#blahl

[blabberf]

I’m making the character sprites a bit smaller, for various reasons which you’ll all see in a little bit. Anyone have a preference? At the moment, the one on the far left is winning!

[garbageyacht]

i keep trying to make friends over the internet and its just not working out for me.

[captainhoers]

Clichéd Story Types

So, while perusing FIMFiction and thinking about when to drop a plug of my latest story (new chapter soon!) and the prequel that makes it make sense, it occurred to me that there are a few story archetypes that are, frankly, everywhere. Now, this falls under the jurisdiction of "Tropes are not bad" - just because a type of story is done to death doesn't mean new stories of that type are automatically terrible - but Sturgeon's law also applies, and there are going to be a sea of rubbish ones. I just thought I'd discuss a few kinds that the fandom just seems to love producing. Why? Because that's one of the things this blog is for, emptying my head of stupid bullshit in an arena where somebody actually might gain some insight from it. Its a little less sad than talking to myself in the shower.

Human In Equestria. Goddamn, how many of them are there at this stage? It's got it's own tag on Equestria daily for crying out loud. Frankly, this is one of the few ideas I think is dumb from the outset. It's like HEY GUISE WHAT IF... I WENT TO PONYVILLE! HUR HUR THATS AWESUM. They're even frequent enough to be parodied by things like R. Lee Ermey in Ponyville. At least I hope it's a parody, because if it isn't, then there's conclusive evidence that someone peed in the human gene pool. Occasionally there's a good one like My Little Dashie (which is more Pony-in-Earth, but it's essentially the same principle, and you only ever see one human anyway.)

Troll Fics. Who knew that these would become common enough to be cliché? I swear, there's just so many of these floating around, especially on Fanfiction.net. While it's comforting to know that we inhabit a fandom that knows when not to take itself seriously, there's just so many that their appreciable value declines. Rather than having one or two absolutely legendary trolls like Half Life: Full Life Consequences or My Immortal, there's so many okay troll fics that there just isn't a standout one.

Fan Sequels. One only needs to glance at the Equestria Daily page for Cupcakes to see how many there are of these. There's actually one of mine up there, so I'm guilty of this too. There's also not one but two "My Little Dashie 2"s, and someone even thought to write a fan sequel of Harmony's Wrath. It was a Sonic crossover, so I'll let you be the judge of that. Sturgeon's law is in full swing here. Hell, one of the Cupcakes fan-alternate-endings, A Precious Rainbow, has itself spawned fan sequels. Fan fiction of fan fiction of fan fiction. Fanception.

Equestria is a Lie. These aren't quite as common, but I'm certainly guilty of adding to this pile. This premise seems to be the staple of most adventure stories in the pony fandom, that for whatever reason, the happy utopia depicted in the show is only skin-deep and some terrible secret underlies their society and yadda yadda yadda. I can tell you from experience that these take an awful lot of world-building to pull off correctly (and with ratings of 4.7/5 and 5/5 on FIMF, I think I can say I have - swish! Okay I'm done being a douche for today) and tend to be really long, so if they plot doesn't add up, they garner the most rage from readers who stuck through the whole thing. Personally, I wouldn't recommend attempting to write one of these unless you have a Bachelor's Degree.

Crossovers. AUUUGHHHHH why are there so many of these? 99% of the time they're always, always a terrible idea. I mean sure, you get some critically acclaimed ones like Fallout Equestria, but even these are not without their issues. Which brings me to my next point...

Overlong stories. Fallout Equestria's main problem is that it clocks in at about 625,000 words long, approximately the same length as Atlas Shrugged (a novel known for being really, really long). Damn, Kkat, you need an editor. This problem also seems to apply to its fan stories (invoking the Fan Sequels trope I mentioned earlier) - Project Horizons is up to about 530,000 words and is still in progress. Both Fallout Equestria and FOE Project Horizons are listed on Wikipedia's list of the longest novels ever made they're that long. For comparison, Harmony's Wrath is 80,000 words, the Da Vinci Code is 175,000 words and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is 250,000 words. Personally, I don't think fan fiction should go over 125,000 words in one story - it's just kind of indulgent.

[captainhoers]

GREETINGS TOMBLRS

I AM THE KING OF SPACE

THIS IS AN INTRODUCTORY POST

INDEED.

Actual content to follow. Possibly.