>>294257Jesus, I wrote all of this? LP's a Sue, and more importantly, a bad character. That rant about Sue being a stupid concept and a bad way to sort good characters from bad ones doesn't belong here. I know there are people who agree with me about the dishonesty in "I swear she's an ordinary relatable underdog nobody" because I've met people who agree with me about this, especially when it came to Ma-Rey Sue from Disney's Star Wars but that shit isn't really relevant here
Sorry about this.
I need to focus on the author, not the culture that gave him such stupid misconceptions of what will make people like his OCs.
Even though the desperation to make people like his OCs is keeping him from really putting these OCs through hell, showing us them at their worst, and telling a good story involve them.
I get that the author's trying to make his OC "cool" because he wants to write an explodey quippy emotionless tensionless Marvel movie. Someone who shoots baddies and points out the idiocy in others is his idea of cool. He wants to put his OC above the "silly" thoughts that resulted in almost-Fallout happening on Equestria's grave. Ponies only object to Littlepip's murderhobo methods so she can have scenes where she's right about the necessity of bloodshed and violence
But at the same time, he didn't put any serious thoughts into what mindset or mistakes caused Equestria's downfall, so he can't think of any ways Littlepip could go out of her way to avoid the mistakes that caused Equestria's downfall and reject the ideas that let it happen
A small post-apocalyptic story works best when it focuses on the characters and their responses to the wasteland
The hellish world is a backdrop for a character-focused tale
But a big post-apocalyptic story like this that focuses on the world and its downfall
and offscreen restoration works best when it's one specific flaw or vice that caused the earth's destruction, like short-sightedness or pride or greed or "the cycle of revenge"
So the hero can break this cycle by going out of his way to not act vengeful and try taking better third options
The author made Team Littlepip better murderers than the Mane Six so they can thrive in a world the mane six couldn't stop from existing. Eventually murderhoboing fixes everything when there are no more baddies left to shoot. Nothing was learned from the ashes of old Equestria or the pain endured in the Equestrian Wasteland.
You see the problem here, right?
LP and pals are products of this world. LP's murderous nature is a product of this world and her Pip-Buck is a product of the era that let Equestria die, yet neither of these are ever painted as bad things she must overcome or reject. Team LP is not united by their desire to reject the fates they were born with
Only two out of
i forget how many main characters have "I don't want to be like my guys" for their personality and it never meaningfully goes anywhere
Never inspires serious introspection from other chars. It's just some backstory element with little to no effect on them, making it mostly irrelevant
You could argue that Equestria died for putting the Mane Six in charge of shit they weren't qualified for, but putting unqualified poners in power and giving them absolute power works just fine later on
But the author's mindset with the bond one-liners and "Here's how you could be evil more effectively, the protagonist newfag said to the lifelong expert in evil! Wait, you use coal to transport coal? I need a fucking drink, cried the protagonist" shite just doesn't suit the dark tone this story tries to go for.
LP might be an effective hired killer but that doesn't make her a hero. Heroism makes heroes! Virtue! Passing up opportunities to be evil and take the easy ways out even when they present themselves temptingly!
It's not just about being the best killer in a dark world. It's about not letting the dark world turn you into another cog in its cycle of evil
LP talks big about being "Incorruptible" because she never starts dressing evilly and speaking evilly and doing evil shit for fun, but she still does violent shit for fun to baddies and tells herself it's okay because she's a hero
No meaningful commentary on anything is ever added to elevate this above the... What did Glim call it? MurderPorn? MoralityPorn? SplatterPorn? He's right
That's all this story philosophically is and I'd be fine with that if the story didn't waste so much of the reader's time on pretentious pseudo-philosophical shit that's never allowed to meaningfully challenge any characters or restrict their murderhoboing action-movie sidequests. Because the author missed so many goddamn points I still don't know where to begin with this.
And at the same time, this world isn't even that dark. Because it's a world where somepony like Littlepip can take on endless swarms of baddies and win every time without any significant losses.
Is there a list of all the shit she's survived? I remember her surviving a point-blank nuclear sky-car explosion, and didn't she survive a point-blank rocket blast at Old A? Her plot armour's too great to put any tension into the action scenes the story's an excuse for
A dark world is a bleak and hopeless place where heroes can do nothing wrong and still lose. It's a place where no good deed goes unpunished. It's a place where the slightest mistake can get you and those you love killed. It's a place where the best most heroes can hope for is to die fighting to prolong the end of something they care about.
The author doesn't have it in him to threaten his characters with plot armour, or seriously wound them in a meaningful way, or kill them. So to compensate, he inflicts all sorts of horrible fates on canon characters we already have emotional connections with, and OCs who exist to suffer until people with plot armour save them.
He doesn't want anything bad to happen to his precious Littlepip, so he unfairly makes her OP from day one and then tries to insist she's nobody special.