Let's talk about... · 7:59pm Nov 16th, 2018
...Displaced fics.
Regarded as the worst thing to ever offend the internet at large after Diaper Fics by most of the writing community, one has to wonder, what is the actual appeal of writing something that—outside of a specific group of people—is going to be universally hated on sight? Quality doesn't matter if people don't give it a chance.
The flaws of Displaced fics are easily pointed out and listed as generalities:
1) Power trip
2) Barely hidden Self-insert
3) Not really a crossover (just an oc self-insert) with the character's powers
4) Poorly thought out plot
etc, etc, etc.
Flaws galore for anyone looking for an excuse. And of course a lot of us justify the hate in our minds. "We've seen it too many times." Or, "we are above writing something like that." "It's sooo unoriginal." "We better authors don't rely on BS like that!" etc.
Pick your reasoning.
Is there really anything inherently wrong with writing Displaced though? Eeh. Not really. I mean, I avoid it like the plague, but I'm not supposed to like everything just because it exists, nor are these authors writing those stories seeking my personal approval.
I've never had any interest in that type of story, neither Displaced nor in its predecessor "League of Humans Acting Villainous", and I'm iffy on HiE as it is although it is definitely more palatable. But again, this is not for me.
Now, more objectively, we can take a look at a story and figure out if it's good at all, provided we give it the chance. Which we don't.
And I'm not saying you should. But I'm not saying you shouldn't.
I will say though, that sometimes we forget that a lot of the people that write Displaced stories (or similar) are also new to this whole thing. They're not doing it to annoy you. They're just starting at a point where most of us have been, but have dealt with in a different way.
Because, if you're here, you have imagined yourself in Equestria at some point or another. Be honest. You've thought many things about what would happen if you were, indeed, yourself in Equestria. What you would do. What you would say. How you would solve a problem or comfort a character. It's normal. We do the same things with books and other shows.
Everyone is the hero of their own story, after all. And in some real-life cases, completely oblivious to the BS of their attitudes.
Here, however, there is a chance to explore those things. Sure, it's a power-fantasy, and as such, why limit yourself to what your true, IRL power is (Aka: No power whatsoever) when you can simply emerge into this world of ponies as a character that has already pre-defined weaknesses and strengths?
New authors can understandably think of this as appealing. In a weird way, Displaced sort-of-kinda tries to address the Mary Sue issue as well: can it be Mary Sue if it's a dude with Spider Man's powers and weaknesses? Yes. Yes it can, and often is. I mean, I'm just saying, if this was ever a question in your mind. Maybe it never was. But I just want to be clear: Yes.
We've all done similar things at some point or another. Maybe not exactly that, but when we started writing fan fiction for the very first time, we probably inadvertently created a Mary Sue or something that can be interpreted as one, because hint: not all characters accused of being Mary Sues actually are.
Some of us published it, some of us didn't. It doesn't matter. The point is, if we think about it, it is a very understandable way of getting into writing fan fiction. You get all you want in those early stages: power, potential self-insert (possibly hidden), a power trip, your favorite characters, etc. If you have good technical skills or even storytelling talent, even better! And, there's a group of people that actively support this kind of thing.
When you want to write a cool OC, you want people to see the things that make him/she/it/allthree be cool AF. You want people to be wowed by their strength, their charisma, their endurance in bed, their unquestionable intelligence and rigid pe-rception of things that matter!
Of course then reality sets in and you get downvoted to Tartarus and back like veritable Phoenix shit. And worse, self-righteous people will shit on your work more, just because you dared do this!, further putting you into the defensive, and naturally so. No one likes being attacked.
Oddly enough, a lot of these people also whine and rant about getting automatically downvoted by morons who spend their days literally downvoting anything you write because reasons.
And trust me. Downvotes like that are not worth your time even considering. If someone has a legit reason to downvote, they'll probably be willing to comment and tell you why.
Anyway, what I'm getting at in some way, is that if you're currently downvoting Displaced fics just because they exist, you might want to consider the possible newness of the author, the fact that it's not there to piss you off, or the fact simply downvoting without actually being somewhat constructive with a following PM or comment is not in any way going to encourage these authors to write something different.
