I Hate Anons · 5:18am Nov 22nd, 2014
Introduction
I hate stories in which the main character is "anonymous" and has neither meaningful background or personality. I have noticed that such tales are usually Humans in Equestria who are almost always male late-teens or early-twenties and have various canon characters inexplicably fall in love with them, usually for the purpose of having at least one highly-explicit love scene with these characters.
I. A Failure of Imagination
I hate this because they represent massive failures of imagination on the part of the author, and are transparent attempts to induce the audience to fantasize "Gee ... this "Anon" could be me."
Why massive failures of imagination? Because the "Anon" viewpoint (often done in second person) is essentially the writer failing to create a protagonist. And this is, after all, supposedly someone from our world in Equestria, which creates all sorts of interesting possibilities in the hands of a gifted writer: he's in a whole new world, a new society, meeting a new species who are in turn discovering us through him.
And what the author usually writes is something to the effect of "Dur! Cute colorful horsies! My story is sexually-explicit so I can describe Anon having sex with them! Sex, with cute colorful horsies! Duh-huh-duh-huh-heh-heh!"
The fact that the writer generally knows very little about anatomy, equine (or in some cases human), frequently making even the sexual mechanics absurd, is but the rotten cherry on the sundae of ineptitude. This is often taken to the point that I wonder if not only whether or not the author has ever had sex (and there's nothing wrong with virginity IMO), but whether or not the author has ever had any form of sexual education (apply to Goldie Pie for The Talk, either Version One or Version Two).
II. A Failure of Morality
More importantly, the author usually can't depict character properly, meaning that there is generally no discernible motivation for these explosions of carnal lust. Anon's motives often boil down to "I'd been in Equestria three weeks, so I was pretty horny, and she looked kinda cute despite the obvious obstacle of being from an entirely different Family of Mammalia and my having absolutely no concept of how her culture worked." This makes me believe that the set of Anons who go to Equestria and the set of victims who report to hospitals with embarrassing masturbation-related self-inflicted injuries may be strongly intersecting ones.
This part of it, of course, is sadly believable. Just look at the trouble sailors get into when they put into port. It's just that a desperately-horny sailor isn't usually my idea of a model romantic, or even erotic, protagonist. Among other things, the stereotypical sailor in a liberty port is utterly-indiscriminate in his quest for pleasure.
The real problem comes when the canon characters get warped to make them plausible partners in these sexual scenarios. None of the main characters of the series impress me as even remotely promiscuous enough to just have sex with some random alien whose motivation toward them is "I'm horny -- you look vaguely like a female of my kind -- let's bang." (The series does have two canon examples of xenophiliac emotional relationships; however both are very obviously and strongly sentimental ones -- I doubt that Anon can impress Rarity the way Spike does, or for that matter be as interesting as Discord is to Fluttershy).
The usual assumption here is that the Equestrians, and specifically the Mane Six, have roughly the morals of especially-airheaded college girls on Spring Break who have consumed far too many psychoactive substances. Now, I won't argue that one could not find Equestrians matching this description (there's a whole subculture of them in my fanon, the Fast Set, though most of them are classier than most of the mares Mr. Anon encounters). I just doubt that the members of an elite order of mystical embodiments of the Elements of Harmony are likely to be this sexually-indiscriminate.
Among other things, they're not desperate. I cannot over-emphasize this point, even though I've said it before -- it bears repetition. Every one of the Mane Six is beautiful and charismatic in her own way. All of them know numerous Ponies of both sexes, some of whom are single and would probably be flattered to fall in love -- or just have sex -- with anypony matching the description of any of them. This is true despite the fact that my Equestrians are fairly prudish -- the Mane Six are just that awesome, by their society's standards.
They are not clearly in any romantic relationships, though there are at least 4-6 such relationships being teased more or less strongly in canon (Spike/Rarity, Fluttershy/Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy/Bulk Biceps, Fluttershy/Discord, Pinkie Pie/Cheese Sandwich, and Pony Twilight Sparkle / Human Flash Sentry). The implication is that they are very choosy, and either have decided whom they love, or decided that nobody of their current acquaintance meets their standards.
Which makes it very unlikely that they fall for Anon. I have seen Humans in Equestria who might plausibly be loved by one (or several) of them, but such Humans are generally more admirable and interesting than the typical Anon.
III. This Anon Is You
This failure of plausible Anons comes from the very nature of what the author is trying to do by making his protagonist anonymous. He's trying to say "this could be you" but, the problem is that any particular person -- you, me, your brother, that guy standing on the corner over there -- is a unique individual with his own special interests and personality.
Seriously, you should read The Everyman trope I just linked. The very second paragraph of the entry describes what's wrong with the blank Everyman very effectively, namely
The Everyman has no distinct personality, except what is defined by others' interactions with them. One gets the distinct feeling that if people weren't trying to kill them / wacky circumstances didn't happen to them / the fate of the world didn't fall into their laps / their wacky neighbors weren't around, The Everyman would be the most boring person in the world.
Does this sound like the sort of person with whom a heroine who represented one of the cardinal virtues of her civilization would fall in love? Or find romantically or sexually attractive? Could one describe any of the Mane Six as an "Everymare?"
