Chapter 1: Stuck With Ponies
Upon reflection, you really shouldn't have volunteered for the experiment.
Your first mistake was that you liked this girl.
Well woman, really, cause she's older than you, and you're always supposed to call chicks "women," at least in writing, or you get marked down for it cause it's sexist. You call them other things when you're trying to impress the guys, but you don't print that out on paper, just tap it into your phone, which is different. You're writing this down on paper with a pen (how retro!) so you figure printout rules apply, if any rules apply, given that you left the normal world behind.
Seeing as you're writing this not for teachers, but for Ponies.
Yes, Ponies.
You're in a world that nobody could have ever thought of, one where the people are Ponies. Little Ponies, around the size of large dogs, with big heads and big eyes and they come up around to your hips at their shoulders, and so when they stand on all four legs they look up to you even though they have really long necks. It's weird.
Oh, and they're smart, not as smart as people, cause they don't have cars or computers or cell phones or porn, at least not porn sites cause there's no Internet, but maybe some of them are almost as smart as real people -- that Twilight Sparkle girl woman wymyn mare, she seems like she could almost be a real person. Almost as smart as you.
Twilight Sparkle is the one you're writing this for, sort of like a report for class, and after she read that first part something seems to get her mad, cause she screws up her face real strange and looks at you like she was going to bite you, only you don't think the Ponies bite. Do real horses bite? You don't know cause you never saw real horses except on videos, and they weren't biting so you guess not. But maybe purple talking unicorns do bite, so you should watch out.
Oh, and she has magic.
She starts to say a lot of nasty insulting stuff, something about some "microcephalic anthropoid bare-skinned barbarian" or something like that, and the marshmallow unicorn says "Darling, he can hear everything you're saying," and suddenly Twilight stopped speaking real words and was just saying her horse gabble. What you heard was -- ever watched one of those videos about the old days when there were horses and people rode them cause they didn't have cars? And one of thse horses would get pissed off about something and it'd make mad noises, huffing and snorting and -- "whinnying?" Like it wanted to bite, but -- you covered that. Twilight was making them. But you don't think she'll bite.
Then again you know they aren't really horses. They can talk -- when the translation thing works, which it doesn't always -- and they have books and houses and even trains though they're old-fashioned choo-choos. They're just like people, almost as smart even if they don't have porn sites and maybe they'll have that someday too.
And they're lots of weird colors, both the hair on their bodies and faces and hair on their heads and necks and tails, what they call "manes." Twilight Sparkle's purple and her mane's like a dark purple with a long pinkish streak; she has a friend called Pinkie Pie who's mostly pink with a fluffy red-pink mane; and the weirdest looking one is Rainbow Dash who's light blue but with a mane that's every color like a rainbow, like her name. And some more normal ones like Applejack, who's orange and blond-haired, and that other unicorn -- what's her name, Raree or something like that -- she looks like a marshmallow with purple twisty hair, which you guess isn't that normal. Oh and there's the yellow one with the pink hair, Fluttershy.
Also they've got like tatts on their butts. All of the grown ones, and these are like colorful pictures, the same on both sides. Like Twilight Sparkle has this big star surrounded by little stars; and the orange one with the hat, Applejack, she's got red apples; and Fluttershy's got blue butterflies on her yellow. They're kind of neat, but the Ponies don't like if you touch them -- they'll either hop away from you and look mad, or complain. Though Pinkie Pie was kind of cool about it -- she just kind of giggled and twisted away and said, "Silly, it's naughty to do that!" when you poked her balloons. You think maybe she likes you, cause she acts friendly.
Also, some of them have horns and some have wings while most just look like freaky cute little colorful horses. And some have horns and wings, but there aren't many of them.
Twilight Sparkle -- she's the one in charge of the group that's looking after you -- she's one of the rare kind with wings and horns. They're called "Alicorns" and they can fly and do magic. See, the ones with wings can fly -- they're called "Pegasi" and the ones with horns can pick up things with magic and they're called "Unicorns" and the plain ones are just "Earth Ponies" and they can't do anything.
