Man goes to convention dressed as multiple characters at once. Man purchases a Twilight Sparkle mask. Man regrets his decision as he ends up in a Pokemon-filled Equestria as another Twilight Sparkle.
And then, something unexpected happens. And it's not the unexpected thing you've come to expect. Here's a hint: Derpy is involved. Derpy drops a piano on David Clarkson, knocking the memories out of him. David becomes a new mare, taking the pseudonym of Dawn Skystar and the role of Twilight's "Cousin from Manehattan". While Dawn is distracted by her new quest to defeat the Gym Leaders, Elite 4, and Champion while getting closer to her new pony friends for the sake of her new Social Link power, can Twilight uncover the secrets in Dawn's lost memories and the reason why she's here?
Coming Soon: A story arc in which Pokequestria is attacked by a Displaced from another universe, and Dawn learns about the multiverse as she fights to protect her new home.
Open for Crossover and Cameo requests, PM me if interested.
Feedback and comments are welcomed. I want critique and honest opinions: How am I doing, and how can I do better?
what
8839929
I'm siding with you with this one. What?
8839942
You'll see. I don't want to give the twist away, but trust me, this pony isn't dead. I'm going to try and write an original Displaced story, I want to see if it's possible to tell a good story in a setting many would deem "Cliche".
8839944
Make him capture a Gardevoir and destroy the world with a black hole. For fun!
I'm kidding!
Anyway I will keep an EYE on you, so keep writing.
8839956
How did you guess that a Gardevoir will end up on his team? She won't destroy this universe with a black hole, though. Just wait, you'll see what she ends up doing. Here's a hint: Not what you'd expect.
You are off to a good start with this. Keep on writing!
It's not grammatically horrible. +1
It's Displaced. -1
It spends half of the opening chapter being a reference extravaganza. -1
I think this is trying to be subversive without subverting anything. -1
After the initial wow factor of reference overload, becomes incredibly painful to sit through. -1
Throw in more references during the obligatory merchant scene. -1
There's a merchant? Really? -1
Tries way too hard to be meta and becomes grating by the first 100 words of chapter 2. -2
Main character is a clear self-insert. -3 + change your tags
This isn't funny. The greatest sin of a "Comedy" fic is it not being fucking funny. -10
Final Score: -20
Author Advice: Are you sure this is the path you want to go down? Displaced is already a dead horse. I guess it's trying to be unique, but it's kinda like being the shiniest turd in a turd pile. It's something, but you could write literally anything else and it'd be better than the inevitable trainwreck this will be.
Not only that, but the attempts at humor here fail to slide. You spend half of the first chapter making your self-insert a God Mode Sue (Because let's be honest here, they're going to be overpowered with that much kit, otherwise this entire costume bit was a waste of time.) and the other half is slamming the protagonist as this self hating arsewipe who's "cursed with averageness" and is "bad at vidyagames".
Also you used Steamed Hams in a chapter title and the word "meme" over "joke" and that in of itself is a sin. Nobody uses the word "meme" like that outside of chatting with friends. It's like purposefully putting in shorthand like "u" and "ur", it's alright when you're talking to a friend, but in a story it looks severely out of place and plain cringe-inducing.
So you know, average Displaced fic. Very, thoroughly average with a hint of narcissism and attempts of being meta that fall flat on their face. I'm sure this'll have its fans, as all
garbageDisplaced does, but don't expect this to be a fun ride if you're not into it.Just...wow.
I'm hoping this was written ironically.
8840116
8840152
8840116
Thank you for the long (for you) review, it seems you're trying to turn over a new leaf. I welcome this change, and I'm glad you're putting your past as a cowardly and petulant bully behind you.
That said, you seem to have missed the point of this fic. Though I'm still writing it, so I can understand the confusion. I've taken an old, cliche, arguably done-to-death concept, and I'm going to see if it's possible to tell an interesting story with it. You might have noticed that instead of becoming a fusion of all the badass things he dressed as, he became a seemingly ordinary mare, who proceeded to lose "Her" memory fairly quickly to something that an all-powerful God Mode Sue could easily shrug off. As far as I'm aware, no story has ever done that. You did read enough of the fic to get to that point, right? If so, the surface-level analysis is just due to a quirk of yours, I guess.