No, each of them is an extreme outlier personality by the standards of her species, Kind and subculture. Twilight's a brave and brilliant scientist-mage, Rarity an exceptionally-skilled social climber and fashion designer, Rainbow Dash a top athlete, Fluttershy a gifted naturalist, Pinkie Pie a hyperactive weirdo Bringer of Joy, and the most normal of them all, Applejack, a pillar of emotional and moral strength.
Characters like this are not likely to fall for average, boring Love Interests, especially Satellite Love Interests. That's one of the reasons the fandom hates Flash Sentry -- he doesn't have much discernible personality besides being generally nice and non-threatening, which makes him seem an absurdly under-whelming match for Twilight Sparkle, who's the main heroine of the whole series. One might consider that what the authors of Anon self-inserts are really doing is writing new versions of Flash Sentry -- generally without the character traits that make him at all likeable.
Consider the description of Satellite Love Interest from TV Tropes:
A type of Satellite Character who exists primarily to serve as the love interest for a main character. It doesn't matter what their life was like beforehand; their focus in the story revolves around the sole fact that they dig said main character, and the main character digs them ... The test of course, is to ask "What does this person do when they're not being a love interest?" ...if it's hard to answer, you probably have this.
Flash Sentry -- both Pony and Human versions, are actually better fleshed-out characters than this, because we can answer the test question with "Guarding Princess Cadance" and "Developing his musical skills" respectively. It's just that the standard for being worthy of a Pony as unusual, admirable and well-developed as Twilight Sparkle is especially high -- if he were in love with (say) Golden Harvest, we wouldn't see him as a poorly-developed character.
What the Anon usually comes off as, instead of The Everyman, is worse -- he comes off as This Loser Is You. The TV Tropes article again deserves quoting:
In many shows, particularly comedies and children's programs, a protagonist or another major character is an ugly, incompetent, lazy, and near illiterate ditz. This is supposedly to allow the audience (i.e., you) to identify with said character or protagonist. Ergo, the loser protagonist is you.
The point of this is that the Anon is always someone to whom the reader feels superior. The appeal to showing him scoring with Rarity or whomever is that the story is saying "See! If this jerk can get the girl, you can too!"
This is actually a decayed version of an older concept, which is that the protagonist would be someone humble, who has Hidden Depths and in the crisis discovers that he is better than he thought he was. Having displayed his hidden heroism, the protagonist would then be accepted as a hero by others.
The difference in the older idea is that the protagonist is in fact admirable, and always was: he just looked like a loser because he'd not had the opportunity to display his true virtues. Instead of implicitly arguing "You can be a total loser and you'll still inexplicably get everything you want without changing in any way" (a Degrading concept), this instead argues "You aren't really a loser and if you have the courage to change and become the hero you always really were inside, you can achieve your desires" (which is an Uplifting concept).
This is, perhaps not incidentally, Fluttershy's character arc -- she starts the series as Ponyville's Crazy Animal Lady in training, horribly lonely (with only two friends, only one of them a really good friend), and terrified of most social situations. By the end of the first two-parter, she's helped saved Equestria, and by the end of Season Four she's a recognized national heroine, the best friend of a Chaos God, has numerous friends, and is arguably being courted by 2-3 desirable mates.
The Anon does not change in any fundamental or important way, save in that he may become happier from achieving his desires. A surprising number of them start the story whiny and keep on being whiny all the way through, even as they recline on velvet couches being aura-fed grapes by Celestia, Luna and Twilight, all of whom are hopelessly in love with them).
This gets into another problem with the Anon, namely that being a loser does NOT automatically make one likeable. In fact, the attributes required to be a believable loser are often incompatible with likeability. Anons are obnoxious, demanding, and generally lack the most fundamental respect for anyone else or social skills: they compare poorly in these respects with paragons of kind cooperation, such as the Great and Powerful Trixie.
One mark of the Anon is that, if he does have any previous personality attributes, they will be safely "generic" ones from the POV of the average teen to adult fan of the show. He'll be into the Internet and video games (either leading to him whining into Celestia's glorious rainbow mane as she lies with him in post-coital bliss: "Waah! You don't have an Internet in Equestria!" or, frequently, to the whole land being ret-conned to early 21st-century level technology to better appeal to the audience). He may have owned a car ("Waah, Luna, you don't have any cars in Equestria! Pass me another bunch of grapes ...") or liked to drink or do drugs or have some other "cool" vice.
He is of course very, very, VERY entitled to near-continual sexual gratification in his own mind. That's almost a given, since most of these stories are fundamentally about him having sex. None of the other characters find anything wrong or objectionable with him or the other Pony having this relationship, no matter how abusively he behaves to her, and indeed are likely to envy Miss Lucky the pleasure of catering to his least little hedonistic whim, both sexual and otherwise.
Many of these Anons are brutal, callous and sadistic. Which never causes any genuine revulsion on the part of the Equestrians, who have a whole civilization based on Love, Friendship and Harmony -- instead, they'll be awed by his amazing Human courage and determination. If he turns some of this brutality on Equestrians, they will submit to his mighty heroic wrath, rather than see him as a dangerous alien monster they can't trust.
Hmm, I'm now describing the specific Anon from AlaraJRogers' Not the Hero, which is a great and serious satire of the whole concept, and offers an explanation for the improbable adventures of the specific Anon. All of you should all read this story.
A variant of this is where the Anon is described as being just an ordinary normal guy but displays absurdly-effective abilities which seem to have come out of nowhere. The "average college dude" will turn out to be a skilled yachtsman, master of fencing and champion skin diver, just because the plot requires that he sail through a storm, win a sword-fight, or swim through a long underwater cave. Or whatever.
