it's bloody fanfiction -- but this post still comes very close to what we in the business call "giving the idiots ammunition." Next time I see a [tryhard/2dark4me/transparently political/"clever" dark interpetation (lol)] pony story
in the goddamned feature box, naturallyhenceforth, I suppose it's safe to place it on your head. :PAs usual, it's about balance.
Also, headcanons are an overrated constant source of stress. Screw having 'em.
While we're at it, let's not forget Keep Calm and Flutter On! Hey okay sure, we're going to try Fluttershy's crappy plan, the one that even Fluttershy is skeptical about, since Celestia seems so damn sure it will work. But our two fallback plans are way better. First, we'll blast him out of the eternal stone prison that he's been in twice, and if he so much as looks at us funny, we can cast him right back into stone in the blink of an eye. Second, just because he's the Spirit of Chaos doesn't mean he has to like chaos. Let me just run to my public library bookshelf and grab a book on brainwashing magic so that I can make Discord think how I want him to think, since my ideology is objectively better than his. Hooray friendship!
I try not to bring personal headcanons into other people's stories; if you're vision of Equestria has all the female being futa and you can tell a good story about it, then knock yourself out (with a maredong)
There are some, shall we say 'brony tropes' that I find annoying, but if a story can still be well-told while using the trope I'll still upgoat it.
2563519 Oh, cool: someone else who's stumbled upon that idea! I came up with it myself a while back to answer the question of how ponies even fit a brain in their skull with eyes that big. Answer: their eyes aren't spherical. Problem solved.
Good work, Bobby.
You know what I dislike? People thinking that any idea about the show is headcanon.
Well, no, it's not. Headcanon fills in the gaps between bits of canon. It's not possible to get a wrong answer if there's no right answer. And that's why headcanon can't really be "wrong".
On the other hand, an awful lot of ideas that flagrantly ignore canon and do whatever the hell they want. And that actually is wrong.
I've outlined the canonical problems with the ideas that earth ponies constitute an oppressed underclass, or that polygamy is commonplace among ponies, but I've never bothered to articulate why canonical accuracy is important.
TLDR: good job.
2564907
I've never given harems much literary merit. It just seems too... well, off. Even in a clopfic specially tailored to it, they just don't appeal to me. And trying to fill in their gaps with bullshit canon excuses is the final nail in the coffin for me.
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Gee, if only someone made a fic surrounding this very same idea presented in the show.
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The blog was mostly to present a counterargument to the common accusation that someone's Equestria is too dark or unrealistically dark. Now, that could actually very much happen. Like if, I dunno, Pinkie ate ponies (Yes, I know Cupcakes is a bad example, whatevs). Unless you slap an AU tag on that bitch, I just ain't gonna buy it. Like you said, dem stories gonna need some balance, yo.
Dark is not out of character for Equestria, but it is for the show. I'm not taking about ratings, even if that's one driving force behind it, but the overall tone. The show is supremely optimistic, and time and again proves that even if there are bad things out there everything ends up for the better in the end. Everyone can be forgiven, evil will always be defeated, being good is rewarded and evil is always punished. It's very easy to assume this tone is part of Equestria, because obviously to a degree it is. For the sake of a story anything is fair game but that tone is part of the setting. You can ignore it, but it's like ignoring Fluttershy's knowledge of sewing. You can argue it isn't that important, but it is out of character. Though obviously just about every other bit of headcanon has no ground to stand on, but the tone is right there even if at times it doesn't entirely make sense.
2565032 Harems sort of make sense because horses are herd animals and that is the way that works. Of course there is also no evidence of it in the show. My personal headcanon (ha ha, topical) is that herding is still legal, but it's archaic and generally frowned upon so almost no one does it. Thus ponies are true to their roots as herd animals, but match up to our own society for some reason.
I see you've been reading my Comments sections.
I disagree. It shows someone has accepted and liked something you came up with, and adopted it as their own. It shows you've made something that's been shared with others that has added to their lives.