We gotta get out of dis place. · 10:53pm Oct 8th, 2015
Sadly, I feel there's very little chance of escaping. I think we're stuck. (Warning: This blog entry is going to be pretty heavy on quotes. I've tried to break it up a bit by including a bunch of pics. Hope it helps.)
A couple of weeks ago, I had a chat about bad fanfics with a relatively new user, a clear thinker known as A British Gentleman. We discussed a few different topics, such as patronizing humans who spend all their time talking down to ponies, or how indefensible it is to try to justify the near-divine abilities of one's overpowered OC by comparing him/her to vintage Superman. (For those not in the know, Superman used to be depicted as being even more powerful than he is these days, especially during the era known as the Silver Age of comics. While modern Superman's limits are absurdly high, he does have them. Silver Age Supes? Not so much.)
One thing that really gets to both of us, though -- as well as a number of other site users -- is the cookie-cutter sub-genre known as "displaced".
The mindset involved in writing one of these fics.
We turned to that topic after some general griping that applies to these stories as well as others.
From ABG:
A certain breed of author feel the need for their OC to intellectually dominate one of the main characters, usually Twilight or Celestia.
and
That protagonist is a proud member of what I call The Legions of Eustace Scrubb. The good Eustice has many expies on this site; spoiled, entitled brats (that are somehow adored by the main 6) convinced of their own superiority based on that fact they come from a higher tech civilisation. Unlike Eustace, however, they never receive character development.
From me:
A number of stories seem to be thrown onto the site's servers with no more premise than "Wouldn't it be great if the ponies were in this game I love?" (The answer, of course, is almost always "no".)
and
Why are so many people incapable of discerning obvious ca-ca when they run into it?
And as is often the case when discussing badfics, the conversation moved from dat place to dis place.
ABG hit the nail on the head:
It's the descriptions that wind me up. Something like: "You know the drill, went to comic con, met merchant, and now I'm in Equestria as Duke Nukem, and I'm going to make a complete twat out of myself."
It struck a chord with me:
I've read story descriptions almost exactly like that.
Yes, the nature of the story is inherently unimaginative, but you don't have to be so blasé about it... or even worse, act like you're proud of it. Put some effort into the description!
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're trying to serve me a shit sandwich, don't just put on the menu that it's a shit sandwich. Yes, that's going to appeal to all of the inexplicable fans of shit sandwiches, but the rest of us want at least a little sales pitch, y'know? Tell us about the artisanal cheese, the locally-grown lettuce, the imported mustard, the bread made right here in the restaurant...
He rather insightfully suggested that the people who are fans of this metaphorical meal are unlikely to see "shit sandwich" on the menu, and instead interpret the text as reading "tasty displaced baguette, come and get it".
As for how and why this happens, he pointed me back towards a comment that I had made regarding the obsession some bronies have with Nyx:
Sometimes I feel that this kind of thing comes about when people are new to the idea of reading for pleasure. They haven't been addicted to books since childhood like I have, so once that interest awakens in them, they latch onto the first character that resonates with them in some way, and that becomes their focus.
Building off this, he said:
They latch onto displaced because it's likely their first experience with a character they love in a literary setting. Displaced allows them a cheap, easy means of having their favourite character interact with the MLP universe, whilst turning it into their playground. Literally their playground, as the cosplay aspects make them perfect custom self-insert avatars. Add in youth, inexperience with prose, and there you have it.
I seized upon the "displaced baguette" comment, as things were starting to make sense to me:
That's a good point. Factoring what I said about literary inexperience into the metaphor, they don't even realize that it's shit. "Have you ever been to the Displaced Cafe? I don't know what's in their merde avec fromage, but I love it!"
And while we don't have any solid evidence in this direction, we both felt pretty strongly that inexperience was a large factor in this sub-fandom, in part due to lack of exposure to better material.
As ABG put it regarding this:
No Gentleman or Lady raised on the likes of Discworld, Narnia, Middle Earth or Treasure Island could stomach such garbage; only those who know no better could do so.
I felt I had to agree:
I think that between us, we've really hit upon something here. It's not necessarily a case of near-universal bad taste (although bad taste is certainly a factor); the primary factor is probably a simple lack of sophistication.
Another aspect of this, of course, could simply be age. He wondered about the average age of members for the primary group for these fics, and that he would say it was "rather less than twenty" if he were "a gambling man". I told him that I wouldn't bet against him, and that "just about everyone I know who denounces the whole 'displaced' sub-genre is someone I know to be a little older than the average brony demographic... or among the more mature younger users."
Of course, as he put it, it's not just "displaced" crap, but a large number of the crossover fics that show obvious issues:
Thinking further, crossovers in general represent something of a trap for the young and inexperienced, reader and writer alike. Consider, for a moment, the viewpoint of a young lady of gentleman discovering the world of fanfiction (and in this day and age, quite possibly reading for fun in general) for the first time. As they see the many shiny unread fics before them, what attracts their interest?
