FiMFiction Stories Stereotypes · 12:25am Jan 11th, 2018
Have you ever noticed that some types of stories have very attached stereotypes? I mean, if it's a crossover, it will be shallow and lazy. If it it's dark, it will contain gore. If there's a sex tag, it's porn. So on and so forth. Well, what are the more common stereotypes?
Disclaimer: First of all, yes, this takes pages out of SoundSmith's Team Fortress 2 Stereotypes. I don't want to say it's a rip-off, but it isn't a parody either. Until there's a consensus, let's just call it a discount SoundSmith (+1 sin).
Secondly, the obvious. Stereotypes are not a rule. They aren't even true to begin with. If that story you really enjoy, or you just finished writing has has a stereotype attached to it, that doesn't mean it's bad, that you can't enjoy it, or that it's even important.
Most importantly, none of what will be said here is to be taken serious, at all. Just sit back, enjoy and if you feel the need to discuss, we can talk in the comments.
¿Todo bien? Todo bien.
"First story, please be kind" disclaimer
This story is a good way to define a fiasco. Where a fail is the absence of success, a fiasco is something we tell others to make them feel better about themselves for it not happening to them. And stories with a "first story" disclaimer will make any long-time user feel like heaven, knowing their first attempt didn't go out in the hellish flames this kind of story is going. Expect no grammar and no narrative, at any level. A good bet is that the author doesn't even know enough english to ask where the bathroom is, and has never seen any kind of narration in their life.
Another thing, the author who put this disclaimer is scared. We're not talking timid here. Agoraphobic basement dweller, sniffing the Scarecrow's Fear Toxine while being haunted by Pennywise is still not enough to escribe what we have here. This is a person who dreads the idea of any comment that may say not-nice things about their first magnum opus or themselves. Don't make any sudden moves when talking to them, at all.
Crossovers
Oh boy, where to begin with this one?
Do you like two or more franchises? Do you think sid franchises would complement each other in a single story? Do you want to see said story? Well, you're screwed.
Crossovers in FiMFiction tend to always favor the new party. Ponies are weak and fragile, both physically and mentally. They have no idea of what to do when the Decepticons, or the demons from Doom, or Doctor Robotnik come in and wreck Equestria. Therefore, they need the heroes from other stories to pull their flank out of the fire. The Mane Six, and any other canon characters will be reduced to talking cardboard cutouts, at best if they get to keep some resemblance to canon. And don't expect better characterization for the other side, which will have no introductions or development either.
And of course, the different cosmologies from different mythos always blend perfectly. The Matrix of Leadership was an early attempt to synthesize the power of the Chaos Emeralds, which slept together (don't ask) and spawned the Elements of Harmony. Oh, and OptimusXCelestia is the OTP to end all OTP's. 'Nuff said!
Authors tend over the fanus maximus kind. They will flood the story with references to the franchise they love, plus others. They seem to comunicate with their peers in a secret language of obscure references, like Ready Player One, but somehow even more nerdy. Any criticism send in their way will be met with "that's how it was done in canon, so I can't change it". Don't ever suggest that their favorite franchise isn't objectively superior to MLP:FiM. They will take it as a personal offense and go for your blood.
Sad and Tragedy
If there's a low-hanging fruit of the lot. It's almost not funny to point out what's pretty much obvious at this point.
These stories follow a quite strict pattern. It begins with a protagonist alone in the world (coming from families bearing the "origins story disappearance" gene), who is part of two or more minority groups (race, sex, gender). Then, something bad happens to them, but it has no lasting consequences. In fact, tragedy protagonists, despite to attract all the bad things to them, never deal with fallout. It can be a boy with gender dysphoria, whose family is death and gets framed for rape and murder (not making this up disclaimer. Stereotypes do exist for a reason), and yet, things either work out for them, or they die in an over the top way that's supposed to be artful.
Authors for this ones don't have an easy to pint-point seterotype, so I'll just point out the two extremes. The defensive ones, who swear by their little masterpiece and will counter any comment against it, no matter how weak is the defense and will have the last word. And then there are the apathetic ones, who give deaf ears to anything that isn't praise.
Human in Equestria
Speaking of low-hanging fruits. When it comes to sterotypification, this is the one that already fell from the tree and peeled itself in the way down.
The human has a standard life, it's a bit of a geek, and there's no real uniqueness or deep in their character. Anon, Second Person and Self Inserts are the majority. Expect Gary Stu. Of course, they always end up in the Everfree forest, in a "normal day in Ponyville, while Celestia's sun shone bright in the sky". They come up into Ponyville, but not after going full Crusoe on the Everfree, which turns the white and nerdy human into a discount Rambo (+1 sin). And if that doesn't happen, the human's inherent specialness will make sure they always get out of trouble without a scratch.