Twilight Sparkle's an Alicorn, and Rarity's a Unicorn, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are Pegasi, and Pinkie Pie and Applejack are are just Earth Ponies.
Also, there's Spike, who's this little purple lizard thing they call a "Dragon" but he's more like a cartoon gecko that walks and talks and barfs up letters and can send them places with his fire so he's really kind of a fax machine. He's like Twilight's pet or flunky, and he seems to have some kind of thing for Rarity which is silly cause he's just some dumb lizard.
You handed the last sheet to them and now Twilight and Rarity are glaring at you. Applejack and Pinkie don't look too happy either. These Ponies are hard to understand.
Dear Princess Celestia,
As per your assignment, I have instructed the Human, Charlie Yu, to write his own report regarding the manner in which he came to our world, and his impressions of Equestria. Also, as per your assignment, I have not substantially edited or rewritten his report, save to correct his most egregious errors of grammar and spelling. I most notably resisted the temptation to rewrite the muddled sequence of Yu's comments into a properly organized -- though still poorly-conceived -- essay.
I wish that I could like him better. I'm supposed to have some insight into Friendship, but I find Charlie Yu to be a very annoying and repulsive being. I'm not entirely sure why he bothers me so much. It can't be his physical form -- I was a very similar-looking biped for a brief time not so long ago, and after the initial shock I didn't find the Humanoids that terribly bad. Some of them were quite nice, really, including at least one of the males. Charlie ... isn't quite as nice.
He is of low intelligence and not entirely pleasant disposition, and -- based on his obsession with sexually-explicit images -- probably of poor moral character, though that last part is purely theoretical since he is unlikely to encounter a female of his species in Equestria. (He actually found fault with my library because it lacked "adult books," by which term he meant not books with an adult perspective on life but rather erotic fiction. What does he imagine the Golden Oak Library is -- some sort of brothel?)
I think that the attribute I find most annoying about Charlie Yu is his arrogance. He very clearly considers himself superior to Ponies, for no very obvious reason. Part of this may be the solipsistic and unthinking racism that comes from his species isolation; on his Earth, Humans appear to be the only sapient life forms. Part is almost certainly cultural. Charlie's civilization seems to have only a weak and rudimentary understanding of the Harmony -- in this being neither better nor worse than my own remote ancestors, before we became more enlightened by The Megan, by your own self, and others.
There is that disturbing story he told of a great moral teacher who came among his people and advocated something very like the Harmony, only to be tortured to death. That one has given me nightmares, and made me seriously doubt the sanity of his species.
However, part of Charlie's sense of superiority very obviously derives from the fact that the Humans -- judging by the information which Charlie has been able to provide -- are more technologically advanced than is modern Equestria, being roughly equivalent to the Ponies toward the end of the Age of Wonders. They have widespread heavier-than-air flight, mechanized road transport, electronic communication and computation -- technologies Ponykind once possessed, but lost in the Cataclysm and are only now taking the first fumbling steps towards regaining.
Charlie did nothing to create these Wonders. He doesn't know how to maintain them. He could not explain, save in very general terms, how any of them worked. Yet, because he had enjoyed their benefits, and could not here in Equestria, he judged not only his people but his own self to be utterly superior to us!
Even as a mere user of these Wonders, he was utterly crass. For instance, Charlie's world, like that of the similar Humanoid world I visited, had combined electronic communication, computation and data storage into an "Internet" which allowed any user -- and most of his people had access to this system -- to communicate with anyone else in the system, even on the other side of the planet. From hints he has dropped, it seems likely that the libraries of Charlie's world have been connected to this Internet in such a manner as to enable a scholar to simply turn on her computer and have free access to all the knowledge of his whole world!
Not that Charlie could provide any details of such usage. For Charlie never used the Internet in this fashion. He said he'd done research "on the computer" when he was in school, but that this was "just work." It was "boring."