In some cases the Anon will defy "This Loser Is You" by coming from some sort of military or intelligence or sports background which would reasonably justify having unusual effective abilities. When this is the case, he will often be both ridiculously effective at any and all plausible skills from that background, while totally-lacking in any maturity or insight that such a background might reasonably provide him.
Well, anyway, this Anon (Alara's or any of the others) isn't me, I don't recognize myself in him, and to the extent that I did, it would make me want to change to be less like him.
Conclusion
The sad thing is that the Human In Equestria sub-genre doesn't have to be stupid. There's no reason why good writers can't make up (or adapt to crossover) an interesting and specific human character with his own plausible motivations and personality, and show how he interacts with and adventures in the MLP-verse.
After all, Lemuel Gulliver -- who encountered the Houyhnhnms, wasn't a boring and flat This Loser Is You Everyman -- he was a medical doctor, merchant adventurer, and natural philosopher with a distinct and interesting personality. Megan, from the G1 My Little Pony series, wasn't dull and indistinct: she was brave, idealistic, combative and yet caring and feminine. Both of them interacted interestingly with alien cultures -- Gulliver even got an early example of a xenophiliac Ship Tease romantic friendship with "the Sorrel Mare," while Megan has legendary friendships with Firefly and Wind Whistler.
Have your Human characters interact with plausible depictions of the canon characters, and don't be afraid to introduce interesting OC's. By "plausible," what I mean is ones who are motivated by aims and respond to events in ways recognizable extrapolations from canon, instead of being warped to conform to whatever demand the plot (or Anon) makes of them. This is more difficult but more rewarding to the reader, as the story becomes one which seems plausible in a mostly-canon Equestria.
This makes the story seem real -- and that is the point of fiction.
And here I was thinking you were referring to "anonymous" authors.
Granted these are just a few reasons why I avoid these type of stories though of course these actually speak to the reasons of why they choose to write these stories as silly as they may be.
I love "Not The Hero." Although it's just as possible to have an Anon BiE who is every bit as obnoxious who isn't interested in -- let's call 'em romantic interactions with the ponies. Nevertheless, if he's Mr. Average Loser who is still better and more awesome than the Mane Six in every possible way, to the point that they're background ponies to him, I don't think it's much of an improvement.
Those stories are the epitome of the classical problematical HIE, which are just wish fulfilment fantasies in which the author goes to equestria and bangs his favorite pony.
Except that these are dishonest wish fulfillment stories in which the author pathetically masks the fact that they are wish fulfillment stories by making the main character an anonymous never to be described blob so 1. that they are not accused of writing a self insert and 2. hoping that the reader will insert themselves into the anonymous character and thus relate to the story better.
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Indeed. It degrades the whole setting to imply that the Ponies are all hopeless fools and any random Human could do far better than them because of his Humanity compared to their inferior Equinity. It also directly violates canon, in that numerous episodes have shown that the Ponies live in a fairly dangerous world, full of creatures just beyond their "firelight," who are willing and able to kill them -- and would do so in an instant if the Ponies weren't pretty good at survival.
Diaries of a Madman is pretty much as you describe, with the added Degradation that Navarone isn't at all interested in sex with Ponies (or, really, anyone he's encountered so far) -- he finds the Ponies ugly and just barely accepts some of the more humanoid races in his environment as poor substitutes for Human females. This gets really sad the other way, especially when Luna contracts a really severe crush on him and basically drives herself close to insanity trying to get him to like her back -- which really bothers me, as Luna's one of my Best Ponies and it's obviously pushing her toward Nightmare.
What seems to be going on in that story is that Nav may have been enchanted by Discord to be extremely-appealing to any female, especially a Pony, who pays much attention to him -- in other words, he's a living "Apple of Discord," thrown into the situation to break the Harmony by getting the Mane Six and the Princesses to quarrel over him. This is both obviously cruel to the enamored Ponies, and to Nav himself, who has so far (I'm in Chapter 20-something of this exceedingly-long fic) been raped by at least three female characters (two of whom you wouldn't believe emotionally-capable of it). It also shows, parenthetically, how terrible it might be to be the protagonist of a Harem Fic, especially if one doesn't even find the species involved sexually-attractive..
It's actually not Nav's fault, though he's starting to drift into Gary Stu territory as the story progresses.
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(*nods*) And they run into the problem that the Anon is usually not emotionally-compatible with his Favorite Pony, so the whole situation seems forced. And, usually, the explanation given for why said Favorite Pony falls for him anyway boils down to something highly-insulting to the Pony in question, often implying that she has very little in the way of either sexual virtue or self-esteem.
Sometimes this makes me wonder if the writers have ever loved any real human women who have ever loved them back -- because they treat the female characters as erotic plot devices rather than plausible and well-rounded characters. And there's no excuse for this, because said female characters are usually ones who have considerable development in canon.
It leads to stories that fail even as porn, because they're not really about the Ponies in question, but rather entirely-different Ponies who physically resemble them. You could rename, say, Pinkie Pie "Betty Balloonsbutt" and not really change the typical HiE erotic fiction in which she appears. Why not? She's not the Pinkie we know and love anyway.
