Let's talk about… · 4:29pm Nov 26th, 2018
Anon-a-miss Fanfiction.
I felt a great disturbance in my followers, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly engaged in a blogpost. Hell, I think I saw some of you cringe! (In my mind's eye! I'm not hacking your computers/phones! yet. But soon you will all have to read my Romance fics!)
Anyway. There's a bit of a thing about anon-a-miss. So let's first start with what the hell it is, for those unaware of the source of it, but aware of the sheer amount of fics that it has generated (including an angsty one from yours truly).
Anon-a-miss was a story in the EqG Comic Books that covered a bit of the fallout of Sunset's redemption. Long story short, the CMCs resented the sudden change of heart of not only bet human, but also their sisters, and the fact that they now were friends with the bully. (Reformed or not.)
So far so good, right? The story was a self-contained tale that had our CMCs creating a fake Social Media account, naming it Anon-a-miss (think Gabby Gums), but instead of "reporting" it's intentionally set up to troll/attack/expose everyone, and—in a very obvious way—implicate Sunset as the one behind it.
This turns the whole school against her, including the human!5 (this is pre-SciTwi). It gets very emotional for Sunny who's changed, but can't convince people despite the overwhelming evidence (with some basic thought process) that it wasn't really her doing it.
Then again, we're talking about a world where she apparently fooled school staff with the creative use of printed pictures, scissors, and glue, so the logic bar wasn't that high.
It eventually gets resolved of course, but the story, besides being overly simplistic, also came out at the wrong time—right after Rainbow Rocks. At that stage, the school's distrust for Sunset would have mellowed considerably, and the sheer level of aggression caught a lot of readers by surprise.
Now. We've seen stuff like this before. Remember Mare-do-well? Or people's reaction at the gang's perceived betrayal of Twilight's trust during the wedding? Yeah. Crank it up.
For better or worse, however realistic they are or not, EqG mirrors real life a bit more than MLP, and high school drama is something we all have gone through. Mistrust, betrayal (because it was betrayal in the comics) and downright hostility—dealing with issues like depression, isolation, solitude… these are things we can relate to, and the younger the reader/author, the more fresh it is.
Don't get me wrong. I disdained AaM fics when they came out. I (in)famously stated that "Sunset wouldn't be that weak" to commit suicide over something like anon-a-miss.
Talk about saying something dickish and wrong. I knew better then, but I did allow my grumpiness at the many crappy stories I'd seen so far influence my reaction.
Funny enough, it was shortly after saying that specifically moronic statement that I started reading more anon-a-miss fics. Truth be told, most of them are crappy, overly dramatic, exaggerations that treat the thing as an excuse to bash on their most hated characters. But again, that is not all of them, is it?
As expected—and as is normal here—even though there was the bandwagon aspect of it, quality improved. Some stories touched the same stuff others had—but in a way that made me realize that people were treating this plot device seriously and using it to explore things in ways they couldn't do with MLP:FIM.
One of my personal favorites, Feather Fall (link to author, story is rated M) deals with several interesting issues from both main characters… from the consequences of the CMCs actions, to the natural resentment with the rest of the cast, to disabilities, etc. It also features a great, unusual couple!
Others do deal with suicidal feelings—and they do it right. But the caveat is also that writing stories like these, despite their quality, is something that does help the authors sort through their own feelings about the issue. The fact that they use this device as a medium is just a step closer to them than what they would otherwise achieve with their own OCs or with ponies.
My own story was a bit of an attempted jab at self-centered individuals who looked at themselves smugly as heroes (or heroines) while going out of their way to hurt others or abuse olive branches, and seek their own benefit from people who are in the middle of an emotionally-unstable period of time. It mostly ended up reading like an emo-fest, if I'm perfectly honest.
The point is, it's a very real, and very useful device to explore things that are immediate—it provides a convenient, semi-canonical (comics are not really canon) method of exploring aftermaths of things real people here have gone through.
