Anon-A-Miss. They happened, people were hurt, the mess was cleaned up, people are begrudgingly forgiving the trio responsible, if only for Sunset, and everyone in the school is starting to become friends again. The problem was solved, right?
Not if you ask Rainbow Dash. She's still pretty mad at herself about it, after getting all the details shown to her. So are her friends, just slightly less so than her.
Yes, this is another Anon-A-Miss story, but at least it doesn't happen during the fiasco like nearly every other one I've read. I was considering a way I could write a story about the entire thing that wasn't done to death. Then I realized there weren't many stories that followed this particular line of thought, so I went with it to see what would happen when it was filtered through my brain.
Edit: HOW DO I KEEP HITTING THE FEATURE BOX!? HOW!?
Edit 2: Now has a Bookshelf to keep track of all the stories related to this one. TADAAAA!
Please oh, Please tell me you are going to do this for them all?
Oh, boy.
Or, to put it another way........
Rainbow Dash, meet the foot of.... Rainbow Dash.
Honestly, I don't know which of them to feel sorrier for: CHS Rainbow for having her Equestrian counterpart kick her into a soccer goal... or Pony Dash for being on the receiving end of an intense Twilight Sparkle lecture/chewing out for sneaking through the portal and doing what she did to CHS Dash.
It's a toss-up.
I'm liking this concept, so, besides my attention, you have a Favorite, a Track and a Follow from me.
Keep up the rad work, and I can't wait to see where this one goes.
8855879 Oh, I hope so!
I'd just love to see my fave farmpony rank her human counterpart out!
...I'm sorry? Just. . .I'm at a loss for words concerning this.
Wait. I've got one: MOAR!
8855879
Well, seeing as it's gotten an 11/11 so far with votes I might as well.
8855891
And guess who's going up next by way of this suggestion.
8855892
Calm thyself.
I am very much looking forward to this. I actually had an idea for a similar fic, but so far this is pulling it off well enough.
8855989 To quote our fave primatic pegasus:
Awesome!
Happy to hear that, and I just wonder what will happen between our two farmgirls?
Probably nothing very good, if Dash's expression in the cover pic is any indication.
8855989
The only thing I hate about this story is that I didn’t think of this first.
Now that's how an Aftermath ANON-A-MISS should go!
Also props on the JRPG Belt trope = "belt fetish" joke, I do enjoy those little pokes at JRPG tropes.
I beg of you, for more of this, its gosh darn amazing!
So the counterparts... are beating up their own counterparts, as a result from Anon-A-Miss?
Well, that was more-or-less what I expected. Except the JRPG Belts thing, didn't see that coming. Guess the portal has an odd sense of humor when it comes to giving ponies clothes. Definitely looking forward to what comes next.
.....will there be a FlutterStaring contest or shall it be the most peaceful of these confrontations?
Uh can someone explain the belt thing, cause I'm a little puzzled.
8857005
Pony Dash heard about Anon-a-miss, came through the portal to beat some sense into herself for it, then dashed back to Ponyland.
Oh and she smacked Scootaloo upside the head for perpetrating the crime in the first place.
Couldn't explain the JRPG belt fetish.
I’m fine with Rainbow being covered in belts, but so help me if her pants legs are different lengths...
She would indeed be the most upset, Loyalty and all.
Rainbow is not amused.
pre00.deviantart.net/1651/th/pre/i/2015/116/d/2/angry_rainbow_dash_by_dasprid-d8qzwtv.png
Hmm... Well, I'm always up for Dash-on-Dash violence. I look forward to seeing where you go from here.
Loyalty's got a bone to pick with you. She's not even Sunset's friend and she knows you fucked up.
8857141
I got that part, i meant the being wrapped in belts part.
8858061
Whelp, I got nothing then.
Can someone please tell me why everyone is making Anon-a-Miss stories lately?
Pinkie: Since then we've been debating whether to call her Rainbow the Blood Edge or Sol Rainbow, mostly because of all the belts she was wearing.
I'm intrigued.
