Give the CMC some motivation

I've been reading a bunch of Anon-a-Miss fics lately and have noticed a trend. A lot of people flesh out Sunset and her past, present and future. A good number of them give other side characters a chance to shine, from Gilda to Octavia, from Sirens to shadowbolts. A lot less give their time to the main 5 and how and why they react like they do. But I haven't seen any (yet) that give the CMC some motivations for their actions besides what is already said in the comic. Which is wierd considering how bad the reception was for the comic story back when it came out. Heck, I've seen people give Sunset more reasons for her actions before and during the first movie in these fics than the CMC for their action that started the whole deal in the first place.

So here is my idea (you might call it a wish) that I've been carrying around for a while. Keep the whole apparent jealousy going but do some real heavy hitting on the respective sisters.
- Scootaloo, <I'm going with orphan Scoots here, because it works well with my narrative> has had the feeling of being wanted by someone other than her 2 best friends, she finally got herself something akin to a family member around the time RD got into high school. RD making her an honorable sister and all, you know the deal. But since the fall formal she found herself alone again (not counting AB and SB), suddenly she was rejected again, became second fiddle to someone/something else in her family's life. Outside of school she hasn't seen RD much, much less gotten a visit from her in the home. And her learning that they weren't even going to celebrate Christmas together because the Rainbooms would celebrate with Sunset this year was the last straw. The only thing she needed now was an opportunity to make everything go back to how it used to be. And if she got a bit of revenge on RD for the neglect she wouldn't complain.
- Sweetie Belle, <I'm going with mostly absent parents for this one, kinda as it seems to be in the show> has seen her grades drop since the fall formal because Rarity hasn't been helping her with her school problems anymore. Upon being asked Rarity had suddenly been busy all the time either directly with the Rainbooms and Sunset or with creating for the band and Sunset, or something like that. Also since the fall formal Rarity had been increasingly negligent in driving Sweetie Belle to her singing practice (which is at a private music school) due to being busy or having forgotten while hanging out with Sunset and the others. So much so that her teacher had almost expelled her due to apparently not taking this seriously by not showing up much lately. And even help with that problem (that was caused by Rarity) has been postponed multiple times now. The last straw again was the plan of celebrating Christmas with Sunset instead of Sweetie Belle. And a little bit of payback was due.
- Apple Bloom, had been trying to convince AJ of the fact that RD and Rarity weren't as bad people as she had been claiming for years but now apparently all it took for the problems to resolve themselves had been that AJ just talk to them. AB had been claiming that for years but has in best cases been ignored, in worst cases basically been called a liar, by her sister no less. And even worse: the one actually responsible for most of the tension in the apple household had been pardoned. And suddenly Apple Bloom was the bad person for seeing the bad side in someone, a bad side that had been proven to exist beyond any doubt at the fall formal. Suddenly her previous argument of people changing, of forgiving and forgetting were valid points. But apparently only when AJ used them for Sunset. All of that in addition to seeing much less of her family now that Mac had gotten a girlfriend and AJ was hanging out with her "new family". The last straw was hearing AJ call Sunset part of the family and planning on spending Christmas with her instead of AB - her actual family, like they had been doing for years and how AJ had been assuring her, would always happen.

As you can see I blew up the "you don't spend time with me anymore"-angle to a degree where it makes sense to me that a young mind would lash out. I also tried to point out that the first movie changed more in the friendship circle of the m5 than just the addition of Sunset, the entire gang had been basically hating each other for years and therefore probably spend their time with family instead of friends, especially considering how toxic to new friendships the school had been. I wanted to make sure to show that the CMC getting as much attention from their sisters as they got was a direct result of Sunsets machinations back then and also that the neglect came from suddenly having 4 more friends again in addition to Sunset. Not that the CMC truly understand that part. To them all was good, but then everything changed when the fire nation attacked Sunset became friends with their sisters. So it stands to reason that they would try to frame her, in addition to her probably being the easiest target. I also tried to explain that the CMC not only see the damage to their sisters' reputations as a necessary evil but as part of the lashing out, as them being part of the targets for the whole scheme. Of course without thinking the thing through as young people tend to do.

I also found it important to make sure that the flaws shown by the CMCs explanation of their point of view hits their sisters in their Element of Harmony. Scoots feeling left alone by Loyalty, Sweetie feeling wanting from Generosity, and Bloom accusing Honesty of inconsistency and self deception.

I'd also like to point out that, depending on how old you make the CMC, those years had been a significant portion of their young lives. This has never been addressed in any of the fics I've read. Instead some go out of their way to find reasons to punish them instead of exploring how and why people turn to cyberbullying instead of trying to talk about the problems they have.

And worst of all are the fics where Twilight becomes angry. Ponies are very rarely angry, I believe that she would be disappointed instead. But that goes far beyond what I wanted to talk about in this blog post.

I just wanted the idea to be out there that the CMC deserve more motivations and reasons to start Anon-a-Miss than 2 lines that can be summarized with one word.

MfG NIchtraucher