Of course, since ponies never interact with other sapient species, are mystified by the human. His (don't even pretend you don't know it's a he) superior skills with opposable thumbs, his magnificent bipedal posture and his endless tirade of witty sarcasm will make all the mares fall for him. And if you think we're getting close to "sin against nature" territory, you're freakin' right. Strap in for amounts of shipping that even Tumblr would call excessive.
Authors often fall into "superiority of the species" territory regarding humanity. And that's all I'm going to say, because I made a New Year's promise of stop with provoking nazis.
Dark Story
Okay, okay. Overused meme from the original series (+1 sin). With that out of the way, if you see the [Dark] tag in a story, chances are that it will be an edge-fest. Most common options include physical abuse, gore, suicide, rape and the bastardized version of Edgar A. Poe and/or Frank Miller's narrative.
The beginnings of these kind of stories are usually a wham line after another, followed by some kind of development that usually just hang around exposition and overly detailed descriptions. Expect no character arc nor development. If there's a plot somewhere, it will be either forgotten, or messily driven through all the exposition. Endings are a usually a letdown, at best, and infuriatingly bad at worst.
The authors are a heavy mixture too, but the majority is split between three types. First we have the serious ones, who actually think this story is a masterpiece of horror and/or drama, while unaware of what's really going on. Then there the ones that know exactly what they're doing and are mostly joking, but don't want to cross into grimdark territory. And then there are the roleplayers, who act as twisted as the character of their stories, but out of the comment sections are usually fun people to talk with.
And that's all I got for now. My new internship leaves me no real time, but I do want to write more this year. Since stories need way more work and time to get done, I'll stick for quick content for the moment. hope you guys enjoyed and see you next time.
[Blog does not contain a lap dance (+1 sin)]
P.D.: There's a hidden joke for old time friends and followers of mine. New ones can get it too if they check my body of work.See ya!
The thing about crossovers that weirds me out is that it's almost always the other thing going to Equestria and maybe getting ponyfied. It combines the two worst aspects of crossover/human stuff. Nobody ever just has MLP versions of the thing they like over here doing their thing. There has to be two whole chapters dedicated to random portals and jokes about not having fingers anymore. Half the reason I wrote the one story I have on this site is that that bugged the crap out of me.
The rest is most SpideyxTwilight stuff is skeevy as fuck.
4771329
There's nothing less creative than the "random portal happened". If a crossover story involves one of those, unless it's a parody, it's not worth any time reading past the portal point. And what's worse, some times the portal set-up is so blatant, you can't help but groan at how by-the-numbers it is.
A trans-dimensional device of any kind, or just the mere existence of alternate realities, should be treated as a scientific breakout. something that would take years, if not decades of development before being even remotely viable. But bad crossovers treat it as it was an accident so common, no one even questions how it works.
In my opinion, the worst offenders are those where the author even defends the cliché as a "writing convention". I call bull on that.
I should have included it, but the joke in all of this is that these are stereotypes I've written. And before you ask, yes, i did the "first story" disclaimer and have been unreasonably defensive of stories before. I'm not as ashamed of that as I should, but I¿'m not proud either.
4771435
It's less that and more just the huge lack of initiative. Why devote all this time to establishing how these things don't co-exist when the entire story is built around them standing next to each other? At the very least isn't getting them from Universe A to Universe B just more work for the writer? If it's an establishing thing (I know it's not, but.)...again, why? The only people who will read and respond to the story are people who already know and enjoy both these things. It just seems to be this thing everyone does because everyone else is doing it. It's not like, I dunno, the four kingdoms from Avatar would be out of place in Equestria as just this different region where they have bending instead of the usual magic.
More to the point, it's always semantics like crossing dimensions and being ponyfied instead of anything the characters are like as themes or ideas. The secret to a decent/actually good crossover is surprising people with how complimentary these two different things can be. Don't even need to agree with the writer's argument, I just need to understand where they're coming from. But it's always something like that Displaced bullshit because nerds love systems even more than they love smashing things together.
It's the problem of trying to attach rules to this stuff. Academia is there to help you form an opinion and express it, not to be the opinion for you, but way too much of fandom use it like that. And not even actual academia, just what they think will make them sound smart. Fanfiction by nature is an indulgence that, sure, can be done well if you're talented enough, but it's also almost completely without rules and the actual ones are a) guide lines to help you show you're informed and can show your working b) not designed for weird niche shit like Halo but there's candy coloured horses now.
Wasn't going to but whatever you feel the need to get off your chest.