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2609594 Although you could make the same point about the beige character Bella Swan. I mean, that's sad, because Stephenie Meyer doesn't seem to have been aware of it. Her character looks like her, except she is "too thin" and has "great skin." Frankly, as a lady who was overweight in high school and heard the "great skin and hair" thing myself, my heart aches for Stephenie Meyer, who struggles with her weight. So Bella is more or less a faceless self-insert with whom the reader is supposed to identify--the "ugly duckling" who becomes a beautiful swan.
I may have been lucky or unlucky, but I haven't seen lots of BiE fics in which Pinkie is the target. Usually it seems to be Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy.
What really annoys me is that often so little is made of the fact that this bipedal ape-thing here in front of you is an entirely new species (or at lest one that hasn't been seen around much, lately. Depends on the author). Apart from a little geeking out and embarrassing interviews via Twilight, no pony seems to care very much. Especially not the Equestrian Government.
Considering the sheer number of sapient species running about (and the fact that there's a whole unexplored Lost Woods smack dab in the middle of a peaceful and prosperous realm), the Equestrian Diplomatic Corps should have went into high gear when a representative of a hitherto unknown race pops up.
You'd think Anon would at least be made a diplomat, or something. With his appearance, he's setting the tone for all possible future interaction with the entire human race. And there he is, porking technicolour horseamacallits.
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The first time I read the Twilight saga -- and, by the way, I consider the concept and many of the characters, especially the ones who aren't Bella Swann, fairly interesting -- I totally got that Bella was meant to be an idealized version of the sort of girl who would probably like the series. All her obvious character traits are attractive ones, even the ones about which she's self-depreciating (the self-depreciation is necessary to keep the character from being too clearly "I'm Miss Perfect and I'm better than you," which is bad even if the character really is superior to most of those around her -- think about how annoying Twilight Sparkle would be if she were arrogant, or how the Great and Powerful Trixie manages to make herself unloved even though she actually has numerous useful abilities and skills).
She comes off as considerably less-attractive when one deeply considers some of her actions. For instance, she quickly develops a Moral Myopia regarding vampires killing anyone she doesn't know personally, which admittedly is common in sympathetic-vampire novels for structural reasons. And there's some evidence Stephanie Meyer gets this, or why include the scene where one vampire kills a random passerby because he doesn't like the song the guy was whistling.
Edward Cullen would be an interesting and even fascinating character if he ever got out of Bella's shadow. The funny thing is that Edward's family mostly agrees with this analysis and often seem really annoyed with Bella for becoming the object of his affections. And many of the other Cullens have really interesting backstories. I wouldn't mind reading other novels done in that universe not centering on Bella Swan.
True -- Twilight because they totally misinterpret the nature of her "dorkiness" and how it's viewed by other Equestrians. They think that others reject her for her intellectuality. Actually, Twilight starts the series as a very high-status Pony (daughter of the gentry, brilliant mage and personal student of Princess Celestia) and in the course of the series becomes an even higher-status Pony (national heroine and Alicorn Princess in her own right). Twilight's problem was that she was so narrowly-focused on her studies that she used to reject everypony else as a friend, rather than that she was such a dork that nopony wanted to be her friend.
One thing that they particularly miss about Equestria is that it includes some "Eastern" cultural attributes, most specifically an ideal of virtue based on "Harmony" (and Twilight is extremely Harmonious) and extreme respect for scholar-gentry types (such as Twilight herself). Twilight is close to her own culture's behavioral ideals -- when she sings the song and reprise from The Crystal Empire about why she thinks she can pass the test, she basically goes down a list of Equestrian philosophical virtues and points out how she lives up to these ideals. That song should be taken seriously -- everypony else singing it with her, including characters like Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, who in less critical situations would be teasing Twilight for her upper-class propriety, mean it seriously.
So she's not lonely cuz nopony loves her. She's widely-admired, and alone by her own choice because she hasn't found somepony she admires enough to consider it all proper to behave romantically or sexually toward (remember, she takes upholding Equestrian moral virtues very seriously and non-ironically, though she's not arrogant enough to rant on about it constantly). Also, she really is obsessed by her scholarly pursuits, which doesn't leave her much time to court anypony.
This is more or less true for the rest of the Mane Six, too, substituting different pursuits for "scholarly" ones in each case -- it's just that it's most obvious in Twilight's case.
Rainbow Dash, I'm guessing, gets targeted because a lot of fans assume that she's just wild and crazy and thus up for anything. Clearly, her lack of feminine demureness means that she's promiscuous. Ah, it's enough to turn me Politically Correct in my old age! It's not as if, say, Dashie embodies Loyalty or any other ideals or virtues that might make her a poor fit for that stereotype.
Fluttershy -- I supposed because she's beautiful and sweet and loveable. That's something with which I sympathize, though I do think some fans seriously underestimate her toughness and determination when it comes to any issue about which she really cares. They miss that she's a true heroine, and one who has faced down things that would more than slightly intimidate Mr. Random College Dude.
Also -- and these are close to Arc Words for my Fluttershy -- she gets what she wants. Almost always.
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Incidentally, another implication of this is that if what Anon really wants to do is have sex with Ponies, the Realm would oblige him. There are tens of millions of Ponies, some percentage of which are female, attractive and either fairly light-tailed or simply posssessed of unusual desires. It would not be particularly difficult for Master Manipulator Princess Celestia to set him up with one, or several mares who would find him attractive and be cheerfully-willing to oblige his desires. She wouldn't, of course, force or unduly pressure any Pony into being his love-slave -- that's not how she operates. But she would find him female companionship, if he wanted it.
