More Anon reviews: The ride, sadly, never ends · 9:29pm Oct 24th, 2023
Oh god, we're back again. Trigger warning on this one: Mentions of suicide, rape, and 4chan.
Recently, there was a pony convention called Mare Fair, essentially a con for the 4chan group /mlp/. If nothing else, it demonstrated that 4chan's pony community is still very much alive and well. One of their panels had a ponified racial slur in its title. The name "Mare Fair" also implies that it's a con about males who are interested in females.
One Mastodon user who enjoyed the con posted this, showcasing the inclusivity and openness for which 4chan is known:
Mare fair was everything bronyism was founded on, and /mlp/ is the only pony community worth a damn. suck me.
They also took this photo of themselves at the con, posing with a number of other congoers:
A photograph of several attendees of Mare Fair 2023, all dressed as the character Anon. Strangely, nearly all of them are missing a crucial detail of the outfit, namely the question mark that adorns Anon's face. I guess they just don't know the character as well as I do.
As you can see, they are all proudly celebrating the spirit of anarchy and freethought for which 4chan is known, which is why they're all dressed the same and aping the exact same meme from ten years ago.
Anon, then, is still very much a known and apparently beloved quantity, at least by certain corners of the internet. Perhaps this explains his enduring pervasiveness in the Featured box, and also why I've been feeling increasingly distant from Fimfiction.
This time around, I have reviewed 5 recent Anon stories. Not all of these made the Featured box, but I like to showcase and promote the work of new authors when I can, and I just find it interesting to see different takes on this baffling phenomenon. I have intentionally not included any of RunicTreetops' works in this batch, but you can rest safely assured that they're still churning them out. Although you already know that, presumably.
* The adventures of anonymous by pepperpony
* I Have No Social Skills, But I Must Go Out! by Trashmaniac
* The Statue Anon Really Hates for Some Reason by Burt
* The healing flutter of my heart by Pyro_Leo
* Twilight of the Dead by PleaseDoNotDeleteMe
[Adult story embed hidden]
This story caught my eye because it's an "Anon" story that features an actually anonymous human - that is, someone who genuinely has no name, rather than a guy with the unlikely name of "Anonymous".
The cover art, however, immediately muddies the water as it features the typical green suit-wearing question-mark-faced depiction of Anon. If this guy is a normal human, shouldn't he look like one? Or is the cover art merely metaphorical? I can't say. I also can't say why this Anon fic didn't instantly blast into the Featured box like some of its brethren, but let's dig in and see what it's made of.
The story opens in first person, narrated by a human who suddenly found himself on the outskirts of Ponyville with no memory of his identity or past, but - fortunately - a brony's knowledge of Friendship is Magic. Thus, we forgo any kind of personality or backstory for this character, which is perfectly on-brand for Anon. Doing well so far, and it's a nice effort-saver for a writer.
I believe this fic may have been produced using speech recognition, as there are some peculiar errors: "Eldredge" instead of "Eldritch", "define" instead of "to find", "jesters" instead of "gestures", and more.
Ponies flee before the sight of the strange biped emerging from the Everfree, and I credit the fic for being accurate to the period, as this is the Unicorn Twilight era and ponies would actually have acted that way back when. Fortunately, Anon lucks upon the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who are too young to be scared of him, and this encourages the Ponyville residents to investigate. Twilight soon comes to offer help and invites Anon to stay with her and Spike while they figure things out. Twi's nice like that. She makes him a salad.
Anon claims to be an "average" height of 5 feet, but this is incorrect as the global average height for an adult male is somewhere around 5'5" to 5'8".
The chapter ends with Anon declaring his first day in Equestria to have gone well, but I don't know why as he's only just arrived and there's still plenty of day left.
In the comments, pepperpony explains that they wanted to write this story because they couldn't find a story they wanted. I'm not sure what they mean by that - if they mean they couldn't find an Anon in Equestria story, they may want to look a little harder. Still, I absolutely champion anyone who picks up their pen to create, and so I can't fault them at all for trying. The resulting story is an utterly typical human in Equestria fic. Only the first chapter is complete so far, but I feel safe in assuming that the next chapter will involve Anon meeting the rest of the Mane Six and instantly becoming friends with them all; each of them will offer some platitude appropriate to their personality, Pinkie will throw him a party, and Anon will fail to develop any personality aside from the occasional out-of-place emotional outburst.
I guess the question I have to ask myself is, is this the kind of Anon I want to read about? An actual nameless, personality-less person? I can't say I really do.