For what purpose did he use the Internet, this marvel of scholarship? Why, to get "porn." To look at it "online," and "download" it, And ... but I will not sully my report to you, my Beloved Teacher, with further description of the many joys Charlie claimed were attainable with tremendous quantities of readily available pornography (*).
I shall also forward the comments of my associates.
Your Faithful Student
Princess Twilight Sparkle,
Ponyville, February 24th, YOH 1504
(*) At least not in the main body. An appendix will follow which shall contain the details of porn-lore as related by Charlie Yu.
The cover photo is of an unknown man who looked enough like my concept of Charlie Yu to serve as an illustration. Unknown man, I apologize in advance if you ever read this tale. Given his name, Charlie Yu had to be either Northeastern Chinese or Korean in origin; I went with Korean as you'll see later. He's a Korean-American, of course, as his cultural assumptions and referents as shown in both "Stuck" and An Epistolary Consultation Between Princesses are more American than Korean. He comes from a world a lot like ours, save in that it contains at least one female mad scientist able to generate an interdimensional portal. Come to think of it, maybe our world has at least one such person! 
I had to "dial down" my normal style to represent Charlie Yu's blithering; I in particular made an effort to defocus my mind and avoid organizing his thoughts too clearly. Then I had to edit it back up to something readable. I didn't mean any actual typos, so if you see them, please do point them out to me.
I specifically wrote Charlie's description of the Ponies in as disorganized a manner as I could while still being comprehensible. Note that he obsesses about their coloring and leaves the major fact that they are divided into different Kinds as a hasty addendum to his little essay. He also doesn't understand what they can do very well.
To be fair to Charlie, Twilight told him to write down his thoughts honestly. It's not his fault that she doesn't like some of what he's thinking. Twilight's control freak tendencies are showing here. I never claimed that the SWSV Twilight Sparkle is perfect, though she's a very good Pony in general.
If it's not obvious, the part where Charlie said that Twilight could be "almost as smart" as himself was the first thing that really get her mad. Twilight is vain about her intellect and some of her other virtues, as shown in the canonical almost-self-parodying "Failure Song" in Crystal Empire; she's quite sensitive to criticism, and she does not have much respect for Charlie's intelligence.
The part that got Rarity angry was when Charlie puts down Spike. This too is canonical; especially by Season Four, Rarity is quick to leap to Spike's defense. Twilight was mad at him for that as well.
Applejack and Pinkie were upset by the casual dismissal of Earth Ponies as "the plain ones are just 'Earth Ponies' and they can't do anything." What's especially funny about this is that those are the two Ponies who are initially nicest to him; Applejack will actually remain sympathetic to him after the events of "Stuck," though for Pinkie that's the straw that breaks the pink party pony's metaphorical back. Also, the two specific Earth Ponies Charlie knows best, AJ and Pinkie, have actual super-powers; Charlie's just too unobservant to notice them.
The tone of Twilight's letter to Celestia is harsher and nastier than is normal for Twilight Sparkle. This is because of her personal dislike for Charlie Yu,
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..... That cover image is like kryptonite.
Okay then. You may have done too good a job with Charlie. I find him downright execrable. If nothing else, at least his tales of our achievements will demonstrate that he isn't a representative sample of humanity. And I have to wonder why he appears to be writing in the second person.
Again, it should be interesting to see where you go with this.
Must... resist... urge... to... slap.
Post read edit:
Ok, so it's a prequel to Stuck and Epistolary Legal Consultation Between Princesses, I'm ready to get mad.
Firstly, what a self involved prick, who doesn't seem to think beyond his prick.
Though Princess Twi's complaint that he couldn't explain advance human technology got me thinking how I'd explain how cars worked from nothing. I find myself embarrassingly lacking in that knowledge and I've replaced turbos, exhausts and re-spliced electrical systems. Even explaining how to make stainless steel (Iron and ... whatever else to make steel, then you add chromium? at a ratio of ... ouch my head) is tough when your not like Ash from Evil Dead, who just happened to have metallurgy textbooks in his trunk.
