Thoughts on "Fame and Misfortune" · 7:15pm Aug 14th, 2017
Was reading the episode review and some of the comments on EQD, and I have to say, this one really struck home for me. It is on the way to becoming one of my favorite episodes of the series.
As a general rule, I'm not particularly a fan of shows becoming too self-aware and directly addressing or referencing their fan base, unless that's part of their overall shtick (eg. Rick and Morty, although it can get jarring even there). Not including the rare special one-offs like "Slice of Life" for MLP:FiM, or Stargate SG-1's "Wormhole X-Treme!" and "200".
But damn if "Fame and Misfortune wasn't dead on the money, much like its predecessor, "Stranger Than Fanfiction". A few minor quibblepants aside, this was handled very well. My only real concern is that it may have gone a bit over the heads of the show's intended target audience of four to twelve year old children.
The meta-narrative is one that I think needs to be drummed into the heads of far too many fans, not just of MLP, but for fandoms in general. It's also one that has come up recently in discussions I've been involved in regarding fanfiction (ie. "At what point it does stop being fanfiction, and become something completely separate from the property it's supposedly based on, and what's the point of the association if it does?") That sort of nit-picky entitlement attitude that results in a great deal of unpleasantness toward other fans and toward the creators of the show; and the idea that they should be pandered to at all times, and know more about how things should be done than the actual creators.
It seems like far too many people who claim to be fans, or who piggyback on a fandom, aren't really interested in the core themes of the TV show, or books, or film series, or whatever else is involved. And that is the real problem highlighted in this episode -- for too many people, at a certain point fandom stops being about the show, and starts being about the fandom itself. It shifts focus to the activities of being an ostensible fan, activities which then shift to being about the processes, not the property. Collecting, analyzing, arguing, and so on take over from the property as the focus of the fandom; and contribute to many fans' sense of entitlement. It's their fandom, and therefore they should have a say in how things work. In extreme cases, some of these entitled fans start appointing themselves gatekeepers of the fandom, deciding who is and is not a "real" fan.
In this circular meta-activity, the connection to the original property becomes lost, and one could replace Ponies (or whatever) with literally anything else in most of these exchanges and not affect the actual content in any way. For far too many, it's no longer Ponies that people are fans of, it's themselves, as a group. Ponies have become little more than a backdrop, and fan activities only nominally related.
I think in the case of bronies, the attention given to the fandom by outside observers early on accelerated and exacerbated the problem somewhat.
What's even worse is that too many people have tried to construe "Fame and Misfortune" as an attack on bronies, a "take that" against their fandom; but as others have pointed out in other venues, nowhere are the "Friendship Journal fans" in the episode ever subjected to any real consequences. All of Starlight's actions regarding the fans take place off-screen, so we never really know what they are, only that they don't really appear to have had any effect. No fans are ever really shown changing their attitudes to any significant degree, and never suffer any sort of consequences. All of the bad stuff happens to the Mane Six, not the fans (except in the cases where fans start arguing with and attacking each other).
The main message seems to be aimed more at artists and other creators, "Remember why you're doing this, and try not to let the bad actions of a few fans poison it for you". Yes, the show does portray a segment of fans in a bad light, but that's a light that's fully earned (as evidenced by much of the commentary on the episode itself), and there is certainly a message of "stop being obsessive, entitled assholes and remember why you got into the show in the first place". But that message, although important, is secondary, and in the end, the resolution is the Mane Six learning how to cope with their newfound fame and the less pleasant aspects of that fame; as demonstrated by Starlight's bringing Toola Roola (More previous generation ponies showing up? Awesome!) and Coconut Cream to meet with Twilight and friends, and their reinforcement of how much Twilight's advice, both directly and in the journal, helped them to mend their own friendship.
Various members of the show staff have said that much of what they do is to entertain themselves as much as it is to entertain their target audience or the brony fandom; and it's clear here that this is a very good example of them not only entertaining themselves, but reminding themselves to let go and have fun with the process, and not dwell too heavily on the problematic reactions of a few ostensible fans.
An interesting side-situation is that I've had this exact conversation with another fan just the day prior to watching the episode; both of us agreeing that there is too much entitlement and over-analysis going on. One of my biggest worries about the upcoming movie is that the trailers and released materials make it look like they're focusing more on the adventure and throwing a bunch of unprecedented new stuff at the audience, and not enough on the actual themes and message of the show. Time will tell on that, and I hope my worries are proven unfounded, but I'm not about to get pissy and entitled of that does end up being the case, I'll simply move on and stick to the bits that have already made me a fan, and keep me a fan.