You can express your displeasure at a story with a downvote, but try to be a bit more honest, if you do feel that such stories are beneath you. And remember, you have no place to complain about your stories being downvoted to oblivion if you do the same thing to everyone else.
Peace!
Oh shit. D be talking about a fic type.
Last time that happened it soon got outright banned!
I think.
I hope.
~Skeeter The Lurker
This was quite well done. Shame diaper fics get such hate. I mean, most aren't that bad compared to some of the shit like snuff on here
The first few Displaced fics were a surprisingly novel concept too. It's easy to forget that. Of course now that it's a format I'd rank it even lower than dark/edgy Anon-a-miss fics but still.
But it's really easy to see where they come from. Self-insert fics are common. Crossover fics are common. Fish-out-of-water are common. With Displaced you get all of those in one, so them being prevalent makes sense. I just get annoyed when I see a bunch of them in the featured box.
Can anyone direct me to the first ever displaced fic?
It's one of these things where I don't think it's absolutely inherently bad, just usually bad. One part of it is that you really probably shouldn't be writing it as a self insert. You should be writing two characters, the person wearing the costume, and the character the costume is for. They are in one body, of course, but it's still two characters. Neither should be you.
Played right, a lot of the conflict of the story should be right there in the conflict between the person they normally are and the person they've become. And, you know, the character they become doesn't have to be mega-powerful.
Or, you know, as a short comedy, Displaced could work too. I did write a very short flash fic that was Displaced once, with the main character coming to Equestria as the Wicked Witch of the West! It was raining...
I don't generally read them, though, because they generally aren't that good...
--Sweetie Belle
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Okay, changing the subject entirely here, but this has been bugging me for months: what/who/why is Anon-A-Miss? Is it a canon EqG thing I missed, a fic genre, something from the comics? I keep seeing it crop up in new story descriptions lately and I don’t know where it came from.
4969164 Comics.
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It's an IDW comic. It's kinda "Ponyville Confidential" in Equestria Girls only done badly and rather OOC. For some reason, people like writing spinoff fanfics of it.
--Sweetie Belle
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See Oliver's exploration of the origins of Displaced. Well, it's a blog on the subject of 'scar tissue', but the case study is Displaced, and he thinks he tracked down the first three Displaced stories, which between the three of them established the tropes.
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Oliver also recently covered the original Anon-A-Miss comic. Where he points out that 0.61% of the total number of stories on the site are Anon-a-Miss stories of one stripe or another. I wonder if anyone's done a headcount of the other bandwagons?
I'm curious how many people are actual fan of these types of fics. I've tried a few that end up in the featured box (somehow? those aforementioned fans?) but all of them never update past 1-2 chapters.
When I was younger I did all the bad writting stuff, rip-offs, bad OCs, ect but never published anything. I'd feel kinda bad if I wrote something displaced as my first fic on the site, it got featured and then there's so much attention on it, people bashing displaced or pressuring me to continue it.
Just kinda seems like a dead-end to me, for most authors and readers alike.
I believe it's possible to write a good Displaced story.
I feel good Displaced stories may already exist.
On a related note, I need to put more oil in this lantern.
Hmm, I agree with most of the points here actually. The thing that inspired me to write was a plethora of poorly thought out author self-insert as Nightmare Moon stories, which led to me writing Substitute Demon which is sitting just shy of 500k words at this point (I know, I have to finish it. I have to sort through it all because of an issue I ran into and its a LOT to sort through). Most had the author being everyone's friend by chapter two, and it felt like an absolute waste. Then there was Cost, where I did an entirely new AU that I've never seen tried before (Discord is killed, this releases magics hold on the sun and moon thus severely weakening the alicorns) and that was so I could write a story based on the line "Kiss my balls."
