There's a lot of "Anon" stories. And they get featured, like, guaranteed. Well-written or not, they have a single glaring issue: they feature a green slenderman that is supposed to have no distinctive personality, "gender" (male), or anything what so ever.

The point of anon is to self insert - but consider two alternatives that would be much better for the quality of it: one, write a Second Person for that exact reason. Two, make a human/human-like character! There is a whole universe of options for human or human-like protagonists that can still act as NPC friendly people.

Take a few examples from media: Luke Skywalker, an ordinary farmer boy who was whiny but itching for adventure or, more specifically, to "waste time with [his] friends". As he became an adventurer and a Jedi Master, he can be brash yet brave in what he does. Imagine a story where Luke gets transported to Equestria as he tries to get home only to realize he's 1) stuck and 2) commited, such as his love life with a canon pony character or something like Tirek destroying Equestria.

Bilbo Baggins, an ordinary rural-living hobbit (a human-like species) who would rather live in solitude but had his life interrupted by a wizard putting a sign on his door. After his adventures as an old hobbit, he wants to see the mountains again and finds an opportunity to escape to the elves (another human-like example) during his 111th birthday. Imagine him in Equestria as well where he learns about how the talking ponies work and ends up in a mountain-hiking adventure as he starts to get a little addicted. I know Fluttershy might benefit from his knack for planting and rolling weed into a pipe.

Peter Griffin--

Overall, having a character instead of a vessel can help with the learning experience of how to do protagonists. It doesn't even need to be a crossover, just give Anon a name and we got a face as well: John, Chris, Ahmed, and now all of a sudden at "Ahmed" we have a "different" face than usual and, perhaps, different beliefs. And what of John and Chris? Maybe John believes in prayer at the table but his Faith is questioned at the sight of talking ponies as animals were created solely for the use of man. Perhaps Chris is an engineer student and would have to fathom the concept of magic!

At the end of the day, you can still be generic and accessible to self projection while still making a character. I for instance projected myself onto Littlepip from Fallout: Equestria when I was a teen when reading her in first person. Which is also an option! (to do 1st Person) You can also explore human-like characters, such as vulcans, na'vi, twi'leks, elves, or skrulls!

Let's put down this 4chan "Anon" trend and make some project-able anime-esque protagonists! The possibilities are ENDLESS!

>coal

Nah, I like anon

7929410
I’ve personally kinda thought the same thing, so I’ve written my own Anonymous.

Since the whole point of being anonymous is no one knowing who you truly are you can just play into that.

It’s also why they’re named Anonymous and not Anon. Not for the sake of the shorthand, but because they’re actually Anonymous.

So an another HiE had the same idea, but they went with Gary Sue instead of Anonymous (I’ll try to find the story, it’s in my backlog somewhere.)

7929416
I just realized I unintentionally did the same. In my story Nightmare (Bring Me a Dream) I didn't have Anon or even a name, just "a stallion" as this blank canvas of a non-character. More like an object than anything. It was written for horror and depicting her need for "a stallion" not anypony in particular.

There are alternatives I didn't even think of in the OP, not gonna lie, that explores being anonymous.

How about you write your own fic with a named human character instead of telling people what to write.

Don't make me sing the song.

7929423

"To do as you say would shatter our entire way of life. This world is not ready."

"No, you mean you're not ready to give up control over these people."

- The Orville, "If the Stars Should Appear"

The second person argument is delivered well, as the fact that anonymity in these stories is depicted as a 'green slenderman' as you say is rather disturbing.

7929410
I find Anon stupid, but I accidentally started a series with an Anon as a main character, oh no!

Seriously though, in my personal experience, no one reads my stories if there isn't an Anon in them.

7929410
Oh boy, this misconception again. I apologize if this comes off as a bit overly terse, but I've explained this so many times, and it's becoming quite stale.

The Anon that exists in pony stories is a holdover from when the Bronyhood consisted entirely of a small handful of shitposters on /a/. 4chan Anon is not solely a self-insert. He does function partially as a blank-slate, but he's also an actual character in his own right.

Allow me to introduce you to him:

Anonymous is a cartoon character that was made collectively by users of 4chan. He is not just an empty shell. His character is what you'd get if you took all of the posts of every 4chan anon and turned it into a person.

He's a sarcastic asshole, a massive troll, a memelord, and somewhat of a conspiracy nut; but he also has a good heart buried under all the cynicism. He has no face because he's anonymous. He has green skin because race doesn't exist on the internet. He's male because there are no girls on the internet. He wears a suit because of the Anonymous hacker group.

Aside from those basic, mostly immutable characteristics, precisely what character traits and personality he has is up to the story and its writer; as is whether or not he goes through an actual character arc.

It would be more accurate to call Anon an author-insert than to call him a simple empty vessel, but even that's not totally correct. He's an already-established character, an author-insert, and a half-empty vessel to self-insert with. All at once.