Furthermore, the Equestria David ended up in is not the real Equestria, or one altered in a way that specifically benefits him and only him. I invite you to stay and wait until the twist happens, because there's a big one coming. Also, comedy is subjective, there are no "Cardinal sins" in writing, you need to watch less CinemaSins, and the appearance of "The Merchant" is literally mandated by the rules of the Displaced group whether we like it or not. All in all, it seems you clicked on a story you didn't expect to like, in a genre you've already developed quite the hatred for. How odd.
8840152
I know Displaced has resulted in some terrible fics, that's why I want to write a good one. I've decided that I'm going to tell my story creatively.
Writing a bad one "Ironically" would mean taking the easy way out. I'd just tell a shit low-effort on purpose while giggling to myself about how I'm only "Pretending" to be terrible, because that's all "Ironically terrible" stories and fanfics are. Would anyone even enjoy something so lazy and easy to write? Here, I'll write an "Ironic" bad story in this comment, tell me if you'd read something like this, only over 10,000 words long.
Once upon a time, there was a mediocre human guy named Bill, who was hit by a truck. He went to Equestria and all the mares fell in love with him. Yes, even the princesses. This was wildly out of character, as the prose awkwardly reminded you, like the annoying voice of a lousy juggler trying to insist he's throwing and dropping his balls "On purpose". Discord showed up, and was written as a shallowly evil character, for some reason. Bill killed this monster in one punch, man, because this reference was hilarious and certainly not predictable. Then, everything changed when those baddies from Super Smash Bros Brawl attacked. Except not really, because the hero destroyed all of them and won the day by punching Tabuu and Master Core in the balls. If you've played the Smash series, you'll realize how funny what I just said was. And then everyone had lots of sex with the protagonist. But it was badly written and someone thought a beer bottle could be used as a substitute condom. Then Tensai Yagami showed up to stick a kataka(sic) up someone's ass. And then, the writer showed up, literally self-inserting himself in traditional bad-writer Deus Ex Machina fashion, to call the story terrible and tell you, the reader, how you wasted your time.
The end.
When you said ridiculous, you meant it.
I'll finish it later, currently at work.
Interesting ideas.
It's a fun read.
If I had to be bound by the oath to get healing magic I would just steal it
As ridiculous as it was to read this... I like it.
Interesting start, I will keep reading to see were it goes
Oh jeez, shorten the story title, I know its comedy but I think it might stretch the page on anyone who uses a phone/3DS to browse fimfiction.
This chapter gave me plenty of laughs plus I love the jab you made at some of the Displaced who buy alot of stuff just to become overpowered.
8840487
Ah, I remember the days when I was forced to use a phone and 3ds to browse the internet. I've changed so much since then...
The video title is a reference to the Steamed Hams "But Edits". But on a deeper, metaphorical, philosophical level, it fits perfectly.
8840526
By the way, I just finished reading the story. Was this chapter a jab at certain pony OCs who have a name/appearance too simular to Twilight?
8840547
If I confirm or deny things like this, it'll take the fun out of things. I want people to debate my reasoning behind every single piece of this story for years to come.
My fic's been up for about five hours. Man, if my fic's this controversial already, I'm clearly doing something right.
8840630
Hey, ya can't please everyone, so of course they'll disagree with ya either due to it being a Displaced story, or because of something you did in said-story.
It's shit.
I laughed, it's so nonsensical it borders on the insane. The main character isn't nearly as delusional as the author ironically appears to be; I looked up the things and franchises 'the bawdlerized chunibuyo guy I never heard of, but who is totally a Greg the Bunny Dilbert' has pieced together and my imagination just sort of shut down before I could add it all up.
Sadly, despite the rather detailed description my mind just settled on imagining Duke Nukem in a crinoline dressed like the angelic Lord Canti from FLCL held together with duct tape and rolls of stickers for manacles with a fluttershy backpack/knapsack or similar. . . Shamefully, for some unfathomable reason, in my imagination he's also wearing a furry stole or boa and only __thinks__ he has all the gear he's reportedly decked out in because the rule of adaptation further applied will lead to Zootopia the anime directed by Bendzz.
