A bit of chat the other day reminded me of that whole 'Peaches' debacle and whether it was a debacle at all. In the cold light of day I'm a bit hazy on the details, but I seem to recall that several authors got together and decided to all write stories about peaches at the same time and that would be hilarious (also I am totally bitter that I was never asked, bitter like an unripe peach).

That was all well and good, but then the site got flooded as everyone and their cousin decided to 'hilariously' write a peaches fic and it went from 'this is gently amusing' to 'why are there so many?'. Not just so many, but so many that got upvoted to high heaven so anyone who didn't appreciate them would be forced to stare at more everywhere they went.

Thankfully, like all soft fruit, the peaches went off after a week or so.

It sort of begs the question though: if bandwagoning is terrible, why do people seem to love it so much?



FUN RIDE OR RIDE TO DISASTER?

The biggest planned bandwagoning I remember was Ponyfall. That was a few years ago now (wow, how time flies!) when TheSlorg, who I think is a cool guy and I'm a big fan of, decided to make a huge story involving as many people as possible, the idea being that Ponyfall was a story where for some reason the ponies all turn into humans and fall (naked) into our world. Then the author self-insert character looks after them/seduces them. You get the drift.

Not a terrible idea, but there were about forty of the things right off the bat, each of them about a different character. For about a week Fimfic was under siege by Ponyfall fics, most of them exactly the same plot. I believe they even had to be banned for a while as it was so infuriating for anyone who didn't want to read the same story for the upteenth time but with Lyra instead of Pinkie Pie.

But then again, people kept upvoting and reading them. If they didn't, they would have vanished into the depths of Fimfic like most stories tend to. So is that a problem? Am I just a big moaner about how people like what I don't like?

The latest thing to assault the site is this 'League of Villains' thing which is about how a normal author self-insert character dresses up in a fancy dress costume of a villain and is transported to Equestria but with those powers! It's like two reader fantasies in one! Who WOULDN'T want to go to Equestria AND have the powers of Thomas the Tank Engine?

(You can have that idea for free. Choo choo, mutherf**ker)

They're all pretty much the same though. Same plot, same structure, the only thing that changes is the powerset and how author-insert they are.

Why is this, though? Here's what I've come up with:

Easy Popularity

It does seem a lot easier for a story that has a defined niche to get popular though. Take these 'League of Villain' stories. Yes there are lots, but not that many in comparison to the hundred or so stories that get uploaded. The group for the stories has over 1,000 members. That is another 1,000 people in addition to your followers who will instantly leap on your story as new content.

Of course, that could also lead to EASY INFAMY as people who hate that type of stories downvote you to oblivion without even reading it

Actual Inspiration.

Playing in other people's sandboxes takes a lot of the pressure off worldbuilding. We all know this, as we are on a Pony fanfiction site. In the greater terms of writing, we are all still firmly on the pony bandwagon. Is this any different? If you see a new idea that you know you can develop, it can get sparks moving in your head.

Feeling it is 'something you should do'.

Human in Equestria. Pony in a Box. Lots of people have written that, maybe everyone here? It's been said that there's only seven types of stories, but goodness if people don't try and Xerox their fics in.

Maybe people don't like reading new things? Maybe there is something comforting in reading a story where you already know the general plot and have read something similar a thousand times before?

I don't think there's anything wrong per-se with leaping on a bandwagon if you have something new to say, but it seems that most people don't. Or am I wrong? What do you think?

PS I totally need to finish my 'Pony in a Box' story :(