I'm more than willing to give even a mary-sue style character a chance(as my interest in Saving Equis shows) as long as there's more going on than "This is my oc, and he/she's everyone's friend and always wins the day and is really smart and is the best at everything." In Saving Equis, there are natural disasters occurring all over because of the sisters controlling the sun and moon. In Substitute Demon, the MC woke up in a temple in a far off jungle surrounded by starving cultists while wearing weird blue horse armor. Do something interesting with your story, something that makes me wonder what will happen next. That alone can be the difference between me wandering off after the first few chapters and sticking it out. And if you can get their attention, you're that much more likely to keep it.
If you DARE to start with "I'm sure you've heard about-" or any of those bland displaced starts I've been seeing I will personally find your house and REEEE at your window.
The only reason I dislike displaced fics is the massive inter-fic crossovers that make you go read another fic to know what the fuck is going on.
Any story can be written well, no matter what angle the author wants to go with, but the quality of the story itself depends on said author.
That being said, it's been over a year since I've written anything. Oh well, I'm sparing the masses of true horror.
Well, every kind of story and genre can be good executed or bad executed by the author and sometimes it has a reason for read or write a fiction. Some enjoy to add the crossover or self insert of the characters over there. While others like to make an adventure fantasious about fights and even novels behind the story of MLP. Depending of the author it could be good executed or bad.
And even displaced fictions has a true lore and rules to write it and many authors didn't know and they are not following the good examples. And they are just writing the stories they want to write.
I like stories of that genre because I really enjoy some fantasy of battle behind of mlp story, sadly the only part I don't like is when they make anthro selected just for make clop fictions with the displaced as well. While I just write the displaced of fiction because I enjoy writing battles inside of my imagination and even if people who downvote me, the reason for it, it was because I'm not very good at grammar and I couldn't find a good editor to help me. And if the people who doesn't like the genre itself I respect and value their opinions.
Well there's no excusing shoddy writing. I'll allow inexperienced writing, as you say, we all have to start somewhere. But if the author cannot even be bothered to spell the words in his description properly...
Well.
My main issue with Displaced fics, aside from the aforementioned laziness, is the missed opportunity. I once saw one featuring Dracule Mihawk, and got all interested, before seeing the "Displaced" tag. Such disappointment. It is the interplay between characters, that contest of ideology and opinion that fascinates me, not fancy powers or grimcrackery. Twentysomething-american-male-who-is-possibly-a-brony characters we have aplenty, some written better than others. It is thoroughly charted land.
I have read three (I think) displaced stories that I actually enjoyed. None of them followed conventional tropes.
There was Horse Feathers - A tale from the Humans Acting Villainous verse, which is old, and is exquisitely well-written in large part because of the character's contrast with, and ignorance of, Equestria.
There was a story about a female pickpocket ending up as the Wraith from Evolve of all things, again, the person's ignorance of the situation was a major driving force of the story.
And finally there is A Very Angry Problem , which utterly obscures the situation to the point that you don't even realize what's going on at first.
Simply put, a self-insert can be interesting, but propping it up with borrowed virtue rarely adds anything useful.
I'll probably cave one day and do an 'Anon in Equestria' fic.
But not this. Not ever.
It all makes sense now. Back when you were writing fanfiction in the late 90's, you wrote a story where you were displaced as a Latias into a busy airport and used your Mary Sueish powers to avoid the long lines. It all adds up!
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One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
I have, but if I'm being honest, I never would have even considered it if not for the EQD X-Prize (which was not a thing that ever came to fruition).
I'm like, the only person here who literally doesn't care about that kind of thing otherwise. :B
4969262 Screw that. I'm going to Samarra!
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Don't forget your hijab!
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Rocking this new look while I rock the casbah!
I usually get annoyed when its something like 'Your here as villain character X.' And they decide 'Well I look like a villain, lets be evil!'
FFS Just because your a villain character doesn't mean you have to BE like the character, do something insane and be good instead instead of being a dick just because your villain was such in their setting.
It would be a lot more palatable if they acted out of type or contrary to the character they're now looking like.
Pity I can’t like this blog post :P cause I really do like it
Well I can't say that I don't know how it feels to have someone go behind your back and post your work into unauthorized groups without your permission, cause I do. It's happened to me several times. So now i've gotten to a solution that's worked wonders for me.