Yes! Exactly! The people who complain that the main conflict wasn't resolved utterly miss this! There is no plausible way the reactions of the fans could be resolved.
This always baffles me. I have taken my own fiction pretty far afield from the show, but I could never enjoy the fandom without that solid base of the original material.
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Not without a great deal of bloodshed, no.
I've reviewed a substantial number of stories here that have nothing whatsoever to do with MLP:FiM, that are not in any way recognizably connected to the show or comics or books, aside from a few "horsewords" and some names. Hell, there's an entire genre of fanfiction on this site that can be described that way.
In a lot of cases, they seem to latch onto it in a fairly superficial manner, they like the cute animation and Rainbow Dash being awesome, but aren't interested in any of the actual stories or the deeper messages of the show. I've even seen one or two flat out say that they're not fans of the show and haven't watched it since the first season or something like that. Some of them have made a big deal about identifying with a particular character, but when challenged, it commonly turns out that what they identify with is the negative aspects of the character, like Rainbow Dash's arrogance, and what the show writers and most fans see as a character's flaws, they perceive as virtues.
When called out on their lack of connection, the general response is something to the effect of "It's a pony story if I say it is, and it's my right to post anything I want, no matter how far it diverges". It's that same entitlement attitude. I see that pop up most often in fixfics, and there are a lot of people on this site who think that it's their duty to "fix" what they see wrong with the franchise. Quite a number of them make a big deal about how they hate the feminist aspects of the show, and the over-reliance on "friendship" to solve problems; but love everything else, and reflect that in their writing. They like everything but the actual themes and stories. Makes no sense to me.
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Yep. This utterly baffles me. The best fanfic (IMnot-soHO) takes the core of the show and characters and expands and deepens them, providing a more mature and nuanced enlargement of that wonderful universe.[1]
Just assume I've repeatedly beaten my head against my desk and then taken a bit of a walk to calm down.
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[1] And, of course, I've just finished a story about Twilight and Flurry becoming air-pirates and toppling an evil empire... so... do as I say, not as I do, I guess?
Is that really that bad?
So some people want to write weird clop or high fantasy adventure or gore-y space opera that is barely even tangentially related to the original show... how that's a bad thing?
I say more power to them, as long as they don't start insisting that their interpretation of the show is the only correct one, and everyone else is not watching the show right.
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In itself it's not; but there's no reason to bring it here. This is, by it's definition and Terms of Use, a My Little Pony fanfiction site. If they're not writing MLP fanfiction, there's no reason to post it here. There are a myriad of more appropriate places to post it, like fanfiction.net or Tumblr. But that doesn't get them the attention they want, so they leech off of someone else's fandom.
But that's the problem, that's what they're doing. It's part and parcel of that same entitlement attitude, that their interpretation of what constitutes MLP fanfiction is the only correct one, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. They even write fanfiction to "fix" the show, because their interpretation is the One True Way.
Again, it's about being a fan of the show, which means being a fan of what the show is about. If you're not a fan of the themes of the show, then you're not a fan of the show, because without those themes it's just a bunch of random jokes and pretty artwork and rainbow explosions.
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As long as it's even tangentially related, I honestly see little problem. Worst case scenario -- nobody reads it.
And honestly things like "what would MLP be like it if was in the genre of Dragonball Z?" or "what if Rarity wanted to screw Twilight with a giant dildo?", while not exactly in the theme of MLP, are legit questions that can be answered in a form of fiction. Stupid questions, perhaps, but no less legitimate for it.
And I don't think that most writers would insist that their interpretation of the show is the sole correct one. Monochromatic, who writes the cutest RariTwi diabetus bait evar, does not insist that this is OTP that is canon and everybody else who does not think it's true is stupid, and I don't think Kkat would ever insist that Fallout Equestria is one true and inevitable future of the canon show.
The people have a right to suggest their own reinterpretation of the show, and heck, sometimes there are fun things that come out as a result. And I think that people who think that they know the secret true canon of the show and are the only ones who understand it right are a staggering minority, while people who hate-write the fixfiction are just plain weirdoes, no worse (or better) than straight-up porn writers or power-fantasy and self-insert guys.
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It's all part and parcel of the same entitlement attitude.
And no, they're not "legit questions", they're just juvenile mental wanking at best.
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Entitlement to what? An opinion?