I've waited a long time for this, an Anon-A-Miss that actually tries to fit canon (If you go AU, why not just have the criticized, OOC stuff not happen? If you let it happen just to torture everyone over it, are you actually fixing the problems?).
Get's my upvote for what's originality in the genre. Looking forward to more!
You hit the feature box AGAIN
8858695
I'm honestly wondering that myself.
I completely get how people end up stuck in an Anon-a-Miss rut since I'm in one myself*, but for it to happen I had to be inside the phenomenon to begin with. What I don't understand is what's drawing so many new people in.
Here's what I do understand:
Good fiction (generally) makes one want more.
Bad fiction (generally) makes one want different.
-
To expand:
If someone were to make the absolutely perfect, in no way flawed, platonic ideal of what FiM and/or EG should be episode or adaptation, relatively few people would make alternate versions of it. Some people probably would because people always do, but it would be more likely to inspire people to write similar stories, or to expand on the story (say a sequel, prequel, interquel, side story, whatever).
It's when a work is laden with problems that people instead focus on rewriting the original. There are a thousand different reasons why, but much of it stems from a single idea: what exists isn't good, but it could have been.
Expansion ends.
-
And then, for Anon-a-Miss (in a way that there really isn't for, say, The Mysterious Mare Do Well) there's this huge body of ideas that just gets thrown around constantly producing more and more temptation to add another story to the docket.
Before you even get to that, there isn't a single page of the comic that isn't begging to be rewritten in twenty or so different ways, which would lead to a huge amount of stories if there were only one change per story, but any of those changes can interact and pretty soon we're talking about combinatorics.
Then you add in all of the people throwing out novel ideas and it just explodes into an entire universe of ideas any one of which can inspire multiple stories by multiple authors.
But . . . you have to be there first. You can't be bombarded by the idea maelstrom and end up with twenty nascent Anon-a-Miss stories in your head unless you're already inside the phenomenon. And, sure, reading one of the resultant fics might entice some people to walk, unprotected, into the storm, but I'm at a loss as to why it's gotten so many authors to come in.
* A major rut that threatens to consume all of my writing energy. Check out all this crap:
Anon-a-Miss stories with published content:
Anon-a-Miss stories without currently published content:
And people have seriously suggested that I turn the written in one spurt, minimally edited, not-at-all-serious "The many ways it should have ended" into an actual story. Because apparently I don't have enough on my plate.
8860633
While I would have preferred to have a link to a blog post here instead of a giant comment, I find your analysis to be comprehensive and intriguing and wish to elaborate some on my part of this nonsense and what my thoughts are on the topic. I originally only read the fanfics and spent the majority of the time wondering, "Holy crap was the original comic this full of holes?"
Short answer, yes. Yes, it was.
However, unlike many, I didn't want to go the route that a lot of other people were doing. As you said, there is a literal STORM of anon-a-miss stories that rewrite the original into either a.) Comedy for comedy's sake, or b.) Edgy McGrimdark. I have a love-hate relationship with B, so I didn't want to write one, but at the same time, I couldn't stop reading them.
As I was reading them, and comparing to the original, I realized that as poorly written as the comic was, it still held to the original ideal of "Friendship fixes everything."
Did it do it as well as an episode? No, but it wasn't an episode, it was a comic book! While the Main cast's somewhat out of character reaction was poor writing continuity-wise, it did what it was supposed to do and showed how bad the situation was. It tried to do what it was intended to do, and give us a reason to route for Sunset.
So instead of joining the storm like a flock of geese with no sense of self-preservation in a tornado, I decided to do what most storm watchers do and just follow in the wake of destruction (creation, in this case).
Which brings us to here; "Why the heck am I writing an Anon-A-Miss story?"
I've been suffering the Writer's block of the Ages for the past few months, and this was the first idea to actually get past the first page in a long time, so I went with it. At the same time though, I didn't want to get sucked into said goose storm as I said earlier.