Still no excuse for assuming less advanced cultures are less intelligent, we've got the backs of giants helping us stand as tall as we do.
VERY NICE!!! Thumbs up!!
I have the unpleasant feeling that they're going to end up assuming that humanity at large tried shooting a rather unpleasant piece of its garbage into the nearest convenient space warp in hopes that he'd end up in hard vacuum and pop open like a weenie on a grill.
Vis a vis Twilight's comments about what little she learned from 'our' Earth's history from Charlie -- to be honest, how much COULD you learn about the history of an entire species from just one member of it? Just imagine humans trying to learn about Equestria from any one pony, or even a non-pony. Gilda or Garble would give us a MUCH different version of events than Twi or Applejack would. Twilight ought to recognize this.
Twilight Sparkle is the one you're writing this for, sort of like a report for class, and after she read that first part something seems to get her mad, cause she screws up her face real strange and looks at you like she was going to bite you, only you don't think the Ponies bite. Do real horses bite?
Then again, when you're dealing with the lost brother of Beavis and Butt-head... You'd think even an idiot would know better than to say things like that when he knows the people he's talking trash about are going to be reading his remarks! (Reminds me of an old joke which I'm ponifying here: 'Queen Chrysalis told me to polish the floors of her chamber until she could see her own reflection in them. I asked her why she'd want that because the only thing they could show her is how butt-ugly she is.')
I'll be looking forward to the next chapter.
And OT but talking HiE stories, do you know if anyone ever did one involving a child, or children, by which I mean actual kids, being the humans who entered Equestria? Or even non-modern humans?
I like books with an adult perspective on life, too!
I might be able to give the ponies a decent summary of the principles on which modern technology works, but in your fanon, Celestia and Luna would be able to do just as well - and probably much better. Given that your Twilight knows this very well, I wonder what she was expecting from Charlie? Maybe just some knowledge on his part to sort-of-justify his superiority, even if it didn't tell her anything new?
Is that you in the picture?
Well, I like it, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes, but I'd suggest mentioning both "Stuck" and "An Epistolatory Legal Consultation Between Princesses" in the long intro. I remember being very puzzled about "Why is he named Charlie Yu? Why does he have to be Asian?" before I realized that, of course, it was a parody of those awful second-person stories, and therefore "you"="Yu." Which haven't improved, by the way, so your story is very timely.
6375767
The difference between him and you (not YU), is that you don't think this makes you inherently superior. You don't personally assume you are smarter and more sophisticated because you come from a civilization which brought us aircon, Hot Pockets, and Hot Topic.
6375985
True, Twilight's account would probably be quite biased--less biased, perhaps, than it once would have been--but at least it would be extensive, whereas Charlie's is probably lamentably short on detail.
Hmm, explaining human technology in terms of Equestria's tech level? Very well: A computer is a really tiny automatic abacus, usually hooked up to a typewriter and an array of lights. The Internet is what you get when you hook several of them together over the telegraph.
6375757
In its repulsive sickness? Yeah, that's pretty much what I was aiming for -- I was looking for an expression of confident stupidity. And it had to be a Northeast Asian early 20's male as well, which limited it further. I looked long and hard for that one!
6375763
Oh, it's about how he wound up in Equestria and his early deeds there, which established his initial reputation, before the Taking of Derpy in the Hedge, which pretty much cemented the despite of Ponies of all degrees and conditions for him. Yeah, he's an unlikable jerk even here, before he's done anything truly evil, just in being normal.
6375767
Okay, I couldn't give the Equestrians detailed diagrams of much they didn't have already at least in experimental form (for instance, they almost certainly have the principle of the internal combustion engine, and since Spark Wheel and his Flyer -- from Phoenix_Dragon's stories -- are part of my fanon, they can build at least experimental engines of that sort). But I could give them all sorts of hints that would greatly speed their technological progress, because I know the history of a lot of the technology. I could also tell them more about our own history than Charlie can (much of Charlie's historical knowledge is about as accurate as a "Sherman and Mr. Peabody" skit) and tell them more about our culture than "porn!"