They may consider the adventure fics, but ultimately set them aside because the "ponies go on epic adventures twice a season at least, and they can just watch videos of that." Not to mention all of the epic adventures that they themselves have virtually experienced through the realm of videogames. Even more likely to be "boring" to these readers are the slice-of-life stories; while I consider it a virtue that the best SoL fics resemble episodes, the more unsophisticated reader may set these aside because the actual episodes are readily available.
While we didn't discuss it at the time, not everyone wants to read stories with the "Sad" or "Tragedy" tags, and some of these young bronies may consider "Romance" to be too girly... or just too depressing, if they're having no luck with it themselves. That cuts down on options.
ABG explains why they might gravitate to one particular tag:
But crossovers? Why here is something completely new, that they've never seen anywhere else. In no episode has an elite combat team raided the hideouts of the changelings, and haven't you always wondered what Wolverine would do if he ever met Tirek? And look, these are all epic adventures as well. It's perfect.
He then goes on to point out why this is an issue.
To begin writing one, before you've typed a word, you first have to take two universes, with different characters, power levels, magic systems, themes, tones, morals, technologies, worlds and much else besides. Then you must analyse them, dismantle them into their component parts, and from all this construct a coherent whole: the new crossover setting. It's a serious feat of world building, but it must be done if the crossover is to succeed, and only then may you begin even constructing your narrative.
I knew this, of course, and a great many of you reading this will also already know how much work is involved in making a workable, readable crossover -- but a surprising number of writers on this site don't.
As ABG put it:
And who are the people attempting this, an intimidating feat for the most experienced writers? Why our new young fan, who has just discovered fanfiction and is fresh out his or her favourite new PS4 game. And who's reading them? The same.
Of course, it's not a daunting task if you don't realize what's involved, and I said as much:
I sense a whiff of the Dunning–Kruger effect here: the inexperienced writers don't realize what they're in for, and even if they did, would still think themselves up to the task. The folks with a little more familiarity with writing are more aware of what they don't know. Even if they might be perfectly capable of writing a good crossover, they tell themselves that they wouldn't be able to manage it -- because they know what's really required.
ABG not only brought it back to our earlier topic and wrapped things up nicely.
Is it a surprise, then, that they cheat, and go for the ready made option? These young inexperienced readers and writers, who know no better? There is Displaced, with it's ready made, insert-character-here framework, a paint-by-numbers writing exercise just waiting for them. Wretched as it is, horrible as it is, can we really be surprised it's taken off?
Reading that question again, the words that came to mind were the same as when I first saw it: "When you put it like that, no."
TL;DR: The bullshit assembly line cranking out "displaced" fics is probably here to stay. Also, the world would probably be a better place if everyone took more time to read.
This... Is one reason why I fucking love A British Gentleman. He's very analytical and intellectual when he speaks.
Even so, I have to say that I strongly dislike Displaced fics and I'm as old as your average brony.
3453641
As far as I'm concerned, that puts you ahead of the pack.
3453762
Thanks.
3453762
To be honest, the only reason why I read it is to see if I can find a diamond in the rough.
Where is this guy. I want to kiss him. Yes in the gay way because he finally fucking said it! I always hated seeing this in the description. It's like the author telling us it's going to be the same thing even before reading the actual story.
3454058
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say... somewhere in Britain.
I know, right?! Someone needed to!
And like I said, many of the descriptions -- and they're becoming more and more common -- are just that lazy. They don't even try to sell us on the concept. Then again, why should they when they know that taking a big steaming dump on a Kaiser roll will still propel their sandwich biz to incredible heights, regardless of marketing or packaging?
Even though I've got like four or five projects that I've started writing but never can seem to finish, I'm still sorely tempted to see if I can crank out a quick parody of all this fecal matter.
3454134
You and me both. Literally, in one case.
My trouble is that if I tried to write a parody of the Displaced type stories, I'd probably end up writing something that wasn't actually a parody, per say, just seriously crazy.
Stan decides this year to go to a fantasy convention dressed up as Mary Poppins, and when a vendor there gives him the umbrella he needs to complete his ensemble, he finds himself transported to Equestria, and trying to be practically perfect in every way...
--arcum42
Hey, I don't like 'em either. But still...
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37540750/_ponies/spitfire%20deal%20with%20it.gif
3454344
WTF do you think this blog entry is for?
3454058
Here is an actual long description from a recently published displaced fic. I am not making this up:
From Halo gamer
I did better than that whilst actually trying to write a crappy description for the purposes of making a point. As Elric put it:
3454442
Yeah, the first sentence of that description was pretty incredible, in an awful way.
3454354 Umm... dealing with it?
This was very insightful. Many have tried to explain to me why Displaced is a thing, because until now its popularity was something that I simply could not comprehend, but this actually makes sense to me as well. Very good, the both of you. I learned something here.
THANK YOU!
I knew I couldn't be the only one getting really sick of seeing Displaced fic after Displaced fic in the Featured box. Almost makes me miss the self-insert Human in Equestria clopfics. Almost.