EDIT:
Which is to say that, because of all of those reasons, Anon can play a very unique role in stories that feature him. He absolutely has a well-deserved place in MLP fanfiction.

You definitely don't have to use him. You don't even have to like him as a character, or stories that feature him.

All I ask is that you don't dismiss every AiE story as, "just a self-insert story." Because, in actuality, the majority of them are more than that.

I like anon, it’s meant to be a blank slate for the writer to put whatever they wish into. I’ve seen anons that range from a jersey shore douchebag personality to a traumatized person hiding their problems from the world. A lot of ship fics of various types, but also non romance. You can’t do that with a set character, not without having a fan base have a fit

I know of anon because its a blank slate character and common in other fandoms in writing fic

but I never knew the green dude came from 4chan. Thought it was meme of the Riddler meeting its always sunny green man lol

even then, it shouldn't matter to anyone. its someone story and they should be allowed to write however they like. with green man or not

7929410
>No I don’t think I will.

Pretty sure "Anon bad" posts haven't been funny since like, 2016 or 2017.

Also, he's only partially a blank slate. Believe it or not, Anon has lore in the fandom.

Anon came about not as a self-insert template, but because early bronies were extremely sensitive to see defined human characters interacting with the FiM cast that was not themselves. It was a product of insecure envy.

"...but consider two alternatives that would be much better for the quality of it:"

No. Moreover, fuck you. Anon's a mainstay of the genre. An institution. You not caring for it doesn't change that.

7929501
Interesting.
edit:

It is ironic that bronies consider those who are against Anon to be envious of success when they themselves manifested anon out of insecurity about others (defined characters) being romantically successful! It's insanely ironic!

7929510
Just saying "remove it" all together is mean, tho.

7929457
You missed the point. It's not a "set character", if anything Anon is a set non-character/vessel. The argument is to have more characters that are douches and sad-mats and so on.

I honestly dont get the „Character of show X story better“ argument, Ive read my fair share of them and honestly, most of them are utter shit with a bad mary sue in a character X costume.

Anon stories are kind of random. They are more like a title than anything else. Sometimes they are about a green guy in a suit, and other times they are about a normal human who just happens to be called Anon. I have even used him in a story. Anon is an easy and fun character to write, which is probably why so many people do it. When writing, there are endless possibilities, but some are more appealing than others. Anon has proven to be one of the more appealing ones on this site.

7929542 You appear to be someone who’s late to the party, so I’ll put it like this. HiE content was extremely polarizing in general during the earliest days of the brony fandom, regardless of the actual quality of the content containing it. A stigma was attached to the genre and there seemed to be a general bias against HiE. The Anon trend didn’t start until a few years in. People tend to forget about these things after so much time has gone by, so I’m not surprised stuff like this has been forgotten by the fandom at large.

I can’t confirm it, but as someone who’s been here since close to the start, that’s my educated guess about the Anon subject and what gave rise to its proliferation in the fandom and beyond.

7929410
"Everything you just said was completely wrong."
- Luke Skywalker

You sound like the people who hated Spider-Man in the 1960s because he was popular.

7929448

Exactly this.

7929448
In other words, Anon is a straight troll character. Reality really is weirder than fiction.

My HIE is basically the complete opposite of Anon and takes the subgenre in a new, very inventive way... and that's probably a big reason why it'll be a long road to "success" for it.

Basically, it treats a large (millions) population of humans as always been part of Equus's world, and even gives them an original elemental magic system of my own design, treating them as the greatest warriors the world ever saw (an idea not so far removed from official cannon considering G1). The first volume was the Mane 6 going down to their underground megacity to retrieve them to resolve an ancient and mysterious friendship problem.

But, the big part is that instead of having one human self-insert oriented protagonist, I basically create a ton of OCs and use them as interchangeably as the show uses ponies, and treats the story as an extension beyond the G4 finale instead of an AU or something. I plan on making many volumes with this premise and setting, eventually expanding into G5, letting the G4-based volumes serve as a reason to let the G5 world develop and expand in the meantime so as to minimize contradictions.

People who create Anon stories lack the creative aptitude to make a character with quirks and personality. They have the same 3 characistics. Overly nice pushover. Overly aggressive jerkwad. And grey blob. The kind of character that does nothing that makes a character.

Hell, I'd take a Jon Doe over an Anon at this point.

I'm surprised that there is actually a tag for Anon despite being an OC. However, there no tags for MLP generations that are before G4 and their characters for some reason. Then again, most of the MLP fandom came around G4, which is probably the reason why.

I see Anon representing both a shell and an OC. Not enough to be a character, but good enough to fill a role.