Because shit like that does happen. People's reputations online are destroyed constantly, and seldom do we ever give anyone the benefit of the doubt.
We see it here in fimfic all the time: the melodrama of constant antagonizing. Spreading rumors. Petty-downvote revenge. Misinterpretations that are used as fuel to fan the flames. "Fix-fics" that attack not only the original author, but the story and anyone that disagrees. Raging, unreasoning diatribes in blogs, forums, comment sections… it's brutal.
Is it really so strange people are drawn to Anon-a-miss stories to explore this?
I don't think so.
One thing goes through my mind when I see these stories pop up.
"Thank GOD I'm not in school anymore."
I think that Anon-a-Miss is probably the darkest official EqG story that's ever been published, even that franchise often sails closer to the PG boundary than Friendship is Magic ever dares. I suspect that is why Forgotten Friendship was so powerful for so many fans - It canonised the whole issue of just how profoundly Sunset has changed and just how devastating being treated as the monster she once was would be for her now.
I'm still wholly disinterested, despite having never read one. The concept just doesn't do anything for me. I'd be willing to try one if it was specifically requested, but on my own I look at all the Anon-A-Miss stories with a general sense of meh. It's not a jab against them by any means, it's just that stories based on it feel obvious, and I generally prefer to avoid obvious concepts.
Wonderfully said!
Take emotional children. Give them a place where they can post their emotional thoughts.
THEN consider just what emotional children say without social and cultural restrictions, remove any restraint caused by face-to-face interactions, multiply by the 'Pile on' factor of social media. Now you have three groups of children. (Yes, I count you college kids as children.)
1) The picked-on
2) The pickers-on
3) Bystanders
We've all been in the picked-on group at one time or another, as well as being pickers and bystanders. Yes, even those of us who claim the halo of being perfect. That allows us to empathize with both parties in the AaM stories.
The problem is emotionally immature children (of whatever age) get into the picked-on group and can't get out. We seek a sense of importance by the approval of our peers, and being tied emotionally to the approval of people who *like* to disapprove of you is a certain path to destruction.
A thought-provoking proposition. Though, to be honest, I could never get past the logical inconsistencies of a story that simultaneously wants to be set before and after Rainbow Rocks. To say nothing of awkwardly working the cyberbullying drama into what's supposed to be a holiday comic.
Yeah, I'd have to agree with you, and the thing is we're in a fandom with people who were probably bullied in some way or another so this comic, it does stir up a lot of bad memories so they need a way to vent. Trouble is, this genre's been so beaten into the ground so much I only groan nowadays whenever I see a piece, especially those that were hugely inspired by Dainn's masterwork. (Your mileage may vary on that last bit.)
Timing was not always the best for things with releases.
Anyone recall Gak and Sombra?
But georg offers it far better than I.
I cant comment on this for anything other than related points of interest, as i never was that close to the eqg side of things.
4973173
Amen to that. I was definitely at the bottom of the food chain in high school, and I remember being in dark places at times. I don't like to think about how dark that might have gotten if cyberbullying had been added to the mix.
If only to assuage my own anti-Anon-a-Miss story, you can write suicide fics and fics about characters dealing with bullying and any number of other school-related issues without tying them to a crappy story from the comics that dropped, what, five years ago? I understand the desire, just not the obsession.
4973230
You're going to need to be more specific
my issue with the fics is well very few tackle the idea of the rainbooms NOT turning on sunset which would lead to the school turning on them to plenty of drama and such to explore there
I frankly see these stories all the time. I don't even read them so I really know nothing about them. Thanks for clearing it up.
The accusation fics of this comic need to stop. Thanfully the comic is not canon, and this is something I and another user pointed out in the EG group. At the start of Friendship Games, Sunset says this.
That part in black letter proves that the comic is not canon.
4973321
I'm not saying it is canon, just that all the quote proves is that Sunset didn't want to talk about it, which would be understandable.