Okay, here we go. This one has a title in the style popularized by RunicTreetops: a full, tantalizing sentence in proper title case. Anon is caught in some kind of relatable bind? Do I really have to read beyond the title to find out? Well okay then.
And once again, we have cover art depicting sickly green skin question mark Anon. Oh, how I loathe that lack of a face. Anyway, let's get into the fic.
The story opens with "(Anon POV)". Oh no. Guys, stories aren't scripts. We don't need stage directions. Just write, we'll figure it out.
Anon quickly fills us in with an explanation of how he arrived in Ponyville, which is vague enough to be of no consequence, and he also tells us that his green skin is an unexpected side effect of the wormhole that brought him here. I find that fascinating. This the first story I've seen that actually acknowledges Anon's appearance. Like, we actually have an explanation for the meme! Someone wanted to write about Anon but evidently didn't think that his green skin would be believable unless there was a reason for it. Isn't that great? I love that. We later find that he also has the question-mark-face too, and that this causes the local ponies consternation, just as it does me. Does he have the Anon suit too? Maybe there's a reason for the suit.
I still don't know why anyone has such a burning desire to embody this insipid meme, but hey, it's progress in some kind of direction I'm sure.
Anyway, Anon heads out to the Everfree to pick some herbs, because this is a market he's cornered - the townsfolk are too afraid of the Everfree to venture in, so Anon can pick as many magical plants as he wants and sell them. Apparently he has some kind of sense for what to pick, although I'm not sure how or why. However he sees a funky blue mist and decides to head back in case it's dangerous.
We then switch to "(Flash Trade POV)". Who's Flash Trade? I don't know, this is the first time their name has come up. You see, labelling the POV doesn't actually help - you still have to put the writing work in to help us understand your characters, and if you're doing that you can just do away with these immersion-breaking labels entirely. Your reader will appreciate it if you let them figure it out, trust me. I read a book once, I know.
Flash Trade is a regular Ponyville resident, and he helpfully provides us with a continuity reference to tell us where we are in the timeline: it's the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration, so this is Episode 1 of FiM and that blue mist in the Everfree must have been Nightmare Moon. It's a retelling of the series opener! Now with 100% extra green-skinned human!
Nightmare Moon shows up, and Flash Trade, for reasons that I can't fathom, decides that it's very important to blurt out what Anon was doing last night, because apparently he and everypony else saw it and they all think Anon has something to do with Nightmare Moon. A... reasonable conclusion, I guess? Guys, Nightmare Moon is standing right there. Ominous black alicorn, tendrils of eerie mist, thunder, lightning, you know... you really think now is the time to go investigate Anon? Ponies, I swear.
Strangely, Twilight Sparkle is not here, which means this is a further divergence from the canon plot. Maybe that's why nopony has a clue what they're doing. Anyway, the Mane 5 decide to head over to Anon's, because heaven forbid they address the problem that's in the same room as them.
We smash back to Anon's POV. Anon, we earlier learned, just plain didn't realize the Summer Sun Celebration was happening, which is why he wasn't there. Which makes sense, because if there's one consistent character trait Anon does have, it's that he doesn't give a crap. He puts on the Anon suit - yes! He does have the suit! Why does he have the suit? How did he get the suit? Was he wearing it when he was transported to Equestria? If not, did somepony tailor the suit for him after he arrived? Did he make it himself?
No time to worry about that. An angry mob of ponies arrives at his door and demands to know what he has to do with Nightmare Moon. Okay, at least this mob mentality is perfectly in-character for Ponyville residents, especially in season 1. Pinkie Pie breaks into Anon's house, and there's one of those comedy moments where the joke is that Anon has hyped it up as some kind of grandmaster plan and it turns out to just be him in an unconvincing mustache. You guys, I'm trying to take the green-hued punctuation-face seriously here, come on.
Pinkie is fooled by the disguise, but Applejack isn't, and they tackle him to the ground and the chapter ends.
In an author's note, Trashmaniac says they're writing the story for fun, apparently as they go. Good on them. This sentiment seems to come up a lot in the Anon stories I've read - people just want to write them because that's what they want. Why they are enamored with monsieur pas de nom, that is still a mystery to me.
4chan has this concept called "shitposting", which is posting something random, unfiltered, and potentially provocative with no stated intent to follow up or accept any of the consequences. The "shitpost" part absolves the author of responsibility, you see. If you didn't like it, that's on you for reading it, not them.