However, it would not be herself or her Sister, nor would it be any member of the Mane Six. They're too important to the Realm, and personally dear to herself, to risk emotionally-damaging them in such a fashion. Plus, while Celestia can be ruthless at need, there's no need here -- there are plenty of other Ponies who would not be damaged by such employment.
2609628 Someone asked if she would be interested in doing some stories on Carlisle Cullen, who in particular would have been interesting. And I would have liked to see pre-death Edward, too, victim of the Spanish Influenza at a time I find very interesting. And she said no, she'd have to do research, thus forever losing my respect. She could easily afford to hire a young PhD in literature or history to dig through things for her and help her: someone who needed the money and the work. Sometimes finding a bit of info clicks off all kinds of ideas. But no--we got Bree Tanner.
I can only imagine the yachting/fencing/skin-diving anon as some 1920s Yale student now... and the idea of a 1920s college student showing up in Equestria is amusing me more and more the longer I think about it. (he wears a straw boater everywhere, but if he puts it down for more than a minute a pony starts eating it!)
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Actually, the HiE coming from some sort of elite college, where he had the opportunity to learn skills not available to the average college-student population, would make more sense as a story device. For that matter, the Heroic College Student was a common figure of the Interwar Era pulps: he was generally both an athlete and an intellectual, with some hands-on experience with mechanics and survival. Real people like that existed, too -- according to Robert A. Heinlein, his friend and fellow science fiction writer E. E. "Doc" Smith was one.
But of course, then they weren't "average." Nobody ever claimed that the man who invented the sugar-glazed donut and systematized space opera was average in any meaning of the word.
Hey, he was a space-enthusiast engineer who had a deep understanding of the biochemistry of baking! He could fascinate Princess Luna, Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie. Neat!
He was also a seriously honorable and moral man who was very much in love with his wife and wouldn't have trifled with the Ponies. Ah, there goes the E. E. "Doc" Smith clopfic -- though he's be a great protagonist for a less sexually-obsessed sort of story.
It is weird. And I mean incompatable personalities being the sign of good writing instead of cheap drama for your 'dark side of romance writing' blog.
Nice 'no bad guy' is a challenge for writing conflict for.
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It is true that a romantic relationship between incompatible (rather than merely different in complementary ways) characters is very likely to degenerate into the Dark Side of Romance, as they grow to hate one another and despise themselves for being in this love affair!
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Doable, as internal conflict, or conflict between two characters who are both good but have incompatible ideals in the current situation (such as Applejack vs. Fluttershy in "Bats," neither of them were villains).
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Oh no, she'd have to do historical research? Oh, the horror of it all!
Um, why does she find this prospect scary? The periods of American history involved are very well documented, and covered in numerous works of both non-fiction and fiction. It's not as if she's being asked to write characters who fit believably into the world of ancient Sumer or 28th-century Mars -- this is America in the 19th and 20th centuries.
2609673 Carlisle is older--seventeenth century England, eighteenth century Italy and France--but it's not as though there isn't plenty of documentation for that, too. Maybe she didn't want to risk being compared to Anne Rice, but I don't see that as a serious problem, anyway. Or maybe the real problem is that the story couldn't center completely around the romance. She tends to rush towards stasis in her love stories: you meet The One, and then you're done. Whereas, of course, in real life, you are far from done. I've been finding this out in my own CheesePie arc: there's never a real "now it's settled" moment in real life, just moments of relative peace and happiness. I've already shown a much older Cheese having to live with a very unhappy future. He was pretty happy up till all of that happened.
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?!
AJ was handed the 'DISAGREE WITH ME' T-shirt, and Fluttershy was given the 'AGREE WITH ME!' t-shirt!
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Yeah, but the specific opinions they had were in character -- AJ wanted to protect her farm and family, and Fluttershy wanted to protect wildlife. That's plausible, though it could have been better handled.
I am so happy that I am not the only one. I have only read one Anon fic, of course it was HiE and the only HiE I have ever read, and it put me off the genre entirely.
I think you overanalyse it too much. Anon in Equestria is basically a porn. No one review porn movies and criticise it by lack of good plot or actors. They serve only to show them in explicit situation while having most of the readers self insert themsleves into this character. He doesnt need to have same personality as the reader. Lack of the name, face and detailed history is everything most people will expect to see. They are OK with this characterisation of main hero. We can pretty much assume that most AiE readers are people who dont have a girlfriend, lives mostly as NEETS and on the internet 24/7. There are many who dont, but they also dont read Anon in Equestria stories.
The whole concept of "Anon as a character" seems to be a carryover from 4chan and its ilk, where actually using a named account gets you treated with derision. It's a "thing" some people seem to think is "cool". Of course, as far as I'm concerned, "I'm a writer from 4chan" impresses me as much as "bronze medal in fourth grade Home EC cooking competition" on a resume for a managerial position. If anything, it's a useful tool for warning me off a fanfic that's not worth my time - "What's this story about? 'The Mane Six meets Anon and...' Yeah, okay, no."