Honestly, I only consider it an "Anon-A-Miss" story by technicality, as a sequel to the original storyline and not yet another complete rewrite. Next to NOBODY has written something that I could find about what happened after the original version; only other fanfic versions. (Although if you know of some please feel free to send me some links this story has become my newest addiction kthx)
That, and my natural state of writing is Comedy for Comedy's sake, so I took to this story like a rubber fish does bathwater.
As for the "Be There" part of your earlier statement. I guess I sort of was? Just, instead of being in the crowd, I was butt naked with a chicken mask on in a tree three blocks away, using a pair of binoculars to spy on the situation.
That make sense?
8860675
8860633
Sunbutt above! I just wanted to know why there seemed to be an influx of Anon-A-Miss stories lately. I think I saw three of them somewhere on the homepage all at the same time: This one , this one and the one we're commenting on right now. I didn't need an essay on what people write about and how they get inspiration lol
I wonder if Rarity or Applejack will try to sneak through? But it would be funny with Raritys.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/4/25/882595__safe_screencap_rainbow+dash_tanks+for+the+memories_animated_evil_evil+grin_faic_grinch_pure+unfiltered+evil_rainbow+dash+is+best+facemaker_rain.gif
ha ha nice work looking forward to what reaity dose
Damn! I hate to think what the rest of the girls will do!
Although it is my wishful thinking, I would love for Sunset to go back to Equestria and chew out the pony versions for assaulting their doppelgangers.
Oh man, first I imagined pony Fluttershy coming over and giving human flutters a wimpy push as her violent act of the century, to which human flutters would start crying.
Then I realized...Fluttershy using the stare on Fluttershy... O.o
Looking forward to seeing how the rest handle all this.
Haha, I hate you, you brilliant, wonderful genius. This is great!!!!!
8874278
To hell with Rarity, I really shudder to think about Fluttershy, its always the quiet ones, Yah know. Her and Pinkie Pie are the ones most likely to draw some blood.
8874292
And something tells me that the Mane 6 are the least of their worries. Princess Celestia has a mommy complex toward Sunset, and Principles Celestia And Luna where not very effective during the whole Anon a mous thing. So mommy and auntie (Princess Luna) showing up is likely, And both princesses have had a very long time to practice being vindictive. Yeah Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon are no joke.
So, reading this, I started to think. The ponies are punishing their counterparts for failing to stick by their friend. Except I quickly remembered A Canterlot Wedding and I wondered if the pony girls really had the strongest leg to stand on here. But then I thought, maybe that's the point? Besides their obvious disappointment in their counterparts, maybe this is some bizarre way of acting out their guilt for walking out on Twilight? And perhaps Spike is helping them sneak in for that exact reason?
I dunno, I might be reading too deeply into this.
Rarity’s vengeance will either involve karate or ruined clothes. Pinkie is going to be confusing. And Fluttershy’s is either going to be mild or scary beyond all reasoning. I can’t really imagine a middle ground with her.
Is it bad that I'm most excited for how each of the mane 6 will be dressed on this side?
Twilight is gonna be furious when they return.
Anyone got marshmallows? We're waiting on a flaming Twilight to appear.
8874530
We'd better get an Epilogue chapter where one of two things, or both happens:
1) Twilight has the Mane 6 apologize to their human counterparts
2) We see the Mane 6 looking smug as hell, until Twilight confronts them, at which point Twilight has called Sunset over to Equestria to "work out some issues". What follows is the Mane 6 sans Twilight are locked in a room with Sunset, and Sunset gets to take out all of her aggression about what happened during Anon-a-miss on them.
Except maybe Fluttershy. Gonna have to see how that interaction is handled first.
Mane 6, sweeties, I know ya think you're helping, but you're really not.
whatever else the map has her doing? What, did the cutie mark map set them up to this? If so..uhh, how did they know it was the other Equestria, and, why not Twilight?
8874499
Three done three to go.
8874554
Probably just meek slapping fight.
The mayhem has only begun. We've gotten the most physical ones out of the way, but that just means that we can get to the really interesting attacks.
Oh boy... something tells me that this will not end well... mostly for the EG mane 6.
I'm just worried what the pony Fluttershy is going to do with the EG Fluttershy.
What the he'll would Fluttershy do?