Thinking About Tacos · 3:35am Jan 29th, 2015
A quick glance over my userpage or having had a chance to talk to me with any regularity would reveal that I have a certain fondness for tortilla-based foods. I have even gone so far as to do a little bit of research on the different varieties of tacos the world over (both the reading and field research varieties), read up on the origins of tacos, and in general have probably spent more brain-thinky-seconds on the topic than the average person.
I am not obsessed with tacos, however. I do not have posters decorating my walls for Taco Bell. I do not shun all non-tortilla foods (indeed, tacos are not even in my top three favorite foods), and I don't go around attempting to twist every conversation I am involved in or overhear towards tacos.
This leads me to the point of this blog: characterization. Were you to flatter me by writing a story about me, it would be wrong of you to depict me as a taco-obsessed crazy fangirl. You could write many scenes with me in them and the subject never come up or even be hinted at. You could even depict scenes where I and some companions discuss meal options, and tacos never be mentioned at all. On the other hand, you could reasonably have such scenes be places where tacos are mentioned in either a serious manner, or for comedy. The reason for this though is that I, as a real person, have a wide variety of interests and tastes, and I don't tend to dwell compulsively on any one thing.
Flufflepuff, on the other hand, is actually rather obsessed with tacos. Her creator has designed that as a prominent feature of her character. Writing a story involving her that doesn't include tacos would probably be wrong.
There is a similarity in both of us. Tacos are something we're fond of, and simply including them in stories about us would be thematically correct, especially for Flufflepuff. We're both interested in tacos for the sake of tacos, the idea of tacos.
In contrast we have Sonata Dusk. If you were to judge her based on the sorts of stories written about her or at least including her, or the mountains of art made depicting her, you'd think she was at least as obsessed with tacos as Flufflepuff, if not more. I have seen such nonsense as having Sonata go around taking pictures of Adagio and Aria with her taco camera. Having her take up some job at a fast food place serving tacos is commonplace in fics.
The problem is that all of this is missing something key. Sonata has had only one line in the movie involving tacos. This seems to have really stuck with the audience, so much so that we overlook things like her line about punch, and so on.
If we try to think of Sonata as a real person, with a wide range of tastes and interests, would it still be possible that she is obsessed with tacos to a Flufflepuff level or higher and not contradict canon? Yes, because canon offerings are limited and not terribly binding. It would just be really shallow to do so.
Flufflepuff is a really shallow character. She's designed that way, and she relies on cuteness to be interesting. Flufflepuff is blatant adorable-hammering to the face.
Sonata, while cute, just begs to be explored as a more interesting, deeper, and more fulfilling character than that. Could you do so and not have her be obsessed with tacos? A resounding yes. What happened in the movie, with that one line of, "It's Taco Tuesday!" was not an expression of obsession. What it was is an interesting aspect of her personality. Consistently we see Sonata focus on immediate and tangible things in front of her, losing track of the bigger, more abstract picture that the other two are focused on.
When writing her, you should stop a moment and close your eyes. Picture the setting of your scene. What interesting little things might be in it that would fail to draw notice from more serious and focused characters like Adagio and Aria? Ignore the plot or main purpose and just gaze around with your mind's eye. Having Sonata pick up on something like that would be the correct way to write her.
Example:
The Dazzlings have just recently charmed Principal Celestia and VP Luna with their magic, and have had their tour with Sunset Shimmer. They're outside the cafeteria, and Adagio is explaining her plan to try and acquire that Equestria Magic.
Now in Sonata's point of view. You're hungry. You've just spent quite a bit of what little magical reserve you'd managed to save up. You're outside a cafeteria, and a colorful poster catches your attention. Tacos do sound pretty good right now, and surely Adagio and Aria would agree, right?
That is what lead to the line. Not some all-encompassing obsession. This is how to properly characterize someone, and to write better stories as a result.
You already know I love you, so whatever.
...you know I think I'm actually going to allow this one
Tacos are very important to MLP lore. After all, Nightmare Moon is a product of Tia's Taco stand.
I think I can count the number of stories I've read where Sonata does not mention tacos in any form on one hand. And even then, I'm probably miscounting.