Step one: Turn off the sort groups by default for all of your stories!
Step two: Disable ratings so it'll prevent other troublemakers and trolls of the like from bashing your work anymore than what they've already done.
Step three: Layer several warnings for every story I create to forewarn the reader as to what to expect for the story.
I feel obligated to point out that my step by step solution isn't always the most effective one to follow! Reason being; Most people here are stubborn and don't pay attention to warnings at all. And then they get salty and pissed at me for it apparently being a "bad story". I say to them; "If you felt that it sucked and have paid any attention to any of my warnings, then why didn't you just ignore it? Why would you go though and read it anyways?"
I swear, i'll never understand other human beings for as long as i'll live!
My biggest complaint about displaced fics is the fact that most people who start working on one, especially the ones who have anything interesting about them, end up never updating after 1 to 3 chapters. Oh and most of them are kind of bad.
I only downvote when it's advertised as a crossover, but then turns out to be a fucking displaced fic. I wanted Gilgamesh to go to Equestria, I didn't want some mary sue, self insert Mofo to steal his body. If it's a displaced fic, don't use the Crossover tag.
I usually find displaced fics to be annoying because they feel lazy to me. Like, why bother making your character dress up as a crossover character and not, you know, actually use the character proper!?
But I understand inexperience when it comes to writing. Some people genuinely don't know any better. Whenever I find a displaced fic, I usually just ignore it instead of downvoting it.
Also, I'm one of the few people who never imagined himself in Equestria. I don't want to live there, what if I get eaten by a dragon!?
>Glances at my peachy crack fic
1) Power trip
2) Barely hidden Self-insert
3) Not really a crossover (just an oc self-insert) with the character's powers
4) Poorly thought out plot
1) Technically
2) If one strips out all my self control and appreciation of life, then replaced it with monofocused homicidal anger, probably
3) Does Peach count as a crossover?
4) I actually put in too much effort trying to make the stupid shit my brother and I came up with into something coherent.
You get all you want in those early stages: power, potential self-insert (possibly hidden), a power trip, your favorite characters, etc.
Power: Yep, definitely over powered
Power trip: Too bad everyone else is over powered +1
:P
Favorite characters: Its the only way I can get a fraction of my brother's admittedly pretty good bullshittery story telling skills down on paper somewhere.
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It looks like I've left an impression with that comment! I'm almost... flattered that some people would actually get pissed at me for something so frivolous as this. I've come to find that it's usually the stubborn ones that disagree, the ones that like to shame other people and don't like to be told "no!"
Let this message serve as an ode to the idiosyncrasies and impudence of mankind and our talent to remain hopelessly inconsistent with our values, scruples, principles, and overall lack of civility thereof.
As you all may have already noticed, I tend not to follow the typical status quo of the average human, I find it to be unnecessary. It's not my fault that most people i've ever encountered are for the most part, pig-headed, hypocritical, self- righteous and condescending. That's a nice combination isn't it?
I also tend not to think like most human beings either. i'm one of a kind. I like to form my own opinions, my own thoughts and feelings. and I don't like to chastise other people for things they like to do, whether or not I think what they do is disgusting is irrelevant. And I do not wish to further indulge myself in their transparent dishonesty.
Ah, Displaced fics. Can't say I'm a fan, and their perennial popularity has perpetually perplexed me. Then again, I'm watching the Overlord anime with some friends, and it has a rather similar premise in that a guy gets sent to a fantasy world as his MMO character along with all the NPCs from his guild. I guess that means that the concept can be executed well, but I figure that the focus of the story would have to not be on the self-insert character playing around with their new powers just for kicks and giggles. Like what 4969160 said, maybe a good one could be about a non-self-insert character and the thing they're displaced as, and exploring the conflicts between who they were before and what their new form represents. Maybe some guy gets displaced as Superman, and then they struggle to live up to the ideals of Truth, Justice, and the [Equestrian] Way? Or some guy gets displaced as a supervillain, but decide to do their best to use their powers for good. It's not something I feel like trying my hand at, but I know a guy who could probably spin this turd into gold if he felt like it.