What specifically annoys Twilight is that she knows that Humanity in general must include some pretty awesome minds, given even the distorted information Charlies telling her. She would love to talk to one of those Humans -- if they'd gotten a Carl Sagan or Robert Zubrin, or even a halfway-smart auto mechanic or electrician, she'd be quite happy. She knows that Charlie's a fool not only by Equestrian standards but rather obviously by the standards of his own species. It's very frustrating, especially when she knows that Equestria and America might have so much to offer each other in cultural and technological trade, to have found someone who knows nothing useful about either.
She's not actually prejudiced against Humanoids. This is post Equestria Girls and she liked many of the Humanoids she met there, especially the Humane Five and Flash Sentry. Slightly different subspecies and worldline, but roughly the same tech level. She doesn't like Charlie Yu.
And he hasn't even molested anypny yet!
6376047
No, just a random photo off the net.
Excellent. Upped and tracked.
This is gonna be good...
iambrony.steeph.tp-radio.de/mlp/gif/131716188052.gif
You certainly did a splendid job of making Mr Yu into a truly unlikeable pillock. An entire new civilisation, multiple sapient species and what does he elect to focus on? Internet porn. As you do.
My nephew would make a better representative of humanity, and he's two.
One thing has always bothered me about second person 'Anon' fics (should any author's of such read this, please note: 1) Anon is not a proper character, and 2) every time Pinkie refers to 'Anon' as 'Nonnie' God murders a kitten) is this: why do they keep getting written? Who keeps reading the wretched things and thinking: "That was awesome! I too want to write a soulless piece of derivative crap with an empty void were the protagonist should be."
It makes no sense. Yet they keep getting written. And upvoted. Why?
6377156
I wish I knew. I can't stand the bloody things myself. See also, pony self-inserts who get laid with one or more of the Mane6.
6377156
The keys to Charlie Yu's character that I got from "Stuck" were:
(1) He's useless enough that, despite coming from another world (and one more technologically-advanced than Equestria) he apparently cannot be productively employed save as unskilled agricultural labor,
(2) He gets incredibly horny after being deprived of contact with Human women for "months" (not "years," the original story was specific about this),
(3) He has a very poor imagination, as witness the statement in "Stuck" that he can't masturbate, having been deprived of pornographic images,
(4) He is very bad at making friends; his only friend in "Stuck" is stated to be Pinkie Pie (who canonically will befriend anyone who doesn't deeply and personally offend her),
(5) He is very bad at perceiving the emotions of others, as witness the fact that he misses that Pinkie Pie is inherently not attracted to him and Derpy very clearly is attracted to him,and
(6) He imagines himself to be of sufficiently high social status in Equestria that Derpy is beneath him, despite the fact that she has a responsible job requiring considerable thought and initiative and HE DOESN'T.
To me these attributes tell me that he is unintelligent, unimaginative, socially inept, and baselessly arrogant.
The reason why "Stuck" personally annoyed me to the point that i wrote a deliberate parody-continuation of it in the first place was the second person viewpoint. Story was telling me that I do these things, and then presented a character who was a complete amoral obnoxious idiot and did things which I never would do in his place.
So I decided "Yu" was his name, and from there I derived his ethnicity. Much of the rest of his backstory (which will come up next chapter) comes from the question of just what sort of person could simultaneously be this practically-inept and yet feel so entitled to respect and sexual attention despite his complete lack of any meaningful achievements whatsoever.
I don't want to spoil it in the comments, but it's notable in "Stuck" that he ascribes his lack of ability to find a marefriend on the Ponies being "racist," rather than the fairly obvious fact that he creeps the heck out of the mares by his tendency to fix his gaze directly on their private parts, something which is almost certainly considered as rude in Equestrian culture as it would be in most Human cultures -- the more so as the Equestrians are semi-nudists. His equation of "dating" with "having sex" would also be repulsive to all but the more promiscuous mares in my Equestria (and explain -- if explanation be needed -- why Pinkie doesn't want to "date" him).