8841457
A crinoline is that chandelier-looking thing Lissa from Fire Emblem Awakening wore.
Also, I'm being experimental here. I'm trying out new things, things I wouldn't normally write. I'm going to try and write a good Displaced story, and I invite you to put aside what most Displacedfics you've seen have been like and join me for this wild ride.
edit: Wait, did you mean bowdlerized? As in censored? If so, I don't get it.
Will Dawn Skystar get her first Pokémon in the traditional "Fire, Grass or Water" way where you either get it in a lab (or in the case of Gen 3 & Gen 7, meet your Pokémon as you enter the first route from where you start)?
8843244
You'll see.
Sunny approves. Ten ducks out of ten.
... What the hell just happen? ... And, seriously, type change? That ruins the whole point of pokemon types. ...Why am I bothered by this? ... Still, its good but I wish this made a bit more sense... The characters feel stiff like they aren't actual characters.
8840487
No it doesn’t. Reads fine for me.
For two days in a row, I've consistently had around six more likes than dislikes. Interesting. Well, if it's this controversial even now, I've done something right.
Edit: Seven! Clearly, my latest chapter made my fic even better.
when did dave learn how to teleport?
8840265
Oh, neat, that reminds me of Verbose Mode, who was a long-time writer who actually had experience under his belt and could tell others how to improve. His goal was to prove that Displaced aren't inherently terrible either, but he had one drastical difference in mindset:
He focussed on execution. Instead of thinking, "How can I make this stand out and seem creative?" he thought, "How can I make this story good?" While that usually involved breaking from the norm, it's not breaking from the norm just to do it - It's purposeful breaking from the norm.
8840252
I don't really think making it about what you see as flaws on part of the reader is the right decision, but hey, I'd only consider myself slightly above average.
A funny thing is that you immediately equate the cliche-Displaced to being an all-powerful God Mode Sue - They're actually not. They're incredibly powerful characters that only encounter challenges a bit beneath their level except for when they come to clashes with other Displaced. They're nowhere near all-powerful or God Mode, even if a lot of the time it doesn't show that well.
Which part, not having their main-character be immune to mind-control? I'd take a look at Lord of the Rings then, the main-character there isn't immune to mind-changes. Or did you mean Displaced-story? In that case, everytime a Displaced just acts like the character they were displaced as for no reason would count as a mind-change. I'm just presuming that you don't mean that the main-character doesn't shrug off something harmful to them, because there are a lot of examples for that.
I would recommend you look at Verbose's story for hints on how to properly capture your audience's attentions and show the audience, instead of telling them through exposition. Because the way you're trying to write your not-parody is how you would write a parody - The average person can't be described as "average in all regards", or "not really interested in any specific part". Just the mere fact that you overexaggerate his mediocrity causes you to try to make him special - If you really wanted to hit the average-cliché without parodying it, you would have tried to write him like you would imagine a normal background-character to spend their day, not tried to write him as "the most average guy in the world", because being the most average would set him apart and as such cause him to actually not be average. Atleast when I asked him, Verbose had been very helpful and told you truthfully how I could become better - But that's the catch. He does it truthfully, he's not going to tell you "Your characterisation is great" if your character's personality changes from Edgelord to Pony-princess to Serial Killer to Neighbourhood Kid too whatever for no reason, so he's unlikely to agree with anybody who says they're good enough - He himself still tries to improve, even though he's better than most. But aslong as you are willing to put in effort to improve, he is (or atleast was) a good person to ask for help.
8846343
He saw Twilight do it, and he's Twilight. But until he learns magic properly, he'll ONLY be able to do spells he's seen Twilight use.
8847210
wow r00d
You're right about the exposition, though. How can I do that better?
8847262
Nice, I summoned someone willing to give me proper critique! Sorry about my douchebag act, humanity decided the act of criticizing a critic's critique is the ultimate cardinal sin a while back.
>Verbose Mode
No idea who that is
>He focussed on execution. Instead of thinking, "How can I make this stand out and seem creative?" he thought, "How can I make this story good?" While that usually involved breaking from the norm, it's not breaking from the norm just to do it - It's purposeful breaking from the norm.
I don't understand what you said here, could this be reworded?