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It's getting downvoted because it's off-topic. Nobody here was talking about your fics (or even anything in the same genre, from what I could gather), so why are you posting about that here?
Most FimFiction readers are scratching their heads trying to make sense of that sentence.
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Also, I'm blessed enough to have no idea what a "Displaced fic" is.
Displaced had potential, and if authors threw in more conflicts, it'd probably even be at least tolerable.
Remove the instant mastery, don't make them into the actual character they turn into, maybe add in a language barrier because those are always mildly amusing...
Just put some effort into making it an actual story and go from there.
HiE itself leaves a lot to be desired, so I totally understand your opinion being what it is. If it weren't for Starscribe's Ponies after People stories and a small handful of others, I'd probably still be steering clear of them even now.
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Being displaced is what I meant, people going behind your back to place your stories into groups that you did not authorize. It irks me when people do that.
Like with any story, If it's well done or the premise is good enough Seriously, some can only be described at best as very rough drafts otherwise I come, read, LEAVE!
I've always found that the problem can be summed up very simply as follows.
If you're going to give a character power, it'll just make your story worse unless that power is either useless to solve their problems or makes things worse. (This is basically the driving concept behind X-Men. Superhero powers, which are either useless for or actively cause social problems.)
That said, Displaced fics annoy me for the same reason they annoy Zoltanthemagnificent. I either want to read about a proper crossover character or your OC... not some half-assed amalgam of the two.
I suspect it boils down to the same two problems that make it difficult to write a good multi-crossover:
(However, there do exist workarounds to aid multi-crosses. For example, fanon concepts like "anime Japan"... an idea that was popular in the early days of online fanfiction which held that all contemporary 80s and 90s anime with compatible tones take place in the same 'anime japan' setting, where Japan (and especially Tokyo) is a patchwork quilt of little bubbles of craziness, all so desperate to conform that nobody realizes they're not the only island of crazy in a sane world. For example, having some mix of Ranma ½, Urusei Yatsura, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Catgirl Nuku Nuku, and so on all taking place in the same Japan and just never crossing over into each other's territories in the canon timelines.)
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Your choice. My perspective is that there is a glut of stuff to read so, if I can't use ratings as part of my pre-filtering, I just assume that it's not worth my time and move on to the next candidate. (Plus, just like putting "first fic" in synopses over on fanfiction.net, if you don't have confidence that it's ready to be read, why should I?)
Fundamentally, you're marketing your creation to the world and, if you market it poorly, it's not going to get readers.
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I can at least help with the "poorly thought out plot" part. A surprising amount unfolds naturally from some fairly simple details.
First, figure out your driving conflict. What problem is spurring the main character into action?
Second, how do you plan to end the story? The story should end (and possibly spawn a sequel) shortly after the conflict has been resolved. (Leave room to tie up any loose ends and/or include an epilogue so the reader can feel satisfied by seeing the aftermath of the resolution.) If your intended ending doesn't resolve the conflict you started with, then you're writing a series and need to wind the first conflict down before you spin up the second so that readers have a chance to take a break. (I can go into more detail on proper structuring of multi-part series if you're interested.)
Third, what kind of conflict is it? (person vs. person(s), person vs. self, person vs. society, person vs. nature, or person vs. fate) Most ideas can be any one of those, but each one will produce a very different story. (eg. Imagine the story of a homeless person living on the streets, seeking a place to belong. Person vs. person(s) would be them trying to overcome one or more defined characters, like a gang that controls the area or an obsessive partner or family member determined to "either have them or destroy them". Person vs. self would be something like a struggle against an addiction or mental illness which keeps them from holding down a job. Person vs. society would have the antagonist be the collective neglect and apathy of society as a whole, rather than a specific few people. Person vs. nature would be them against something that just passively exists, but is an obstacle merely by its existence... like trying to live through the coldest winter in years. Person vs. fate would be against something that actively causing problems by pitting people against each other when neither of them are in the wrong... like having something drive more homeless people into an area that's already at capacity.)