He is biologically alien to them, and his ineptitude at making friends means that he isn't compensating for his differences by being personally charming or lovable. And again: he blames this all on them -- it doesn't occur to him in "Stuck" that it may be his own vices rather than their prejudices which make him unpopular).
I deliberately have him casually insult Spike in Chapter 1 of Stuck Again by way both of ironic contrast and to illustrate his own obliviousness to his own racism. The reaction he provokes from Twilight and Rarity, both of whom love Spike in their own ways, is significant, though he totally misses it.
For Spike, after all, is more biologically alien to the Ponies of Equestria than is Charlie Yu. Charlie, after all, is a eutherial mammal just like the Ponies, with many points of physical similarity. Spike is an archosaur, and of a species against which the Ponies are normally prejudiced (both in vanilla canon and in comic book, canon). Yet Charlie is very bad at making friends or earning respect in Equestria, while Spike is extremely good at both -- from the very first episode of the series it's obvious that Ponies tend to like Spike, and he likes them. All through the series, it is made plain that Spike has a fairly wide circle of Pony friends and acquaintances.
And of course, Rarity loves him. Not all that sexually -- yet -- but she feels very strong friendship toward him, intentionally seeks out his company, gives and solicits physical affection from him, and both emotionally and physically defends him when she thinks he's being attacked or threatened. Which means he's succceeded in winning her love, to the extent that he can given that he's still not sexually mature. It is quite possible that he will (and in most Shadow Wars Story Verse worldlines he does) win her sexually as well, when he's older.
And Rarity is not a lonely slightly-autistic mailmare. She's a highly-popular leader of local society who is moderately famous across Equestria. She doesn't welcome Spike's company because she's desperate (she's not). She welcomes his company because she very much likes him PERSONALLY.
Why? Well, observe Spike's behavior. He is friendly, helpful, intelligent, uncomplaining and treats Rarity with love and respect. He in short consistently displays virtues toward her which would logically induce a perceptive mare to value him highly, as a friend or possibly more. He is, in fact, obviously a good person.
Charlie Yu is not. Charlie is obnoxious, useless, stupid, and believes himself entitled to immense respect on no logical basis whatsoever. (All directly from "Stuck," reading between the lines). He's such an insensitive cad that he doesn't even grasp why most mares would have to love him to have sex with him, and so socially inept that he can't figure out how to find the ones who wouldn't require this (and remember, my Equestria has outright prostitution if one bothers to look for it).
By the way, that was the point (other than the sheer hilariousness of the notion, especially given just who was writing it and to whom) why I had Twilight write to Celestia:
Twilight regards the whole idea as absurdly insulting to her, the more so because Twilight is prudish and deeply respects libraries, but note that both she and Celestia are obviously familiar with the idea. I was pointing out that such places do exist in Equestria.
Anyway, thanks for provoking me to think more about my concept of the character.
6377393
It's pure wish-fulfillment.
Now, of course, to some extent any fantasy is wish-fulfillment (or anti-wish-fufilmnent in the case of most horror fiction), because obviously the protagonist's situation has to appeal to the audience as being admirable, fun or interesting for the audience to read it. And there's nothing inherently wrong with having an interspecies romantic relationship involving a protagonist with whom the reader may identify and an admirable love interest.
The problem is that too often the protagonist is given no or few characteristics which would reasonably induce the described love interest to fall in love with him (it's usually a "him" in these cases) and hence the love comes across as unbelievable, more a matter of "Oh. I'm supposed to fall in love with you. Love love love!" Nor are the interactions between the characters such as would promote the development of love. Yet the love still occurs.
This is most obviously common in second-person HiE fics because they are so obviously meant for the reader to put himself in the nameless protagonist's place. (It's interesting that we see many erotic but few agonic stories of this sort -- it's obvious that the target audience would rather imagine themselves lovers than fighters!).