Badly written wish fulfillment self-insertion fanfiction has been around for decades. You could argue that the bad qualities go together - like how mold grows on a rotting apple - because you need a certain level of writing lack-ability to think that this kind of story would appeal properly. (I assume you're familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, or you'll want to look it up.) I'm reminded of "Tales of Adam", a (mainly) Tenchi Muyo SI story with an overblown gagworthy
heroprotagonistmain character whose powers (highly disparate and primarily cribbed from better-quality works) included attracting women for absolutely no reason. Most of my peers at the time assumed it was some kind of stealth parody, but if so, the author was damn subtle about it, because he seemed to argue that he was the next Hemingway or Tolkien.So yes. The latest adventures of Anon is generally beneath notice. If they can't be bothered to make an interesting MC, why should I be bothered to waste my time reading it?
On another note, I agree with the point that having the M6 compete for the same guy would be emotionally damaging and Celestia wouldn't approve. I recently came across a SI story where the (male alicorn named after the author) main character was sent by Celestia to go seduce the six girls. Aside from the whole Golden Apple-worthy emotional distress this would result in, my immediate wonder was why Celestia would think this was necessary to begin with. (I mean, beyond the MC getting his wish fulfillment.) At least Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash have enough social skills to handle that business on their own as needed. Pinkie Pie too, probably. Fluttershy... well, you wrote a story about how that business would go if handled badly. I could see a mildly comedic piece about Celestia sending a hoof-picked pony to help open Twilight's eyes to the magic of romance, as it would reflect her approach to friendship and because Celestia has a personal mentor relationship with Twilight. The others, no. (And I'd pick a canon character who's less than ideal for the job, just to make it interesting.)
The only good 'Anon' story i've ever read is still ongoing.
"Falling for a Star". It's a tad cliche'd, but at least it's better than the usual crap most HiE stories come up with nowadays. It got featured once or twice and is now reasonably popular. The whole reason behind the name 'Anon' was supposed to represent any name. Kind of like algebra, it stands for something either unknown, or for the reader to decide upon. However people generally just take it as it is, and call the character Anon anyway because that's how it is read. It hasn't ended yet so whether the upcoming story is going to turn over-used or not is still yet to be seen. But so far, the chain of events is not so common, and it uses things most other HiE's don't.
I think it's a prime example of what HiE stories can be when the author actually thinks about what they're trying to write before they just go ahead and copy another fic but under a different name.
I don't disagree with you, but I'm not sure why you felt the need to write this blog. No one's saying that second-person clopfics are the literary pinnacle of the site. (At least, I hope they aren't.) The reasons why they aren't are well understood, or so I assume.
Still, you did a good job of highlighting the difference between erotica and smut. In the former, physical intimacy is tied to emotional. In the latter, neither is considered; all that matters is getting uglies bumping, and such minor concerns as plot and characterization are disregarded.
2609635 Like Sweetcream Scoops?
She's a mare that shows up a lot in the IDW comics, usually as a bit of a man, er-stallion-eater with a borderline obsessive interest in Big Mac, and who has been described in rather unflattering fashion by the comics writers. Though I rarely seem to see one of these stories with the Anon interested in a background character mare, like Berry Punch or Lotus Blossom.
And with an Anon, or even non-anon, has anyone ever done a story where one such ends up in Equestria and he and the Mane Six end up despising each other? I don't mean that they work to deliberately harm one another, but just serious dislike?
One more thing: have you ever considered writing one of these essays about how to do crossovers properly?
Good, well thought out examination of the subject. It's been mentioned already, but I think it bears repeating that the problem isn't restricted to just romatic fiction/clopfics. (In fact I'd almost say it's more excusable in a clopfic than in other genres, since the entire purpose of those stories is to titillate rather than present a compelling narrative.) I've read a number of stories on the site that featured Anon or so-flat-they-may-as-well-be-Anon protagonists that were much more innocent in their motivations, yet just as narratively problematic.
A close platonic relationship between Anon and the Mane Six/Celestia/Luna can be just as forced, confusing and unrealistic as a romantic one. For instance I find it believable that some of the ponies may find themselves immediately fascinated by the strange new creature they've never seen the like of before (especially Fluttershy and/or pre-EqG Twilight Sparkle). But, all too often in these stories, fascination immediately turns to close friendship and blind trust (often as soon as they learn that Anon is capable of speech) with absolutely no intermediate relationship development.
2610160
I think it might be interesting to do a story in which an Interwar Era standard pulp hero (say a dashing young college student or kindly scientist or bold adventurer) from a human-verse wound up in Equestria. Their take on the culture would be interesting, especially if I depicted the visitor's cultural assumptions accurately.
There are any number of good reasons to have one (or several) such personages show up -- Interwar pulp scientists were frequently experimenting with weird rays or antediluvian artifacts that tossed one into another dimension. A lot of the stories had them then find a strange culture on the other side of the portal, in which they found friends or enemies. Sometimes they wound up Going Native.
It was not uncommon for a party of heroes to become involved in such adventures. The most stereotypical situation was the Kindly Scientist ("I labor to make discoveries of benefit to all Mankind"), his Manly Young Assistant ("I'm going to save her!") and the Scientist's Beautiful Daughter ("That's postively frightful!" Generally the Manly Young Assistant was an undergrad or grad student in his early 20's who liked the Scientist and fell in love with his Beautiful Daughter. This was dramatically useful since it made all three characters emotionally-important to one another.