As for the "power trip" part, you don't necessarily need it to be hard for the main character... you just need to keep it from feeling boring and/or formulaic. (Engaging stories I've read where it's a curb-stomp for the heroes tend to be engaging because the author is good at some blend of comedy, imaginative world-building, and making the details of the curb-stomp unpredictable and entertainingly creative (ie. how they curb-stomp each problem).
huh. I usually downvote mostly for myself, in case I forget I tried to read it. Ya know, to never open something ever again
Below the Sturgeon Line, that 90 percent line, lurks the realm of self inserts, mary sues, and crackships. An oyster-like sea of mucus, where one can be lost in the lower quality fics of questionable content. Descend deeper, and you will reach the seafloor, a slurry of muck where the low effort stories lie.
Happy sailing the fanfiction sea. Watch out for sharks.
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Haha, well, I mean
1) The 'conflict', or rather the primary humor of the whole thing is a genocidal maniac stuck in a world where nobody can die, ontop of the sheer amount of diablous ex machina heaped on him for refusing to swallow his over inflated pride.
2) Considering that my brother and I have RP'd this for 6 years and counting, and him still being able to come up with new scenarios, I doubt I'll ever run out of material. When the solution to every problem is 'learn from your mistakes', and I play a character who has refused to do exactly that for over a million years, the resolution isn't exactly ever gonna come anytime soon.
3) Conflict, is as mentioned, me (a genocidal god of war), vs my brother (playing everyone else + giver of bad luck incarnate)
I try to vaporize my hometown on a regular basis, have an effectively infinite jail sentence, and yet somehow ended up one of their top black ops agent, missions of which things go extremely right no matter how i try to break everything. Trying to assasinate my escort ends in me hitting the enemy assasin instead.
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1) In a formal sense, the conflict is a bit more specific. It's the thing that drives the main character, from their perspective. (ie. What is his goal?)
2) You still want to know what would qualify as a satisfactory resolution.
3) Again in a formal sense, the conflict is defined in-universe. Within the context of the narrative, what is your brother manifesting as?
Also, would I be correct in guessing that you took some inspiration from Old Man Henderson?
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1) His goal has gone back and forth from "leave me alone" to "genocide of the universe", which tends to fail in some hilarious fashion.
2) Its probably a gonna be one of those open ended things where it stops when i run out of ideas. The character I play basically refuses to submit and play along for more than a day before trying to kill something, regardless of the consequences.
3) My brother plays the chaos bad-luck god Dungeon Master in a campaign that has effectively no end because the universe refuses to let me die, and I refuse to play along with a universe filled with idiots.
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1) Sounds like it'd be useful to make sure you known how to put the deeper common thread behind those two goals into words.
2) Sure, but it's still very useful to understand what it's "headed toward" even if you keep planning to draw it out so it never reaches it.
3) Is he actually a god within the setting's universe or does he just drive events?
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This feels like a conversation that can be moved to PMs if it is to continue
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ah, sorry. will do
4969421 [...]most people i've ever encountered are for the most part[...]
Pig-headed:
"[...]I tend not to follow the typical status quo of the average human, I find it to be unnecessary."
Condescending:
"Let this message serve as an ode to the idiosyncrasies and impudence of mankind and our talent to remain hopelessly inconsistent with our values, scruples, principles, and overall lack of civility thereof."
Self-righteous:
"I don't like to chastise other people for things they like to do, whether or not I think what they do is disgusting is irrelevant. And I do not wish to further indulge myself in their transparent dishonesty."
hypocritical:
"[...]most people i've ever encountered are[...] pig-headed, hypocritical, self-righteous and condescending."
This is called projecting.
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What are you, some kind of white knight? You couldn't talk to me in my profile, so you decided to do so here. Really? You're not the first that i've dealt with, and you won't be the last.
If you have to something to say to me, then say it to my face!
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Furthermore, what's so wrong with speaking the truth? I'm not being mean, i'm being honest. If anything, there should be more people in the world like me, who're unafraid to speak their mind.