I'm quite glad that this term exists, because I know that as soon as someone describes themself as a "shitposter" (or, commonly, a "professional shitposter", which is meant to be irony), I can happily and safely ignore them.
Anyway, the reason I mention it is because this fic's title has that same kind of flippancy about it. Why does Anon hate a statue? It doesn't matter. You're not supposed to think about it. If you actually deigned to think about it, that's on you. It's just a fic, bro.
Anon, who exists, is tormenting Discord's statue, and it's apparent that Anon knows the show and that this takes place pre-The Return of Harmony. Anon is threatening to destroy Discord's statue because he hates it. The scene is written to make Anon look bad and stupid, which always puzzles me about these stories. Anon is always written as such a Mary Sue, with every story painfully bent and stretched around him and his whims, yet the stories also seem to want to humiliate him. I don't get it. Is the idea that Anon is a perennial loser? Like, I get the comedic appeal of someone who is doomed to fail - I don't find it funny, but I get it. It's just weird that this loser is also the central character, the guy we're supposed to empathize with. Does everyone want to empathize with an anonymous loser? Is there some kinship there? Seriously, you can all aspire to more than this question-marked berk.
Oh wait, I forgot. He's a 4chan guy, and meaningful change and growth is castigated there. I guess you can't aspire to anything at all. Never mind.
The story cuts to Celestia and Luna, who are watching with interest, because even when Anon stories aren't about Anon, they're about Anon. Celestia finds the whole thing amusing, and we also have a bit of S1 Luna. Oh, thank god, there are ponies in this story on Fimfiction.
Various back-and-forths happen with no rhyme or reason, the words "retarded" and "autistic" are used, Discord eventually gets free, and if the author couldn't be bothered to put any effort into writing this, I can't be bothered to recap it. The writer accidentally used the word "colonialisms" when I think they meant to say "colloquialisms", unless that's also a 4chan joke. This story got featured, 64 people upvoted it, and the comments section is as apathetic as the story itself.
Can I have an actual story now please?
Sex, Fetish, Violence, Suicide, Profanity, Porn, and Anon? Title not written in title case? Oh boy, I am in for a treat.
The first line tells us that Anon was turned into an earth pony, so I instantly love it. I don't care much for Human in Equestria fics, which is one reason why Anon finds little favor with me - but a ponified human, now that's a different story. There's so much you can do with that.
We are, however, back to my usual question of wondering why Anon is even in this story. You do know you can just make up any human you want, right? And that you probably should, right? Otherwise, you're in this weird position of having a main character named Anon, and that isn't a name.
Through several short paragraphs we are told Anon's backstory, which is that he arrived in Equestria but he can't go home and this made him sad so he tried to kill himself. The Mane 6 - who are all the very bestest of friends with Anon - are distraught, and Fluttershy screams at him because you should definitely yell at a person who just attempted to take their own life.
Anon's feeling pretty mentally unstable, but finds some relief when Fluttershy offers to stay with him, and then the story switches from third person to first person on the last line for no reason. End of chapter. I assume the Sex, Fetish, and Porn will come in later chapters when they're written, unless someone has a post-suicide yelling fetish. Not much to say on this one that I haven't already said. The cover art features Fluttershy blushing in that nasal way characters do when they're aroused, so it'll probably do well.
[Adult story embed hidden]
This one also has all the tags, yet oddly not "Second Person", even though it is a second-person fic. The description says it was "Based on a 4chan thread from last year", so I held my breath and dipped into Desuarchive just long enough to avoid having my soul shrivel away to nothing.
So apparently they roleplay in threads over there on 4chan. Wait, I thought 4chan was full of the people who are too cool for that kind of thing? God, I don't understand that place. Anyway, this story seems to be a tidied-up version of that roleplay thread.
The story opens with Anon having excused himself from Nightmare Night because he finds it "too childish". You know, this is another recurring aspect of Anon's character that I just don't understand - he always ends up in Equestria, yet he then seems to go out of his way to distance himself from the setting, interacting with it only reluctantly. I just don't get this at all. What motivates this? This is like me self-inserting into a Sherlock Holmes story and and then avoiding anything to do with detectives while lamenting the fact I have to live in Victorian London.
Anyway, Twilight breaks into Anon's house, and Anon gets angry about it because that's how Anon responds to any kind of interruption to his life. And Anon speaks in greentext, since if there's one thing 4chan can't get enough of, it's the color green.
