Insert character name here is a nice guy. He's friendly, polite, and is always willing to help a person in need. When he appears in equestria as an alicorn, insert character name here is forced to adjust to this world in the only way he knows how. By emulating the characters from his favourite fanfics, especially his favorite story "Angsty Violent Red and Black Alicorn Tales" by D. Drisco.

First, however... He needs to find some black and red dye.

tags: comedy

Notes; This story would probably best be told in short self contained chapters. Each chapter could look at one aspect of bad fanfiction that annoys the author, have the main character become convinced that it's the best way to solve a problem, have it fail horribly and end with the main character in jail or turned to stone.

what's good and bad in fanfiction (aside from the obvious like overused clichés, poor grasp of the language it's being written in, and unreasonably large plotholes) tends to be very subjective... I don't think this would be well suited to a single author, and might work better as a collaborative piece.

1048471 Yeah, you're probably right there. I'll admit when I came up with the idea I was mainly thinking about some of the cliches associated with HIE and Mary/Gary Sue characters. in particular the ones that seem to let the main characters get away with things like assaulting ponies that annoy them or verbally abusing the princesses, just because they're the main character. That led me to thinking about what would happen if a person went to Equestria and used those types of stories as a guide to proper behaviour.

I can see what you mean about it working as a collaborative piece. it would actually be kind of interesting to see a whole lot of different perspectives on what makes a bad character.

1050529 yes but even the standards of what makes a mary sue are subjective. while yes, going too far in any direction, even one that's part of canon can be disastrous for character design, so can trying to balance a character without taking into account the setting. What would seem perfectly normal in mlp, like making friends quickly, and having a talent you're better than anyone at, can get a character branded a mary sue in a setting where such things don't happen as frequently. Just as abnormally fast and strong animal characters like Mina or Mighty fit in with Sonic, but would look like a blatant attempt to upstage the mane six here.That often leads the label to being applied to characters that are well designed but poorly suited to the setting they're being used in, leading to mary-sue/no-such-sue arguments that spawn forum flamewars.

1053625 I think what treesy's going for is that someone read too much "black and red OC alicorn gets away with anything and everything because original character" fics, and thinks that's how normal alicorns (if that's a thing) live their lives. Just remember, though, that in the end it is the person who claims this idea that gets to interpret the premise and write the story.