"Stuck" was actually to some extent not typical of the subgenre in that "you" were an obvious loser, and having sex with Derpy was depicted as a consolation prize and one with an unpleasant sequel in that afterward she followed "you" around and embarrassed "you" in front of Pinkie, "your" real love interest (in "your" own mind). This was to such a great extent that I was honestly shocked when the readers made obvious to me that they didn't consider "you" a loser nor particularly obnoxious, despite the clear in-story evidence that he was both.
I do have to wonder how many of these writers -- and fans -- have some very strange notions about how love works.
6377429
I recall reading the comments on Stuck at the time (I didn't have an account at that point) and, if I remember correctly, surprisingly large numbers of people were speaking in defence of both 'you' and the story. This despite the fact that, as you pointed out, the main character is a truly wretched and pitiful creature, and his actions and stupidity make any immersion into the story difficult. I wouldn't behave in such a manner, so how could I possibly insert myself into that viewpoint? Yet people defend 'you' and the story. I'm forced to conclude that some people just like that sort of thing.
Thank you for giving me such a comprehensive reply
I understand the general idea and appeal of second person fics, but they're all so hideously dull and unimaginative. The world building? Where it exists, it's contrived, blatantly, for the benefit of the protagonist. Ponies find humans enormously attractive? Check. Ponies highly promiscuous, and willing to have sex at the first opportunity? Check. Hardly any stallions? Check. Group relationships normal? Check. Thought put into anything else? Probably not.
Of course, none of the consequences or conflicts that may result from this are addressed. The closest thing to that you'll see is ponies in estrus literally throwing themselves at the protagonist.
The protagonists are, of course, vacuous holes. The absence of a character (who's actions still manage to break immersion). How can a convincing romance, love affair, or even basic chemistry, ever be established when one side of the relationship is a blank space? If they were good porn, I would understand, but they aren't. They are invariably products of the flat pack furniture school of erotic literature.
The plot? AWOL.
You have commented that the protagonists of these fics never do anything (or are anything) that would convincingly win the love of their target pony(ies). I find this telling. The key word here has come up repeatedly: entitlement. The target audience of these fics just assume sex is something to which they are entitled, so of course the protagonist gets laid without effort. He's entitled after all. Love doen't even come into it (I've seen some people get offended by the suggestion that it might). Throw in author laziness and naked wish fulfilment ("I wish I had sex on tap from whoever I want without any effort") and there you have it.
As you pointed out, Stuck differs from the pack in that the protagonist doesn't get his own way, and settles for a consolation price (I feel an ass saying that about poor Derpy), but the same problems otherwise apply. Accept with added rapeyness. I understand I'm ranting a little, but I honestly cannot see why so many people like these things.
Yet they do. I am forced to concede this
On the topic of Charlie Yu, he recalls nobody as much as Eustice Scrub from the Chronicles of Narnia, except without the character development. It's all there: the arrogance, the entitlement, the sense of superiority based on coming from a higher tech civilisation. On top of that, Charlie comes with a sex obsession.
Come to think of it, many HiE and BiE protagonists resembles good Eustice. Of course, Eustice Scrub was supposed to be an arse. I don't think his many expies were deliberate.
6377765
If you haven't done so already, I recommend reading Not The Hero by alarajrogers- it absolutely takes all those stupid HIE tropes, chews them up for breakfast and spits them out again. In short: It takes the piss out of them, in a very clever way.
6377449
See, that's what disturbs me. There are apparently people out there whose form of great wish fullfillment is to get chicks to bang them without any effort whatsoever to see them as people. Of course, I knew these type of people existed already, it's just disturbing that so many of them exist in a fanbase with a TV show that is entirely based on STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS. So their greatest wish is to strip the mane six of all their agency and whittle them down to the only thing females are good for? I suppose.