Greentext is a specifically 4chan thing, and in fact "greentext stories" have been banned on Fimfiction since its inception because they tend to lack a proper story structure. On 4chan, greentext simply refers to lines of text beginning with >, which 4chan renders in green. This is a useful way to delineate quotations, and the same syntax is used in emails and Markdown for that purpose. On 4chan, however, it's usually used for casual, freeform expression of statements. Weirdly, this is one area where I'm not in opposition to 4chan - I think this mode of expression is quite unique and works great for dry humor. I don't use it, however, because I refuse to engage with any part of 4chan's culture.
It is telling, however, that the author of this story wanted to turn a 4chan thread into a work of prose, but still wanted to keep the greentext. I think it's a cultural pride thing.
Oh right, the story. Twilight accidentally killed Spike, tried to bring him back to life with necromancy, but it didn't work and now he's a zombie and it's spreading to other ponies because magic reasons. The reason Twilight came to Anon is because she wants to borrow a gun, figuring that's the best way to deal with zombies. I'll give the story credit, this logic is perfectly sound and actually gives Anon a good reason to be involved, and I also like the way Twilight refers to guns:
“Anyway I came here because I need your metal bang bang sticks you showed up with that you kept insisting weren’t magic? I think they’ll work.”
Because this story was originally a thread, I think it was written piecemeal by multiple authors, and so there's no real consistency to the thing. Stuff just keeps happening whether it makes story sense or character sense or not. Twilight is not at all distraught about Spike, the action clips along like it's a horror movie, and Anon just spends the story being varying degrees of Anon. Here's another 4chan poster who thought this would make a good addition to the story:
She starts hyperventilating having a panic attack. Her panicked eyes madly dart around as her breaths heaved in and out like certain hentai's you watched in your old life. The longer it went on, the less sexy it was, and became more annoying. You started to think about how do you calm her down, and came up with one logical solution. You reare back your hand and slap her with the might of god, a satisfied smirk plastered over your face.
Yep, that's a male human proudly slapping a female. Anon continues to slap her several more times after this, at which Twilight meekly agrees that he was right to do so. The person compiling this story apparently felt it was important to retain these details.
The pair go out into Ponyville armed with guns, and after fighting some zombies, Twilight breaks down in tears. Anon decides that the best way to comfort a disconsolate mare is by sexually molesting her, which Twilight finds slightly disagreeable. Again, the author specifically wanted to include this moment - they say so in the Author's Note. They said they liked this thread.
I realize I've been extremely sarcastic throughout this whole post, and personally I hate it when people imply things are bad without saying why, so I'll spell it out: Misogyny is bad. Please don't mistreat or denigrate women. Physical abuse is wrong. Rape is wrong. Objectifying women is wrong. All these things are abuses of power and we should seek equality to the best of our abilities. Racism is also wrong. Having a power fantasy isn't necessarily wrong, and may be cathartic, but remember that it is a fantasy.
Writing Anon stories, however? That's great. If you like the character or are just sincerely interested in creating stories about them, don't hesitate to do so. You've got an audience waiting for you on Fimfiction.
I can practically feel how much you are resisting saying 'stupid' in place of 'insipid' there, mate, and I don't blame ya. Here I thought you'd had your fill of looking at new Anon stories, but no, you're diving back into the tar pool! A braver soul than I.
Not specifically because of Anon stories, but it has been quite a while since I saw a story in the Featured Box I actually wanted to read. It's wise to not get one's hopes up these days, I think, though one should still look regardless.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Well, thank you for reading some more Anon fics so that I don't need to start doing so. I actually briefly felt mildly happy that at least one of them (Trashmaniac's story) didn't seem to be actively offensive. Doesn't make me want to read the darn thing, though. As is also the case with a large chunk of M-rated fics, I am more than happy for my Ponyfic Reading Experience™ not to include Anon. Or, indeed, 4chan...
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Oddly enough, when I had a look for the sake of it just now (as I think you know, I've never really taken much notice of the Eff Bee) I did actually find a fic that looked interesting! To wit, Undome Tinwe's Devotion's End, an Imposing Sovereigns IV entry written in verse. I will accept that this is quite a rare thing for me these days, however.
Oh, gods -- was this one of those that has something to do with zebras?
I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.
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It's partly an excuse to complain, partly an opportunity for riffing, partly morbid curiosity, and probably a hint of masochism too.
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Sadly, it was.
I genuinely despise Anon as a character/concept.
Anon is like the joke
except it's an identity problem or identity crisis.
Having seen how many people on 4chan identify as bundles of sticks, I wouldn't be sure about that.
Pocket-sized Anon (and denial is not just a river in Egypt).