>hclegend
That guy harassed me on reddit and deviantart, and stalked me into a subreddit for old people, ignore him and what how I told him to sod off seems to say about me.
>Which part, not having their main-character be immune to mind-control? I'd take a look at Lord of the Rings then, the main-character there isn't immune to mind-changes. Or did you mean Displaced-story? In that case, everytime a Displaced just acts like the character they were displaced as for no reason would count as a mind-change. I'm just presuming that you don't mean that the main-character doesn't shrug off something harmful to them, because there are a lot of examples for that.
Immune to mind control? Huh? David got a piano dropped on his head, causing him to lose all memories of being David the Human. Pianos don't have mind control powers. Or am I reading that paragraph wrong?
>read the story it'll make you better at this
Will do, thanks.
>you did the average protag stuff wrong
Sorry. I was going for "He's a loser and a crappy streamer of bad games, he describes himself as average to feel better, but he's a total loser", did that work? If not, how can I make what I was going for there clearer, and make it funnier?
Does anyone else think the image I'm using for this story is shit? Because I do, and I'm thinking of replacing it. Or at least removing that impact-font text. It reminds me of those "Haha hey guys look at me I'm doing this bad thing ironically" fics, which isn't what I want this fic to be.
8847262
That story was brilliant, thanks for telling me about it.
I thought that was the point of this fic, I thought it was intentionally bad.
8847786
Really? Shit, I only wanted that to apply to the first chapter. Below-average loser who thinks he's just average dresses up as everything, then goes to Equestria as just Twilight, and loses his memories to a falling piano.
I'm looking at this fic's "Score" all wrong.
Sure, I'm pissing off a lot of people by writing this. And I apparently pissed someone off a lot when I said "I'm going to write the best story ever!". But there are thirty five people on this site that liked this fic. I brightened up their day, and that makes all the hate and "I fucking hate Displacedfic you should write something else" and "Are you making fun of displacedfic you son of a bitch?" worth it.
8847297 One shouldn't act like a douchebag, period. However, I do admit that people on fanfiction-websites tend to overreact to critiques being called in question, especially considering nobody here is a professional critic and they can get it wrong just as easily as everybody else.
--
Verbose Mode was one of the leading admins or moderators of Rage Reviews, who had heard of Displaced's awful reputation and wanted to prove it wasn't the fault of the idea. That is pretty much all you need to know about him, I mostly mentioned him because he has a similar goal to you.
--
Okay, I'll try to reword it and explain a bit more about what I mean. Writing a story consists of multiple things working together - The idea for and behind the story and its setting, the decisions in regards to story-telling and the actual writing.
The idea for the story is what you start with, your inspiration. You hammer out what kind of story you want to write, what kind of world and what you really, really want to incorporate, and then you're done with the idea-bit. The important thing to know is that, aslong as you know how to tell that kind of story and have good writing-abilities, any idea can be done well. Proving that no idea is inherently bad is what both you and Verbose want to do.
The story-telling bit is more difficult, since it contains such things as "How am I going to tell or show my reader this and that?", "What kind of narrator do I use?" and "What do I emphasize in my story?" Another important aspect is the flow of the story, and ensuring that there are no or few plotholes. Basically, you take the idea behind the story you want to write and then turn it into an actual story. It is also sometimes referred to as execution of the idea, which is what I meant.
Actual writing is really just the act of putting the words on paper / computer while ensuring that all words are written correctly and that the sentences are grammatically coherent.
If either the story-telling or the actual writing is awful, then the story is bad. In one case because it doesn't do what you're trying to achieve (for example making most readers laugh), in the other because it is extremely difficult to read. If both are awful, then the story is illegible.
However, in your case you focus on the idea and making it different - This is good, because it can make more people open to giving your story a chance, but in doing so you forgot to think as much about how to tell the story best, and which parts of the ideas wouldn't work well in the story-telling bit. Verbose however has good grammar and spelling, while also pulling the execution / story-telling of rather well, changing ideas or leaving them out if they aren't beneficial to the story. All the times he thought outside the box, he determined whether it would be better for the story than the solutions in the box, knowing that a story needs to be different to be recognised. But he didn't decide, "This would be different so I'm going to do it," he decided, "This is the story as I have (planned) it right now, this would be a different solution than the obvious. I'm going to compare it to the obvious solutions and see which one works better with the story."