Excuse me:
33.media.tumblr.com/830af1d36a4685ba283bbb688d354001/tumblr_n22rvqe7zP1relncyo1_500.gif
6378131
I am already a paid up, card carrying member of team Discord. We really need a Discord face. Thanks a lot for the recommendation though, I'm always happy to be pointed in the direction of good stories
We get to see how the jerk-wag Charlie Yu ended up in Equestria. Stuck is a call-back to the original story. We get to see things from his perspective, which is hardly a perspective at all. Not much goes on inside his head.
While at work, I thought about how to make Charlie Yu more of a dumb-arse:
* He can me-too like a brain-dead AOLer:
* Getting past his "me-tooing like a brain-dead AOLer", he commits word-crimes:
* He makes videos in Portrait-Mode:
* He probably sends messages in rich-text instead of plain-text.
* Also, he bought a phone with a white face and non-polarized white-rimmed sunglasses with no UV-Protection and them complains about the glare in general, and when using his phone in particular, in bright environments
You are free to write Yu as you want (I had a bit of fun with homophones just then). These are merely suggestions.
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I wrote this as a stand-alone, but since it mentions writing 3-times (me-tooing like a brain-dead AOLer, word-crimes, and sending rich text instead of plain text) I made this a reply to Scoots2. I figure that the comment might interest her because she is an English Professor. The art of replying to EMails and UseNetNewsGroupPosts reached its zenith in 1990 and has been going down-hill ever since then.
Hmm. As someone who enjoyed An Epistolary Legal Consultation Between Princesses, and would like to see it finished, I have a few comments:
1) The writing quality here is good, but I got bored reading this. We, the readers, know who Twilight Sparkle is, we know unicorns have magic, we know Fluttershy is a pegasus...we know all of this. The story spends a very long time telling us things we already know.
2) I'm concerned that you might be trying too hard to make Charlie unlikable. Epistolary Consultation straddled the line very well between making his actions seem bad, and making them seem unsavory, but unsuitable for punishment due to extenuating circumstances. Derpy clearly did not perceive herself as having been raped. And it was revealed that she was deliberately playing dumb to participate willingly in an experience "in the role" of too dumb to know what was going on, and not actually too dumb to be able grant consent. To me, the whole point of that story was to make it very difficult to definitely conclude that either "yes, this was ok" or "no, it wasn't." And from the arguments in the comments of that story, I think you were effective in that goal.
Charlie is being made to be unlikable, and that's ok...but please remember that him being unlikable isn't the point. His unlikability is a framework for making it difficult for a reader to definitely conclude that what he did was ok. We should dislike him, but nevertheless have some difficulty finding fault besides being unlikable.
3) Are you going to finish Epistolary Consultation?
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The point is how Charlie sees them -- what he gets about them, and (hilariously or tragically) what he doesn't get about them.
For instance, Charlie misses that Twilight Sparkle is considerably smarter than him (indeed, she's intelligent at a level that only a very few Humans have ever attained); he misses that Twilight Sparkle and Rarity each (in their own ways) love Spike; and he misses that Earth Ponies are, pound-for-pound, much stronger than him. He also misses that Spike really is a Dragon, albiet a very small one. (That last point leads directly to his disastrous attempt to fight Spike in An Epistolary Consultation).
His thoughts are also highly disorganized. I had to disorganize my normal expository style in order to portray Charlie. Did you notice that in his description of the Mane Six he started with the trivial and proceeded to the fundamental, which is the opposite of the way one should write an essay? I'm a fairly good essayist. Charlie isn't. And I came up with the idea that Twilight was editing Charlie's work in part to explain why it was as readable as it is, because if I presented you what Charlie probably "really" wrote, you'd find it painful to read.
Charlie isn't unlikeable because he's a potential rapist (assuming he found somepony weak and stupid enough to rape, that is). Charlie is unlikeable because he's an arrogant fool who imagines himself entitled to extra-special wonderful treatment but isn't willing to do anything to actually deserve it. Everything else about Charlie (including his willingness to commit what he thought was rape) derives from this fundamental flaw, which in turn comes from the fact that he is both not very bright and rather spoiled.
I thought he was stupid from an outside perspective.
I am disgusted, but can not look away.