I fear there might be a secondary factor in the popularity of writing Displaced fics. I have no proof of this, but I strongly suspect that after seeing how popular the genre was with the inexperienced audience, (slightly) more established authors took the cynical route and started cranking these out for easy upvotes and features.
As someone who's had to wrangle two very different cosmologies and magic systems into some semblance of cooperation, I can attest to the trickiness of a good crossover. Having a self-insert literally drop into Equestria, dragging a different franchise's laws of physics and magic in with them? That isn't it.
Also, I have no idea why I'm not following you. Correcting that.
3454442
Oh god, the grammer! It burns! It burns us precious!
3464150
At the risk of sounding like even more of a snob than I already do, I think the reason why those of us who are sick of this have such a difficult time understanding the die-hard fans is because we don't think like they do.
It's like they're at the dawn of civilization, and they've started mashing grains together and mixing them with stuff and heating up the result, and they're going wild over this new thing called "bread". And we're like, "Guys, have you seen sliced bread?"
3464216
That's a good point. We can never ignore the very real possibility of whoring for upvotes, 'cause it happens in other areas. <Cough - clop! Cough!>
3464252
Thank you!
3464826
No, I think that's right, no matter how snobbish that might sound. I would probably use more diplomatic terms if I ever had to explain the concept to someone who likes Displaced, but it sounds absolutely correct to me. And I'm not ashamed of that at all. People can cry about elitism all they want, but at the end of the day, nobody should have to apologise for having standards.
I'm going to honest, I like displaced fics.
But as time has gone by and it has gotten more popular the stories have gotten more and more shit. These stories used to be good, Malideus, Darth Vulcan, that one solaire story that got deleated.
The only reason I still read them is, as shadow of the night stated:
Or maybe I'm misinterpreting what's he said because I had surgery today and am still a little groggy.
Some are SHIT, but some AREN'T.
Too many people judge a book by its cover, in fact, we have a Quality Works Folder for this very reason.
3482239
That's nice. Bugger off now.
3482477
Oh God, is he still trying to justify himself?
3483547
Yup.
"Look, just because it says 'shit sandwich' on the menu doesn't mean it literally has shit in it! I mean, yeah, some do. Okay, lots of 'em do. Not all of them, though. Think of 'shit sandwich' as a brand name, not a guarantee that shit is an ingredient."
3483599
Has anyone told him that he doesn't get a cookie if he wins?
And that there is no winning?
The problem with Displaced isn't that the format is inherently bad. It is possible to do a decent Displaced fic - but as with all of fanfiction, you have to put in the required effort. Plenty of tips abound if you read the blogs of respected authors on here, use those bloody tips.
The problem is it's an incredibly easy thing to latch onto and do very, very badly. Way too many Displaced stories are written purely for the sake of wish-fulfillment, with no regard for any of the things that make a fanfic good. The result is often "Mary Sue goes to Equestria as their cosplay character, does standard Mary Sue things". This is as unsatisfying to read as if you'd remove the "as their cosplay character" bit.
I know I'm late to this party Elric, but you really don't know the half of it.
Just wait until they start taking your plots/copying/straight out plagiarising your stuff (yes, some dude was desperate enough to plagiarise), turning in into a Displaced, and then claiming to be 'making it better'.
Then you can bitch.
3929639 Wow, did someone do that with one of your stories?
3955512
Twice.
To the same story.
3955572 Wow, I'm sorry about that. What exactly did they do to your story?
3955603
First guy copy-pasted so bad that he occasionally left the name of my main character in accidentally. The only change he did was replace the main character with a villain from One-Piece.
Second guy wasn't happy with the fic I wrote, but decided that he'd take 90% of the plot, a couple of paragraphs here and there, and characters that he decided to pretty much just rename and recolour (and in one case gender-bend a character that he didn't like so he could kill them off). In addition, when I wrote a semi-joke blog about the amount of Displaced fics spinning off of my fic (without even knowing about the one mentioned), the author came onto my blog and pretty much trashed my fic while bragging about his own.
Needless to say, myself and a bunch of my followers looked at his fic.
It was reported.
Mods removed it for plagerism after they reviewed it.
Author and his followers flipped out, went around warning other Displaced author's that 'Dropbear was coming for them', insulted the mods while claiming that I 'had the site mods in' my 'pocket', and most hilarious of all some of the super-special ones sent me death-threats.
All because a fic was removed for plagiarism.
Then he started a mod-authorised rewrite, a bunch of his followers aren't happy with his new (un-plagiarised) work, and he posts comments that are filled with passive-aggressive salt.
The flames are still ongoing to this day.
3955617 Why do you think those guys to did something that low?
3956693
Eh, probably saw the large amount of upvotes, liked the plot, and thought that they could earn those same amount of upvotes and at the same time insert themselves in as Displaced characters. Not really too sure, to be honest.
3957119 Got it.
3956693
Because no matter how many candles they had on their last birthday cakes, they're still all children.