Basically, what I want you to take away from this is that you need to focus more on how your creative ideas interact with eachother to form an interesting narrative, and how that narrative would be best presented - The story-telling bit is your weakness right now, the others are good.
--
I'm going to be honest: While I wanted to read the entire story first, I only managed to get to the end of the first chapter, and even then I merely skimmed a lot of the description. For this part, I guessed based off the comment-section and the first chapter. Neat that it's not actual mind-control, but then I'm pretty sure that most stories don't write about what the protagonist is like just to remove their memories afterwards. Well, except for Raccoon's (another Displaced-writer, basically) Displaced Into Nothing. The reason most don't is because it's usually either not important or it's more suspenseful if the reader finds out that plot-crucial piece of information from their background later.
So, basically, you read it right, and it's just me being dumb-dumb.
--
I think the problem is that you focussed on him being "mediocre". A loser is usually seen as actually bad, while a mediocre person is just not very good, but not awful either. I know you also called him a loser in the narrative later on, but when I read the first few paragraphs I really thought you meant that he's pretty normal in all regards, just worse at video-games than most, with luck being all that really let him stand out (since you need to get a fanbase as a streamer first).
--
8848387 Well, there you have your problem. You wanted your first or first two chapters to be intentionally bad and parody-like - That causes your story to be seen as one. Your first chapter is going to be the first impression to a lot of people, after the title, story-image and short description. They will read it, and expect the rest of the story to be more of the same - In this case you don't even have enough chapters that the rarest of them might decide to see if you became better over time. Especially the part where the narrator thinks about whether "Surreality" is a real word gives off the impression of a parody.
I would suggest you try to show that he's a loser by showing how he is worse than the normal person at multiple things, and then a bit about his stream. Expositioning it like that either means it is not relevant enough to the story for its inclusion to be important or bettering the story, or that you're a bad author, or that the story is a parody. And, you mentioned that you don't want to take the easy way out - So please don't. Don't make any part of it parody-like in an attempt to parody the concept of parodies to show that yours is not a parody. Do your best to make even the first chapters already as good as you can.
---
Now, the third chapter definitely isn't intentionally bad according to that, yet you still wrote the following:
Don't. This has no relevance to the story, this belongs into the author's note instead. Overall, the third chapter doesn't have as much exposition or needless description as the first one, so that's pretty good. You make your narrator appear like an amateur-narrator by having them insert things like that and seeming to accidentally use the wrong words first. (Ex:)
Just put the comments on the phrasing into the author's note, and only have your narrator use the wrong word(s) when they purposefully do it for effect.
EDIT: Sorry, replied to the wrong comment at the second thing first.
8848654
I like you. Thank you for spending time on giving me critique I can use to improve, and a good example to emulate. When I think of a way to make the first few chapters seem less like a bad displaced parody, I'll edit that in.
The "He set his sights for the sun- I mean on the sun" bit was a shitty out-of-place Propane Nightmares by Pendulum reference that didn't really have any place being there at all, now that I think about it. Do you think I should remove that?
Hey, someone from another site brought something to my attention. Does anyone else feel the "Short chapters, uploaded more frequently" schedule system for this fic hurts it, causing the chapters to feel more like scenes in episodes than actual chapters?
8848910 Yes. It breaks immersion to see the narrator 'fail' like that, since it draws attention to the fact that it is a story, and while references can be interesting and / or funny, they should never break immersion. If I had to liken it to something, I would say it's like when a movie just suddenly stops and replays the last ten seconds before continuing - You pause in confusion, before realising that it's not part of the movie and then are annoyed. Simply the fact that the TV interrupted it made your experience worse - It's similar when the narrator throws you out of the story like that. So, yes.
8849455
Alright, removing the Narrator's fail now.
I came across this story to day and all I gota say is
I LIKE WHAT YOU GOT GOOD JOB!!!
I LIKE WHAT YOU GOT!
GOOD JOB!
People didn't think the "It involves Derpy" hint was enough, so I improved it.
Man, y'all're gonna flip when you see what Dawn gets next.
so u have delta pokemon cool
8850798
I wish they had a Delta Pokemon maker in the games, it'd be so cool!