Many variations were possible on this general pattern. The Manly Young Assistant could have a Best Friend who came along with him and often fell for one of the natives (though falling for a non-humanoid alien would be taboo in any story where the author was not named Clark Ashton Smith). There could be a Treacherous Assistant (he frequently lusted after the Beautiful Daughter and allied with one of the enemies they encountered, if he wasn't already a spy for some Sinister Foreigners). And many, many more possibilities, all the way up to the gloriously-diverse personalities of Doc Savage and his Crew.
Most of these pulp heroes would have gotten along just fine with the Mane Six and regarded Equestria as an obvious Good Guy culture. Various local enemies suggest themselves, from OC's to pulp villain types like Ahuizotl (who is of course a Shout Out to the pulps, as is his arch-nemesis Daring Do) all the way up to truly deadly Evil Masterminds such as Chrysalis (herself a fairly standard Dragon Lady type) or Tirek (normally an Evil Overlord, though he was stopped before he could rebuild his empire).
For that matter, a crossover with Doc Savage and his Crew themselves would be a lot of fun. His cousin and slightly-incestuous love interest Pat would have to tag along for that one. Wonder what she'd make of Equestria's matriarchal culture?
The reason why Anons always go for the Mane Six and the Princesses is because the Mane Six get the most screen time and the Princesses are the highest-status beings in Equestria. Yes, it's that superficial. I've noticed that the Anon writers and fans have trouble dealing with the concept that background Ponies -- and OC Ponies -- can be rich, interesting real characters within the context of their world and in their own right.
There's some justification in that the Mane Six, and the Princesses, both have a logical reason to become interested in alien visitors (it's their job to deal with potential threats to the Realm) and to some extent are more xenophilic in canon than are many Equestrians. Though writers of Anon stories tend to forget about their canon xenophilic attachments, because they'd get in the way of the hot poorly-drawn Human on badly-Flanderized Pony action. Spike vanishes when Rarity's interested in Mr. This Loseris Yu, and Discord especially gets ignored because he'd upstage the Anon hero with but his body language (which admittedly is pretty awesome, as he can detach and re-attach his body parts at will).
I don't know if Sweetcream is meant to be slutty -- though she does have a strong attraction to Big Mac, which outright alarms him more than does attraction from most mares (note that at the party he was repulsed by her, for no obvious reason). And Big Mac is not generally repulsed by mares (the canon evidence is that he's usually nice to them -- in "Zen and the Art of Gazebo Maintenance" he's on a mission to find nails and hence doesn't have time to stop and talk to random mares). And he's definitely not repulsed by Cheerilee -- he's happy to see her even in ZatAoGM, and has been so on other occasions, to the point where I think he is attracted to her.
Sweetcream does act desperate, and forward, though. I have no idea what she would think of a humanoid character in such a light. She might go for it, especially if he were being treated by others as high-status. And, if not her, somepony else.
As Twilight Sparkle says in An Epistolary Legal Consultation Between Princesses,
Twilight was in no mood to help match-make for him, given what he was accused of doing and that she didn't really like him very much even before this, but that's another issue.
I can see all sorts of aspects of most Anons, and even some well-realized protagonists, that should logically lead to the protagonist despising some of the Mane Six or some of them despising him. These are not even all villainous protagonists. James Bond is a hero, but his willingness to casually kill and to sexually-use any female who lets him would both squick the heck out of most Equestrians, including most of the Mane Six. They might ally with him against a common foe, or even regard him as a regular ally, if he wound up in Equestria -- but they wouldn't like him. Bond, himself misogynistic save where rather submissive females are concerned, would probably dislike all of them save perhaps Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.
2610216
That's a good point. Even though in canon the Mane Six are friendly, there's a big difference between "friendly" on the level of "You're a decent entity and I will help you out of a jam" and "friendly" on the level of "We're soulmates and I would trust you with my most intimate secrets." Applejack is "friendly" the first way with a good portion of the population of Ponyville and the second way with a very few other Ponies, including Big Mac and Twilight Sparkle. Even though she's unlikely to become romantically-involved with either of them.
2610220
Heck, I'd like to see a researched story using a human character from almost any historical period other than the early 21st century. It would make for a nice change of pace IMHO. And the idea about Doc Savage and the gang visiting Equestria? Oh, I'd love to see someone do that who knew both Doc and MLP. Monk and Ham's dealings with the ponies and each other would be worth the price of admission by themselves.
I wouldn't go with that definition of Sweetcream, either. I get the impression of a very lusty mare who can get a little too aggressive at the most.
I'm guessing this refers to the literary Bond, rather than the movie one.
And I have to agree on the idea of certain protagonists driving the poor ponies up the wall. I've been reading the Flashman novels of late, and someone did do a Flashman expy in the Pony POV series (the stretch covering Shiny and Cadence's diplomatic trip), and yikes. I think even Fluttershy would want to strangle him if they got a look at his real personality.
Of course I've personally had worse ideas. Like what if the Mane Six meet one of the Draka and are tricked into helping him get back to his world -- and return with his friends.
2610400
Was thinking about Doc Savage and his Crew and which of them would get along well with which MLP characters.
Monk and Ham usually deal with any new social situation they find themselves in by
(1) Finding a pretty girl,
(2) Courting her while
(3) Trash-talking each other to her, until
(4) One of them winds up in real danger from an enemy, and then
(5) The other will go into a beserker fury to help the endangered one,
since Monk and Ham are pretty much Heterosexual Life Partners. They needle and tease each other constantly as a form of mutual amusement: pity the foolish enemy who imagines that they actually hate one another.
