DashBell: Y'all Cowards Don't Even Ship 55 members · 6 stories
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Pigeonsmall
Group Admin

Or more properly known as DAH EVUL BUWWY!!! *lightning strike*

The kind of character, usually male, who pushes you against your locker and punches you in the gut just for looking at him funny. The guy who'll threaten death upon you for your lunch money. Or maybe he just throws condescending insults your way due to your unfortunate short comings. Or he has some unconscious jealousy, or bone to pick with you. We all know this guy. And we all really hate him. He's a villain and a bad guy, so naturally no thought should ever be put into his development as a character. Right?

Wrong. Big fat red X. In fact having a shallow archetype as a commonly recurring character in your work of writing or art is one of the sure fire ways to get me to stop reading your shit really fast. Why? I hate shallow characters who don't stay in the place of a shallow character. What I mean is, once the one dimensional bully becomes the crux of the circumstances your protagonist find themselves in, or at least they play an important role in how or why the main characters do something, or act a certain way, or say certain things...You, my friend, have created a tool. And tools are really awful characters (if you can even award them that title) and a big indication that you either just suck, or you are not interested in writing to your full ability. Tools have no reason, no motive, they are simply automatons, and a means to an end. This makes them aggravating to see and hear because as "characters" they are nothing more than plot devices and wastes of space.

Case and point, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, fortunate enough to have had multiple moments on screen (due to the purview of the CMC being so dull and limited), we get to see these two bitches in almost every CMC episode ever. And they only have one mode, be jerks. And I guess this is alright if you apply the "this is a kid show" low standard upon FiM. Since the show is 98% episodic, the writers can't waste too much time on background ponies. /sarcasm/ But when it comes to fanfiction I tend to expect more. Fic writers aren't held back by budget or deadlines. And from what I have seen, DT and SP do get a number of decent fics where the writer takes what little we know about them, and flesh them out into actually likable or at least understandable characters.

For Gilda it's probably double the fun. People love writing redemption fics about her. And I'm not even saying that's a bad thing. Getting to my point, I wish more than just me and like 2 other people would try the same thing for Dumbbell, Hoops and Score. I mean come on what makes them any different? Why can't they be redeemed? Because they're guys? Hell you can argue that Dumbbell's apology at the end of Sonic Rainboom wasn't sincere. But at least he did it. What did Gilda do? She threw a temper tantrum and ran away. Didn't even try to make amends. The only episode she is ever in, ends her relationship with Rainbow Dash on dark terms, and this fuels the the multitude of lesbian fics about them getting back together somehow and making out making amends.

But for some reason the Cloudsdale jocks can't even have a crumb of this redemption pie. It baffles me really, but to be honest I chalk it up to them not having vaginas. I don't think this is very fair. Do you?

Redemption aside, if you want to write a bully antagonist, at least try to make them interesting. Even Draco Malfoy had his reasons for being who he was to the protagonists. Plus he was a bit of a coward but his actions made sense. In most stories that I read where Dumbbell is unfortunate enough to exist, he has no reason or motive. (Hoops and Score are lucky to be named) Why does he hate Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy? Why does he bully them? To the average writer this doesn't matter. He's a tool to be used and tossed out, normally by a bad OC who gets to beat him up. Fanfiction can answer these questions but because Dumbbell isn't a girl, nobody wants to. At least that's how I see it. I'm fine with him being a bully as long as his reasons are made clear. Heck, even that expectation may be too high, at least throw a hint to the reader as to why he acts the way he does. Even if it's petty, I'll take a Freudian excuse over Dumbbell just waking up one morning to swear an oath to the god of bad characters that he will torment Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy forever.

As the John Hood has said:

There's nothing wrong with archetypes, in fact they're good, I think, but... it's a template, not a pre-made character.

Obi-wan Kenobi and Gandalf are both the mentor in their hero cycles, but both are very different characters despite being the same archetype.

Pigeonsmall
Group Admin

It's like a weird subset of white knight-ism.

3933571 Discord was even redeemed on show.

Why not mention Prince Blueblood, he just so happen to be the male who was a pain for Rarity.
Going by just an Episode, Braeburn was a Pain when Applejack needed to tell him about the lost Appletree.

On the note, I do have a story explaining how and why Blueblood is how he is. What I did not know of his person is based on the archtype. A Royalty.

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