i finally figured what pisses me off about so many anon-a-miss stories

so i was trying to articulate some of my thoughts while working on new chapter of the room is on fire, and i think i finally understand why so much of the response to anon-a-miss annoys me. don't get me wrong, i can appreciate many of the stories that have resulted from it, but the problem for me is trying to fit that narrative — the human five coming off as obliviously cruel, other students coming off as monsters, every goddamn portrayal of the cmc, sunset getting murdered, sunset wanting to commit s*icide because of this, specifically — in with the previous instalments in eqg while still only remaining sympathetic to sunset.

so… several points were intended to be made here. the first and most pressing is the problem of the human five. in my opinion, while most of the actions of the human five weren't great, they weren't completely out of the blue. we know that the five took some time to get used to sunset, learn to get along with her, etc., as suggested by rainbow rocks, and we know that sunset doesn't actually step into a leadership role — as in, paralleling the role princess twilight plays in the main six — until the end of friendship games. we also know that this organisation among the group occurs subconsciously, since there's never any explicit moment when we see either sunset or twilight (who operates as a sort of foil for sunset and vice-versa) explicitly being referred to as the leader*. therefore, since it isn't an active decision for sunset to be the leader, her role as the leader in the group is one that develops as she gets more comfortable with her friends and as her friends get more comfortable with her. the point of all this is to say that sunset's redemption arc** does not actually reach its conclusion until the end of friendship games, when she learns to help others with the knowledge she gained from her own experience. suggesting that sunset's redemption arc ends with rainbow rocks is ridiculous because that's like — to use one of the most famous onscreen redemption arcs — suggesting that zuko's redemption arc ends with him choosing to leave on the day of black sun, or with him helping beat combustion man. it doesn't end there. there's a reason why atla went to the trouble of writing several episodes where zuko made reparations with characters that he had hurt before, like katara, sokka, suki, and aang, or at least properly apologising to them, like iroh. sunset proving everything she had learned from the others to help her help twilight? that was the end of her redemption arc. that was her proving that she's a better person, not her taking off a jacket and singing with the others. maybe that was when they started believing that she was trying, but again. by no means was that a halfway decent conclusion to sunset's arc.

what that tells me is that, right after accepting that she's trying, and starting to try and integrate her more into their friend group, the girls find out that someone is spilling their secrets. the main suspects are the six of them, because only them six were there at the time those secrets were shared. (yes, its the cmc, but it isn't unreasonable for the five to assume its one person. it really isn't). one of them — sunset — has a history of this, of selectively spilling and sharing secrets in order to hurt people, and the pictures that were posted were from her phone. pushing aside the excessively obvious nature of the Anon-a-Miss account for a minute, it really is not unreasonable for the five to think, ok, the MO and the evidence are a match for sunset, but i thought she'd changed! but then, she did manage to keep herself from getting caught before, until the fall formal, so she's obviously a great actress! she lied and betrayed us! and just keep going from there. what is unreasonable is for a group of teenagers, of whom three have issues with pride, two of whom are pretty hotheaded, two of whom were directly victimised by sunset, and two of whom are often quick to jump to conclusions***, to all react perfectly rationally in the light of a possible betrayal by a friend.

also. teenagers. they aren't perfectly rational. they aren't always smart. did they do a dumb thing in AaM? yes. is it unrealistic? no.

and that's what pisses me off. the five are always painted as the worst of the worst for their response, but… its. not that unrealistic. would it fit better if it had been placed pre-rainbow rocks? probably. would it be better if they sat down and realised, hey, maybe we jumped to conclusoins? definitely. but still! not unrealistic! it's definitely something in which the aftermath could be handled better, but… just jumping into the whole. they fucked up so bad and im gonna make them s u f f e r because im a preteen edgelord who refuses to consider anything remotely close to nuanced storytelling is. getting kind of boring.

(honestly this is why i prefer the non-overly dramatic aftermath/fix-it fics, the ones that focus on rebuilding relationships post-AaM — ones like this genius of a story — over,,,, just all the others)

* yes, they've been referred to as "leading" or "taking charge" in certain situations but there's a difference between being an explicitly mentioned general leader of a group regardless of situation and simply being referred to as the leader in certain situations

** i have several problems with sunset's supposed 'redemption arc' as it is presented in the series, the most prominent of which is the idea that they try to push that sunset's arc ends with rr (again, you know why i dislike) but also because we don't see her… actually redeeming herself. like we know she helped rebuild the school. ok fine. but what the hell else did she do between eqg and rr and rr and fg?? how did she change?? what parts of friendship were harder for her and what parts were easier?? how did she make it up to the school/the individual people in the school who she'd hurt?? how did she make up to fluttershy, to rarity for whatever happened at the spring fling?

*** ok the prideful ones: rarity, rainbow, aj; the hotheads: aj and rainbow; the victimised ones: rarity and fluttershy; conclusion jumpers: pinkie and dash. plus there's also something to be said about… well. aj puts a lot of value in trust, and she'd be majorly Not Okay with someone seemingly betraying her trust. similar thing for rainbow and loyalty. there's also a bit to be said about rarity being one of sunset's old victims (its canon! that rarity was the person sunset went up against in the previous spring fling!) and well. fluttershy's, i feel, kind of the one who ends up taking the most time to warm up to sunset after the fall formal (literally. so many moments in rr support this). and pinkie isn't really down for betrayals either, esp those of trust as suggested by the lats roundup (wrong universe, i know, but. if there're any constants in the multiverse, it'd be pinkie pie)

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[Pete100]

Honestly, what pisses me off about anon-a-miss stories is not only the hypocrisy in the stories, but also the hypocrisy in the comment sections.