Of the Mane Six Monk would probably pal around with Rainbow Dash or Pinkie, and Ham with Rarity, which kind of spoils their normal romantic rivalry, but that's okay -- they could always pick a different mare to which they could insult one another.
Renny I can see making friends with Applejack: they have a similarly direct approach to life, and any physical obstacles, while both being highly intelligent and decent under their rough exteriors.
Johnny has some interesting correspondences with Twilight (history and love of complex verbal constructions) and Maud (geology). I love the idea of Johnny trying his usual absurdly exaggerated speech patterns out on Twilight Sparkle and her playing the game right back at him, matching him point for point. It is a game, you know -- Doc calls him out on it more than once in the series, usually when something really serious is happening and Johnny would rather play with words. Not sure who I'd want to have some scenes with Renny -- given that he's the most violent of them all, there would be humor value in teaming him with Fluttershy, but actually he'd probably make friends with Luna.
Doc himself, of course, could have some interesting conversations with Celestia. Especially because he's already met a corrupted Avatar of the same Cosmic being, in his world, without knowing what it was.
Remember the name of Doc's deadliest enemy?
John Sunlight. Who wanted to rule the world to create a Utopia, making him a Shadow Archetype both of Doc Savage himself, and of course of Princess Celestia.
I would have there be a Strange Resonance between the two worlds, and Doc himself has an analogue among the Ponies. Someone who was raised to be the perfect Pony, just as Doc was to be the perfect Human. Someone who, after this training, gained a group of True Companions and went on adventures with them.
Twilight Sparkle.
What do you think?
2610400
Btw, be not afraid -- I was talking more about teaming-up to fight the common foe (of course there has to be one) and Friendshipping, than Shipping them.
2609628
The issue is that the MLP main characters are realistically complex characters. One can't simply for instance describe Pinkie Pie as "crazy party pony" and expect that to describe everything about her character, or even most of her character; the show itself has many episodes which show different facets of the characters' personalities.
A weaker author might not be able to handle this complexity, and instead see only the surface and treat the characters as shallow reflections of their true selves, similar to one of the mirror pool's later clones. That's when they are not treated as merely empty pony-shaped boxes, ready to accept whatever personality the author's story requires them to have, as you said above:
2609594
Now about the second-person viewpoint.
I'd say the second-person view is actually the hardest one to use well.
Third-person view is easy; in its simplest variant, it's an impersonal floating camera. It can limit itself to easily described facts: character A does action B.
First-person view is harder, because it describes a character's feelings. Even if they are not directly described, the action is filtered through the lens of the character's viewpoint, which is affected by her feelings. It also has the crippling limitation that it's anchored to the character; a first-person view can't easily float away to follow a distant action. When used correctly, the effect can be quite powerful, and it opens up tropes such as Unreliable Narrator; but it can only be used correctly if the author has a good grasp of how the character is feeling at each moment.
Second-person view has all the problems of first-person view, but now the character is the reader. The author has to describe the actions filtered through the lens of the reader's feelings. If the "reader avatar", if you allow me to coin a term for the second-person POV character, at any moment feels in a way which is opposite of how the reader is feeling, the illusion is broken and the reader is pulled out of the history. I have no idea how I would pull that off; the writing would have to be so good as to induce the reader to feel the same as his avatar.
2611361 Personally I think it's a great idea and I would love to see it. But again, it would have to be done by someone who really understands the Doc Savage stories and mythos, which leaves me out.
Heck I've only barely heard of John Sunlight, and you mention him as being effectively Doc's Lex Luthor. So I figure he must be one important character!
2612741
Well, there were only two books in the original run of Doc Savage with John Sunlight, but I'm pretty sure he was picked up to be the villain in some of the comic book series and maybe one of the revivals. He was your basic Utopia Justifies the Means kind of villains. Mind you, Doc could be ruthless himself at times, to violent criminals -- but he respected most people far too much to assume he had the right to command them. Doc was a product of the Progressive Era, with all its virtues and vices, who was far more often good than bad.
I don't know that I am enough of a Doc Savage expert to do the characters properly, and I would hate to just do an In Name Only version of them where I got them all wrong. They're easy to Flanderize, because they all had strong quirks, but in the better novels were more complex than just Monk, "something-something, pig joke, something-something, yowza wotta dame" and suchlike. Maybe someday when I have a more encylopediac knowledge of the series ...
2612955 Well, I did just find this Doc Savage wiki entry on John Sunlight, which makes him sound like a terror (as smart as the Doc, and even more physically powerful). I also seem to recall once reading about him, how he used to make his flunkies approach him on their knees and looking down at the ground simply to rejoice in their hate and fear of him.
For that matter here's the address for the wiki's main page.
I've always avoided Anon In Equestria fics like the plague, the reasons above being a comprehensive list of my reasons. I'm just not interested in an aggressively everyman protagonist. Thank you for reading and summarising these things so I don't have to. (Not The Hero, however, is already firmly on my tracking list. I love deconstructions. See also The Star In Yellow, which is wonderful.)
2609575
(*nods*) One variant is the chaste Anon, who makes much of his moral superiority in refusing to lust after the Ponies -- because he feels that he's too good for them, of course -- not because he respects them.
But this does bring up an idea. I would like to read your idea of the prefect Anon fic.