It's one of Fandom's most pernicious habits in general, honestly, taking a memorable moment/line and repeating it ad nauseam as an easy shortcut for establishing the character; "Worst. Possible. THING!!!", "20% cooler" and all variants thereof, "THE FUN HAS BEEN DOUBLED!", etc. ad infinitum. And hey, that's amusing enough as far as memes go, but from a narrative stand-point, it tends to make the story's image of the characters feel reductive at best, and it is doubly aggravating when the character in question has so little else going for them in fan-works; the "TACO" thing wouldn't be so bad if it didn't account for, like, 95% of the material to do with her, when it feels like there's so many more interesting things that could be done with her if only she were given the chance.
This sort of thing crops up a lot though. Characterization tends to be a lot harder than I think a lot of people really realize. For instance, to use an oft used example, compare the majority of fics featuring Pinkie Pie, to her appearance in the show. Better yet, use the episode Too Many Pinkie, as the clone's shallow behavior tends to reflect far too many fanfiction Pinkie Pies, compared to the wacky, but nonetheless rounded character Pinkie actually has. It's easy to just latch onto a single prominent trait, and go from there, and especially when you don't have as much to go on as you might like. That's not right, of course, but there it is.
Ahhh, taco's: the best way to make a one-dimensional character lose even more dimension.
2755237
Too true.
I mean, outside of one or two culprits, I don't entirely blame the taco-memesters. Characterization is hard, especially when trying to advance a character, and exponentially so when canon doesn't give you much to work with.
Taking Rainbow Rocks entirely on its own, the Dazzlings give us almost fucking nothing. They're sexy and a little silly and they have great body language. That's about it. They're maybe two steps up from pre-RR Sunset.
I'm trying to squeeze blood from the stones that are their characters at present, and portray them as real people... and please believe, it is some trying work.
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On the other hand, not having too much to go on gives an author a great deal of flexibility. You just have to be able to take advantage of that.
You can also infer a surprising amount about a character from relatively little, as well.
2755376
These are both true, but there's a thing I've talked about before that I have yet to coin a term for so I'll just call it the Crappy Middle Point.
The CMP happens when you have a character who has just enough characterization that it can't be thrown out and given a better one in its place without breaking what little characterization already exists (and will be what people expect without calling it OOC).
Like, it's easy to reinterpret Vinyl Scratch as a math nerd. She's got almost no hard-and-fast characterization but a lot of jump-off points.
Sonata IS given characterization, (she's a siren (the nature of which we can only assume things about), and she's kinda bubbly, and that's about it") but that doesn't really help springboard a lot of things. But that "chracterization" is played really hard in that movie and thus reduces your wiggle room even more than a fully-fleshed canon character would.
In other words, I can't reinterpret Sonata Dusk as a math nerd (without a LOT of work). And that, Paladin, is the greatest crime of our time.
Yet what we're given doesn't really help either. You're left with all the character heavy lifting that isn't fun.
And so, tacos.
2755387
Personally, I like to think of Sonata as a bit of a food nut in general. Of all the Sirens, she kind of likes non-siren activities the most, like eating, or napping, or video games. Not exactly a hedonist, but more likely to enjoy a good time when it is not spent manipulating others.
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I could give or take the food thing, but we're of like mind on the other stuff.
Orly.
Right on! Derpy Hooves said, "Muffins!" and the fandom as a whole assumed that one thing was central to her life. This is the essence of reducing characters to cardboard stereotypes. Even professionals are prone to this sort of thing, hence the term "Flanderization."
Yea, I have her obsessed with taco's in a story I've barely even started, but it's also an AU where the Dazzlings ended up being punished by their grandfather instead of Starswirl, so spent most of her life underwater. In other words the obsession says a lot about her, in that it makes very little sense for a sea creature with hooves to be obsessed with a food you would never eat especially wet, and is much easier to eat with hands.
Also this brings up the rather odd thought that tacos might be considered a fancy unicorn food by most ponies, because eating a taco with hooves and not loosing the fillings must be a nightmare.
That awkward feeling when you realize that Sonata probably loves the taste of meat and fish. You know. What with.. Being a siren and ship wrecking for food.
Just as an example of expanding on what little of her character we have.