You know those 'hero-kind' of roles, the ones that fight for justice and helping out no matter the cost of themselves? That's Anon, an average Joe that represents us because we tend to act a lot like him. He may be more associated to the internet, but he doesn't act that much different from how I act, so I just use him as a self-insert and assume that everyone online acts similar enough to do the same.

It's difficult to explain, but we all make clever remarks and enjoy teasing others and have heard it all before, but a lot of us aren't bad people at heart either, just like Anon is intending to represent. I personally can't stand the design of him as it's too limited (gender) and he looks like a zombie from the Madness series, which is what resorted me to create Antoni, a character that doesn't indicate a type of gender and has no physical depiction other than being human.

7929622
In a way, yes. Anon is really unique in that he's anything you could possibly want from a protagonist all at the same time. He's a quantum entity.

He's a named human character. He's a blank-slate. He's the author. He's the reader. He's an eldritch faceless entity. He's whatever you want him to be. He inhabits every possible character role simultaneously. You can even interpret him differently every time you read the story.

There is no other character like Anon. Not just in fanfiction, but in all fiction.

Obviously, that's at least a little bit hyperbolic, but here's my point: If you can only see Anon as a self-insert, that's a tremendous waste of his potential; and I really don't like to see people disrespecting my boy like that.

7929410
You see...i kinda like it as This way

7929420
Hey rin!

tbh. I'm actually working on a story where the name ''Anon'' is just a nickname, and he actually has a real name.

No spoils though, it's supposed to be my greatest project yet!

Anyway, Interesting post!

When exactly was Anon first introduced and for what reason?

7930075
AFAIK started on 4chan and spread as a generic every man on other forums during those early internet days.

Seems OP thought we'd agree with him.

If you don't like Anon, don't read Anon stories. If you don't like Anon, don't write Anon stories. Who cares of nobody reads them, write them for yourself.

7930128
Unfortunately, there will be haters for everything and some of them just don't want to leave things they don't like alone.

7929410
You don’t like them? Idgaf. You wanna change something then do it yourself. Most people don’t care what you think. Change the future. Stand alone against fate.

7930749
There's a chance that we will be told that it's wrong to do a HiE fanfic involving G1 characters such as Megan, Danny, and Molly as if they're not supposed to be ponies of either G4 or G5 just for not being there officially.

7930770
Well. I’m not understanding the problem.

7930781
My point is that there will be haters for everything.

I like Anon, he has a wide range of character and it's an easy placeholder to make a simply or complex story. I'm writing two Anon stories at the moment. You're free to avoid Anonymous.

7930783
There we go. A simple answer

7930128
I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud and state that the real criticism of the concept wasn't rooted in any particular critique of AiE's narrative effectiveness. Rather, it has it's roots:

Let's put down this 4chan "Anon" trend and make some project-able anime-esque protagonists!

In that part. Everything after that is post-hoc rationalization.
Verification not required.

7930128
That's actually a pretty good point, but it's been over a decade now, and I'm pretty sure Anon (the character) hasn't harmed the community. This really just seems like 2014 "oh god another anon story"posting and nothing more to me.

Also since I've got you, Rider of the Storm (I don't think that's the actual name sorry) was phenomenal and a perfect example of Anon being used as a character first and foremost.

I can see why there those who like to have Anon in their stories. He is pretty generic and easy to adapt. It's sort of the same reason to why I use Megan, but there is a big difference to that. Unlike Anon, she's not an OC, but an actual character that exists in the MLP franchise. Also, I find her easier to use especially in fanfics that are HiE when she is already one along with Danny and Molly as well. The other reason I use them is because I find it easier than just creating an OC, which I'm not that great at doing and tend to avoid them as much as possible. Overall, if anyone doesn't like any MLP fanfics that involves humans of any kind, then I suggest not clicking on them in the first place when nobody is forcing you to do so.

7931062
Using Megan in anything is just awesome to be honest. I don't see anyone ever acknowledging her.

7929410
When it comes to Anon stories, despite the complaints he gets anon stories do seem to have a better shot at doing well than if you use a named OC. Though I haven't tested it myself since I haven't written any anon stories (yet) since I can usually just use my human OC in my HiE stores, and my few HiE stories that didn't use them just used a different named human OC. How well the stories do from a view or likes standpoint can vary considerably, but they, generally, do well enough to not make me want to start trying to use anon to chase more views or likes.

However, I do have a couple of anon story ideas, and I would usually consider using him in stories that can't use my usual human OC if the story was a one-shot or otherwise short story. Especially if the anon would act like anons often do (be snarky, and bonus points if he'd swear a lot) and/or I was specifically aiming to make anon an audience surrogate and not so much their own character. But if the story that can't use my OC would be longer, have more character development than a shorter story would usually allow, and the human wouldn't act like a typical anon (or he wouldn't post-character development), then I'd prefer to use a named OC instead.

7931094
If they don't know about G1, then Megan and even her siblings Danny and Molly would be considered OCs to them.